10-12-2021, 10:15 PM
(10-12-2021, 09:28 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-11-2021, 06:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, the January 6 Putsch did happen.
... and that recent past may only be prologue. There was an underlying angst that finally reached the surface, and it's still there. With nothing happening on the legal front, the players in that putsch have every reason to assume they can do it again, but better.
The scary thing is that some people thought it a good idea.
We Americans can no longer complacently state that that sort of thing could never happen here. When I thought of a possible coup in America I was thinking of Seven Days in May in which the military decides the President "weak" in standing up to America's enemies of the time. We got seven hours in January instead. At least in this scenario the Armed Forces opposed the coup.
We have had some ugly incidents of violent plots against elected officials. One is against the Democratic Governor of Michigan and one is against Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). I'm not sure about the political orientation of the person making the death threat... does it matter? If guilty as charged, this offender deserves a long stay in a high-security federal pen. I expect some very long terms in the Michigan plot. I live there, so you can count on me keeping us all informed.
Political violence is an anathema to a country that elects its politicians. This said, political violence is much like any bad habit: the more to which one gets accustomed to it the more one accepts it.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.