Or get back in your ivory tower before you hurt yourself:GOP lawmaker's God-invoking video sounds like it was 'stripped from a jihadist playbook': MSNBC analysthttps://t.co/Bqa4l8sk4e
— Raw Story (@RawStory) October 5, 2021
So, Greece in the late '40's? Britain during Brexit? France and the National Front? Hungary under Orban? Poland since Solidarity? Russia since it stopped being the USSR?1. A lot of my academic research has involved travelling to places where political violence has led to the breakdown of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. And a dynamic I’m not sure is fully appreciated in the US is how small numbers of people can create tipping points.
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) October 4, 2021
Context, tradition, history, all very important factors in the "breakdown of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism." And an academic selling his research cheap in 140 characters (or whatever the new limit is on Twitter) is selling his scholarly soul for a mess of pottage, indeed.
As for Madison Cawthorn, I'm just as inclined to be afraid of Boebert or MTG, or Gohmert. It's not like Cawthorn has a corner on this market, he's just the newest face on the posters nobody is putting up anywhere. As for "jihad" (which has only occurred in countries where social order/governmental order has completely broken down):
Pardon me if I ain't really afraid. Or if I don't think the sky is falling because Madison Cawthorn wants to get attention. Like Krysten Sinema, his major claim to fame is being really bad at his job.Bannon’s Our
— YS (@NYinLA2121) October 4, 2021
Shock Shock
Troops Troops pic.twitter.com/3MwNgi3Yrp
Back in the anti-Bill Clinton "militia" mania I said if it came to war we could defeat them by setting up feeding stations of Krispy Kreme and pick them off as they came in to feed. Though I think what we have now is more dangerous than that, the fascists do something the left doesn't seem to, learn how to be more effective doing evil. Though most of that is in the Brooks Bros. class than in those who wear Dickies.
ReplyDeleteI do think this is quite seriously dangerous but if we freak out at every social-disease media sensation of the hour, we'll burn out and won't be able to fight.
I still think they're all talk and no action. Jan. 6 happened because Trump made it happen, and even then it fizzled out after they got bored. Few in that crowd (some, but only a few) were intent upon insurrection and taking over Congress and exerting their will on it. The rest were just clowns and vandals.
DeleteGuilty of crimes, yes. Plotting the revolution? Hardly. That takes actual effort, and from what I've seen these guys want it to happen for them (bomb a building, shoot some innocent people, "spark" the "revolution"). They don't want to so much as plan an event (McVeigh, if memory serves, "planned" his bombing with a friend, who chickened out at the last minute).
Lenin had Stalin, Trotsky, and a whole host of others organizing and working to overthrow the Czar and then take over governance. These clowns? Like you say, they're distracted by donuts. I remember the leftist political violence of the '70's, which nobody thought portended the end of the Republic as we know it. Now it's fat right-wing white guys, and the heavens are gonna fall.
Gimme a break. The people most afraid of that are the people who egged it on since Clinton. I'm not impressed with their sudden fear of what they started.
I really hope you're right and I'm wrong. I love being wrong about how bad I expect it to be.
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