Just Kidding
Democracy has become impolite.
Above: ‘Tourists, upset at the outcome of an American election, arrive at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.’ Photo: Roberto Schmidt AFP via Getty Images
One of the signs of a repressive society is the constant threat of violence. America has experienced attempts at insurrection before January 6, 2021. What is “new” is that America sees an entrenched political party self-conscripting to be the harbinger of a violent takeover, to forge a link between violence and inevitability.
What’s ‘there to discuss’ is where the next violence will occur. This is the threat of violence.
The resistance to this movement is characterized by oft-repeated contempt that the resistors are impolite. Not wrong but impolite. The inference being, ‘what is wrong (in the current situation) anyway?’ ‘You are — as usual — overreacting.’
The contempt is so well established it has succeeded in becoming the new “fourth estate,” holding sympathizers for democracy as traitors to ‘the cause.’ As the late great institutions of journalism claim to hold politicians, judges, and other participants of democracy ‘accountable,’ so do the current repressers hold accountable those “disloyal” to party and to mob.
How far are you willing to fight?
Could you kill a Democrat to defend your country?
To pause your answer is evidence of perfidy, a reluctance showing weakness, a traitor in reasonable shoes. Only the strong, the deft, the truly loyal gain acceptance into the higher courts: stray and we’ll kick your ass back to your ranch in Wyoming.
The kid from Antioch, Illinois is braver than you.
Steve Bannon, America’s insurrection court jester doesn’t claim he is right to pursue traitorous lawlessness. That’s the job for his legal team and corruptible judges. No, Bannon claims he is prophetic by predicting the inevitability of violent redemption: ‘you know we can’t be stopped.’
Where have historians and playwrights heard these words before?
To paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men, (1) “(America) You can’t handle the truth.” Nicholson was testifying under oath to a cover-up. In a characteristic fit of rage he had just perjured himself.
In a fit of ‘misinformation’ America has just perjured her cause.
After US Congress Representative Fred Upton (Michigan 6th) voted in support of the Senate infrastructure bill a fortnight ago, his staff anxiously awaited an onslaught of irate phone calls and tweets.
After all, Upton, a Republican, had just ‘strayed’ from the House Republican obstructionist pack.
Nothing happened.
Not a peep.
And then auspiciously, Republican colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she was forwarding the names of Upton and the other twelve Republican defectors to the House Republican Caucus leadership for ‘censure.’
Then, as if on cue, the death threats to Upton and his family came a-knocking.
November 27
1-https://www.google.com/search?q=A+Few+Good+Men.&source=lmns&bih=715&biw=414&client=safari&prmd=vinx&hl=en-US&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZ0emA37j0AhVisHIEHX1FDDgQ_AUoAHoECAAQAw
