The extreme polarization America is experiencing is, as many have noted, more than just political. People–not just in the United States, but globally–seem to be choosing identities–tribes– that include but go well beyond partisan affiliations.
It’s difficult to imagine how a “war” could be fought between these contending ideological forces, which overall tend to be rural versus urban in nature. Would Red rural inhabitants attack Blue cities, or vice-versa? How would that work?
Rather than armies, will we see increasing acts of terrorism from gangs of Neo-Nazis, Incels, or self-identified “Patriot Militias”?
This admittedly strange mental exercise was triggered by a letter to Talking Points Memo. The writer worried that– between relief that Biden had won, and what he characterized as Trump’s “essential absurdity”– we are insufficiently prepared for what he fears will come next.
Specifically, I keep thinking back to Trump’s attempt to turn Lafayette Square into a mini version of Tiananmen, complete with importing troops from a far-off province (the Bureau of Prisons) to lay waste to the locals. It wasn’t that Trump hesitated, or Barr, or any of them — it was that the military leadership, ultimately and publicly, refused to play along. (The same leadership that Trump is now gutting with a month and a half to go in his presidency.)
Following Trump’s defeat we are seeing what I have rapidly come to think of as secession-in-place, which also applies to the greater Republican Party over the past fifteen years. The Tea Party wasn’t so much a domestic political movement as a psychic break in response to having a Black man in the White House, and since that moment the post-policy Republican Party has never retreated from that view. (In that context, Trump is the leader they were waiting for, not some charismatic fiend who led patriotic Republicans astray.)
What we’re watching is a percolating cold war which Trump keeps trying to ignite. The Republican base has checked out, Trump is leading them and shows no sign of faltering, and the Republican Party is almost entirely complicit and stands in silent support. And I see no way that this gets better no matter what Biden does over the next four years.
The most troubling part of these observations, at least to me, was the fact that they seem obviously and objectively correct. What part of this analysis can we dismiss as fanciful? Overblown?
An essay from The Week, titled “The Hidden World War,” only added to those concerns.
The author began by discussing earlier hopes for globalization–the once widely-held assumption that technological advances in communication and transportation would lead to more open societies and improved cultural understanding globally. As he recognized, that didn’t happen–at least, not in the way it was envisioned.
The recent shocks to both the international system and liberal expectations for the future haven’t turned back globalization entirely. They have revealed, instead, that the technological advances that were once considered a gateway to a more homogeneous world actually encourage and foster the creation of new, potent forms of cross-national solidarity and political conflict.
In other words, in much the same way that social media has allowed geographically-distanced like-minded people to forge alliances in the U.S., it has facilitated international right-wing alliances that cross national borders. Technology has made it possible–really, simple–for populists living in the mostly rural areas where such sentiments are strongest to link up with far-flung likeminded compatriots. The author argues that the internet has galvanized anti-establishment movements around the world.
The American-focused far-right QAnon conspiracy theory has spread to countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, and Finland. Even more widespread have been kindred protests against COVID-19 restrictions, and especially mask mandates, in dozens of nations. Trump has even found expressions of support for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the streets of Tokyo.
The same cross-national affinities have occurred on the left. The bottom line?
Thanks to the flood of information and images flowing ceaselessly into the incredibly powerful compact computers we carry around with us everywhere we go, political and cultural identities, affinities, and animosities are now constantly being forged and activated on a global basis. Humanity is uniting and dividing in new ways that transcend national borders.
Again, I find it difficult to argue with the analysis–and more difficult still to picture how this conflict will be waged, or how it will end.
And I have absolutely no idea what people of good will can do about it.
“The same cross-national affinities have occurred on the left.” This sentence, in a nutshell, highlights the problem. Namely that the media, pundits, as well as ordinary citizens keep positing that both sides are at fault here. I’m not going to go to the mat defending the Dems but we have to start acknowledging the fact that the Republicans – one half of our political spectrum – are intellectually, morally, and ethically bankrupt. And this started long before Trump showed up. How you govern when one side claims that 2+2=5 is beyond my ability and imagination. Houston, we have a problem.
This is rather simple, actually. The division is being forced upon us by those up above. As long as we see ourselves as separate from one another for whatever reason, we lose. Been that way since Adam and Eve, literally.
We are all interconnected; we are all little tiny sparks of energy (quarks and anti-quarks). In Taoism, it’s called yin/yang energies.
Anywhoo, once we unite from the bottom and make those connections, nothing can stop us. Not even the power structure which uses the media and religion to keep us apart. It’s inevitable.
We are starting in Muncie and then maybe Gary. We shall see. Times are a-changing.
“Amicus brief legal definition of Amicus brief
legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Amicus+brief
Literally, friend of the court. A person with strong interest in or views on the subject matter of an action, but not a party to the action, may petition the court for permission to file a brief, ostensibly on behalf of a party but actually to suggest a rationale consistent with its own views. Such amicus curiae briefs are commonly filed in appeals concerning matters of a broad public interest; e.g., civil rights cases.”
Copied and pasted above is a definition of an “amicus brief” which is the legal case filed by the Texas Attorney General and is being supported by 17 other states and 106 Representatives have signed to support this internal WAR against the civil voting rights of American citizens. SCOTUS has already denied the validity of this case but the GOP carries on in support of Trump.
“Following Trump’s defeat we are seeing what I have rapidly come to think of as secession-in-place, which also applies to the greater Republican Party over the past fifteen years.”
Indiana is represented on that list of 106 who support the Amicus Brief; listed by name and District they are: Jim Baird 4, Jim Banks 3, Trey Hollingworth 9 (no surprise), and Jackie Walorski 2 Tweeted she supported the lawsuit but wasn’t included due to a clerical error.
I have no idea what people of good will or President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris can do about this extreme totally political polarization! Will we survive the next 40 days as a nation to see the inauguration of our legally elected President and Vice President? As that war rages within our government the cultural war is gathering troops such as Qanon on our streets and in our neighborhoods; will it take blood in our streets to end this nightmare or will the Senate and House members give in to Trump holding the nation for ransom and tell him to unpack any moving boxes they may have readied for their move?
Richard Allen,
Very well said. As Donny Deutsch said yesterday on Nicolle Wallace’s show, we have 50 million people who refuse to be governed, who cannot be governed and are so self-indulgent, selfish and self-absorbed that anything that does not fit their view or needs is wrong and evil. He called them the “least-great generation”.
These people have always been there, of course. How else do we explain how 400,000 white illiterate peasants were willing to die for 5,000 rich elites in the Civil War?
And yes, according to FBI sources, the “militias” are arming up. But who will they attack? Liberals? Will they be marauding in the streets? I think that when these cry babies with small body parts come boiling up out of their sewers, we will see the real American patriots do their duty. There will NOT be a second Civil War of any kind involving mayhem, murder and mass rebellion.
While driving yesterday I happened onto the Rush Limbaugh radio show for a few minutes. He was railing about “When are we going to win? When are we going to win” Someone asked him what he meant, win over who. He replied, ” The cities! The cities! When are we going to win the cities?”
It came home to this old lady that the battle being waged in this country is being waged by one side against the other for total control of the entire county. And there will be no let up until everyone agrees with them. No room for descent or alternative ideas. What the right has marshalled its believers for is a war, a war using ANY means necessary, for total control!
Now that is scary.
Bravo JoAnn!
See, this is called brevity!
But!, Bravo concerning what?
One would 1st have to read Sheila’s blog thread this morning, then read JoAnn’s blog post morning! Together, we have an outline of a coherent thought and pertinent points! But the brevity of “Bravo JoAnn,” really doesn’t say much now does it? Of course, we could use our wit, but that in itself is quite anti-intellectual! And accomplishes?
So now, hopefully we’re passed the 1st grade, and, we can practice some comprehensive and fundamental written communication, formulating coherent debate.
I don’t know what the end result will be! I think that we need to try to reach out to some – to listen and to share. Braver Angels – http://www.braverangels.org – seems like one possible venue. My wife talks of us separating into two separate countries – and that may not be the worst idea in the world IF – things continue on their current path in the coming months and years. Nebraska, Mississippi and Wyoming – for example – economically need “us” much, much more than we need them. As a native Hoosier (ex-patriate) – I can feel for the “innocent bystanders” – who are not – people on the surface like us – but the poorer people – including some white people – who don’t eat up the propaganda. We – too – have made major mistakes! We have been elitest – too often – in response to the threats. We need to be inclusive and we need to build allies – in various directions – so that we have 60-65 % of the people – “with us”. While we can blame – the Republicans – rightfully, the Dems have made plenty of mistakes! We need to help people understand the importance of Class – as the focal point dividing us – used as a weapon with racism and sexism and homophobia. We don’t need to “Berni-ize” – the people – a radical message can be developed – over time – that helps people see – historically and currently – how we have been played off against each other – time and time again. We, upper-middle class, white people are not “the victims” and we have to really develop effective bonds beyond our comfort zones – in various ways. The path isn’t easy – but it is vitally important.
Last night I watched a documentary called “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix, which I highly recommend. It centers around interviews with a number of ex-tech industry types, including Tristan Harris, a former Google design exec and co-founder of the non-profit The Center for Humane Technology. While it would be easy to blame social media for all our ills there is little doubt that the seeds of our nation’s current discontent were sown long before Facebook became ubiquitous (the enactment of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts as I see it).
That said, there is NO question that our voracious appetite for screen time using social media apps has vastly accelerated the evil twin trends of: 1) the destruction of shared truth and 2) social and political polarization.
I was especially taken by the analogy that every one of the 2 billion plus people participating on the major social media platforms are enacting their own personal version of The Truman Show, a movie starring Jim Carey about a man who’s entire life turned out to be a choreographed enactment on a stage. As the percentage of where we get our information from social media grows, we each have our own version of reality and truth that leads us away from other more traditional sources and rewards us for clicking on posts in our feed that reinforce our version of reality. It also rewards us for finding and following others on social media who share a close version of our reality and truth.
The two most important things I took away are:
1) At the end of the show the interviewer asked many of the participants if their children consumed social media and the unambiguous answer was no, or at least not until they were in high school.
2) Stopping the influence of social media will require a force of collective and political will unknown to mankind to date. There are virtually no economic incentives for Big Tech to change their lucrative business model and, as a result, there is absolutely no way they can fix this problem themselves.
In the meantime, all the talk about civil war is just that, talk. But make no mistake, the next stage of conflict in this journey to Hell could be civil strife and violence, and a lot of it, followed by martial law, followed by the suspension of elections and the end of our democratic republic. If that were to come to pass, there is little doubt in my mind that California in the West and New York in the East would form their own nations (which would include some smaller surrounding states), as would the Deep South RE-FORM the Confederacy. What happens to the rest of the states and especially the island of deep red known as Indiana is anyone’s guess.
As for me, I’m beginning to view my life as that of an ex-patriot, living very comfortably on his pension on the water in a foreign land. I interact with the locals enough to keep the refrigerator and bar stocked but otherwise pretty much keep to myself and my family, with whom I am very close. We know the driver of the UPS truck on a first-name basis because we buy most of our goods online. This is because there are few local retail stores left and the one’s we have are simply terrible. This lifestyle comes as some cost, however, mostly that of alienation and feelings of “otherness”. Wanting to be part of the social fabric but also being repulsed by it. Looking out for a few others in the area who share similar values and perspectives and with whom we might break bread or clink glasses (post-pandemic).
If I were to do anything different it would be to pick up and leave Indiana, where I was born and have lived all but a handful of my 68 years. But where to? Moving far away from our children and grandchildren is a non-starter. So that leaves Michigan and Illinois. Michigan is only slightly less red than Indiana and Southwest Michigan is even more red. And Illinois is just as red as Indiana except for the massive blue enclave known as the Chicago metro area. I find the intensity of deep urban life frightening….I can visit our daughter there for 2-3 nights and then it’s time to get back to the quiet of the waterside.
It makes my head hurt to think about the complexity and challenges of such a move. So, it’s very likely that I’ll die a Hoosier, but not one who feels it’s so-called hospitality. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to be black in our state.
“It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein was written years ago, but it’s still relevant today. They laid the blame for our national disfunction squarely on the shoulders of the Republican Party and they were right.
Pat, I can relate to all you posted here particularly having the feeling that I am living in a foreign land. More often than not these days I’m glad I’m so old.
As I recall, I remember at the beginning of all this, even before the covid19 lockdown, I mentioned that there would be blood, I also mentioned that “if it’s time it’s time”! A couple of the commenters who like to engage in animus, including ethnic and gender specific slurs and hyperbole, were so shocked that someone would post, “there will be blood” and yet here we are!
There definitely is something afoot, and as I recall, as was also mentioned in earlier comments, the instantaneous communication from one side of the globe to the other! A lunatic 100 years ago could affect those individuals who might be considered neighbors, but today, that lunatic can influence millions upon millions!
So, a lot of it is the time we live in, and, like I said before, “if it’s time it’s time” that particular quote wasn’t met with approval by certain individuals either! And yet, here we are again!
It’s really quite simple, you have individuals who wanted to rule the world! Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, any of the Roman emperors, any of the kings throughout history, and that includes the pharaohs of Egypt, the list is endless. There was/is no shortage of those who want to rule the entire globe, but, it’s the specific time we are in right now, the technological and ideological confluence which fights against the tide attempting to lift all boats equally.
The ability to hear and see and participate in global sedition, is helping those who are disaffected with society, burn it all down! Today, we have ethnic ideology which promotes an ethnic superiority of one particular race over all others, right now! This, is promoted by Ethnic Protestant evangelical self-deluded and self aggrandized disaffected wannabe world rulers! The superiority of the Aryan race, LOL, which really were South Asian people and not from the caucuses or Caucasian. The Nazi swastika was a symbol of worship used by those Aryans in a religion that did not remotely resemble Christianity! So, the the symbols of this supposed ethnic, racial and religious superiority, was never based on any sort of facts or truths! In other words, it’s based on lies!
Those throughout more recent history that promoted this, were just jumping on the bandwagon to seek their rightful place, wanting to be the pinnacle of civilization, LOL! At least that’s what they felt, and, where they felt they should be. Unfortunately, these folks are no more suited to fair and balanced civilization including equity amongst all ethnic groups, than an ice cream vendor performing a brain transplant! But, in their self deluded self aggrandized vision of themselves, a United global sedition just might put them where they feel they needed to be all along!
Sometimes, persistence will accomplish what intellect, earned respect, compassion and ethical behavior could never do, because intellect, earned respect and the other things, can bring everyone together, but persistence to suborn society is something that has continued through the millennia. It’s based upon a mythology of superiority, It’s the human condition, and it’s not a good one!
Will there be blood? Folks didn’t pay attention to the burgeoning onslaught in the middle East and allowed web access to those who manipulated the weak minded, the desire to not censure inappropriate thought, allowed an evil ideology to take root across the globe. It’s caused a lot of bloodshed, and, it’s happening again! But not just in the Middle East.!.
Of course, society has to bear a lot of the brunt of this, because society itself tends not to be fair. So this leaves an opening for the fanatics, self-deluded and the self aggrandized to step through! Except this time they have a platform which allows one or 2 people to reach tens or hundreds of millions of people! So, this just might be the time where the anti-society anti-equality self-anointed superior blind squirrels find their NUT!
Patrick,
thank you for that, your comment is very insightful and spanned a lot of similar thoughts!
George,
hopefully it doesn’t get to that point, but, “if it’s time it’s time” I guess we shall see.
Sigh…another day of ranting, handwringing and sobbing about the demise of our country. That takes engagement, time and energy. Consider re-channeling all that into positive action. Roll up your sleeves and get involved in some local problem that most folks agree needs fixing…homelessness? food deserts? on and on and on…
‘Tis the season….
Lester Levine: Sigh, another mushy-middle-of-the-roader telling us everything will be fine. It must be exhausting to be so sanguine. But the phrase “some local problem that most folks agree needs fixing” is very telling and hits at the very heart of the problem nationally and globally. In my community there is very little, if any, agreement on what is even broken, much less what needs fixing. And if it needs fixing it will require other people’s money and not ours because taxes are bad. Always. Besides, there is no problem that free-markets can’t solve. Always. Such is life under one-party Republican rule.
Patrick – WADR – I never said or suggested “everything will be fine”. So…in the spirit of tit-for-tat, I am so glad to hear that you live in paradise where there are no problems like mental health, addiction, joblessness, etc.
Most of my family lived in Missouri during the Civil War, and in researching that genealogy, I’ve read what a civil war between two civilian factions who live intermingled with each other looks like.
It doesn’t look like a war between organized armies who follow the Geneva conventions respecting civilian life and property. Nor does it look like a glorious triumphant movie scene in which the heroes heroically brandish their “second amendment remedies” in a glowing cinematic sunrise while heroic music heroically swells in the soundtrack and the credits roll.
It looks like people being assassinated while planting their cornfields or standing on their own front porch, because their neighbors hate them for having the “wrong” opinion, or being from the “wrong” part of the country, or just feel like grabbing their horse or looting their house. It looks like men who are suspected of supporting the “other side” being abducted in the middle of the night, shot in the back of the head or strung up to a convenient tree, and their bodies mutilated for fun or left for pigs to consume. It looks like women and children of the “other side” being rounded up and confined in shoddy, dangerous makeshift “prisons” where they die from disease, cold, hunger, or collapsing buildings. It looks like gangs of nightriders attacking conveniently vulnerable households to loot, rape, kill, pillage, and burn at will.
It starts with each side sneering that the other is disloyal and subhuman, proudly boasting that their opponents are cowards who can’t or won’t fight, and bragging that “real Americans” will make short work of those traitorous so-and-sos. It ends with towns burning with their streets strewn with corpses, and the only “winners” being the most violent and inhuman — those who are the best at becoming successful murdering monsters. And the traumatized survivors struggling for decades afterward to re-establish the most basic elements of a functioning society, while surrounded, and more often than not governed, by the very people who robbed and assaulted and murdered their families.
Heather Cox Richardson, writes:
Concerning the Texas Lawsuit, seventeen other states supported the suit to hand the election to Trump, including Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. Later, Arizona joined them.
Since the 1980s, Republican leaders have managed to hold onto power by suppressing votes, promoting propaganda, gerrymandering states, gaming the Electoral College, and stacking the courts.
Even gaming the mechanics of our system is not enough, they have abandoned democracy itself.
======================================================
As I have said here before and others have echoed my sentiments: The Republicans play hard ball. They do not just “brush back” the hitter out of the batter’s box, they throw a fast ball at your head. If stretching the rules is not enough, they want to change the rules mid game.
The game is over and Biden won. The GOP wants to go back and throw out the innings in the game the Democrats Won.
In the world and mindset of GOP politics any tactic or tactics that produces a “victory” is acceptable. It is the ultimate expression of the “Means Justifies the Ends”. 70,000,000 in the Trump Cult find these various lawsuits to over throw the election results as “legitimate” because the Trumpet’s re-election is what is important. It is damn the law full speed ahead to anarchy, chaos and a dictatorship.
First I would encourage the people here to write what they are thinking. If you can do that in a few words most everyone will read them. If it takes you many more you will lose some audience here but I for one would rather understand your thinking than not. To me, this is a forum for ideas not a class in writing. I do appreciate the really good writers here and learn from them too but some of the other writers here have some pretty profound thoughts too.
Any war with the US will be conducted following the process of asymmetrical warfare. That means terrorism by the other side as our overwhelming military technology would overcome most any direct force.
Will terrorism increase then as humans increasingly overrun earth’s resources? Certainly, the threat of it will not go away and it is the threat that it counts on to exert pressure on the enemy of the sides that employ it.
My hope for avoiding a civil war arises from the dearth of activity of Trump’s supporters in coming to his aid on the question of throwing out the election results. Probably many of them agree with him but they have, for the most part, exhibited their manliness by not wearing masks and denying the existence of Covid on their death beds. This signals to me that they are less aggressive than we fear.
Many of the ever-loyal politicians who have concluded that their future well being rests on perpetuating their sycophancy may be right. If Trump is able to maintain his hold on the snaggle-toothed followers who put them in office, those stay-in-power-or-self-destruct politicians will have made a smart move. While would-be Trump pols like Cruz and Pompeo may aspire to become as hateful and bombastic as their hero, they lack the aptitude for spewing hatred that comes so naturally to him. His core asset is his utter cruelty and renunciation of all values. They may not be able to reach the democracy-defeating height of anti-democratic action that has motivated their boss’s presidency and proven irresistible to the bumpkins.
If it turns out that they can halt the vaccination program (why vaccinate if the disease doesn’t exist) and/or bring Trump back in 2024, they will have shown themselves to be the masters of the power that Democrats envy but never successfully emulate. Then they can complete the work Trump dedicated himself to – turning the swamp into a cesspool.
Patrick:
your view of social media and its flack, spot on. being i dispise social medias intrusions for profit and its gargantuan # for any word in webster. i travel around between nodak and texas,and mainly work with blue collars that,well, are just as you discribed,uninformed and dangerous. plus my vocal focus face to face with the trumpers, rewarding. many who tell me their half of the story,i debunk. facts over social face value. bubba on saturday nite being their mentor. if im being funny here im not. most of the conversation is debunked because of the shitline they absorb. all from social media subjects of their choice. but i get em riled while holding a smile to their attention. seems real facts can be quite the deal breaker. in the last 6 years ive held these truck side conversations in probably 30 states,mainly just a few to 10-20 other workers and or truckers. mostly the right wing fanaitics,and then the trumpers. face to face patrick, human intervention,social intercourse. if ya got the backbone to confront misinformation,with stone hard facts,they walk away thinking,at least about the subject,and their own needs over cheap rants by those who want to control them.
I agree with Lester — be the change you wish to see in the world. That’s about all that “good” people can do — the next right thing. The reason the Democratic party doesn’t wield as much power as the GOP is that by and large there are less of them willing to be utter hypocrites and criminals. And Patrick, don’t be so quick to dismiss a solution that can actually work. All the folks on this blog who regularly pour out very lengthy rebuttals to all they hear might try using that time for some actual work — like working at a food bank, manning their local political party office or volunteering to pet an animal at the local shelter. Yes, endless hand wringing is not accomplishing a damn thing (and I am grateful that Sheila keeps us apprised of the trends out there) and no doubt causes some to get less sleep at night. Read it, ponder it and then go out and do something good for others.
I, too, have wondered what can be done to bring us together instead of dividing into tribal entities, and I have no answers. Yes, we can try to understand the grievances of those who are hurting economically, socially , or physically. These are folks who need a reliable safety net, yet many of the whites vote for the party that wants to destroy that safety net. Is this cognitive dissonance? Meanwhile the truly elite (upper 1%) manipulate others for their own ends and it seems to work. Years ago I read a book called “Hurry Sundown”, which showed how easily people are manipulated into ignoring their own self interest for the sake of elevating “otherness” as something to be destroyed. I do believe that racism is the current tool at the bottom of the present divisiveness, and it’s time we dealt with it.
Kathy,
Making some snap judgments I see!
I think a lot of folks on here are doing plenty to help those who are more of the least advantaged! Before I broke my leg, I was at the food bank several times a week and spending a couple of days making deliveries to people who couldn’t get there themselves.
And, others who comment regularly on this blog admitted to the very same thing! So, try not to disparage something you don’t know much of anything about! And, I might add, I’m sure many of the commenters on here, these blog participants, assist family members and relatives close and distant or maybe good friends that they are sick, disabled and possibly stranded in their homes!
So, a little more thought before passing judgment on something you know nothing about!
Patrick,
I have to agree with your 2nd comment there, because it’s the same here! I just had an editorial posted in the local paper, and, pointed out that we have coverage in this city by 4 separate layers of government, the municipal, the Township, the county, and the state! And let’s not forget the feds over all of those.
They all have their hands in our pockets! There is so much dead weight on all of these government conglomerations, they could save millions of dollars and funnel that towards relief efforts. But no, we have those who claim we’re not doing enough! Again, Those who claim we should be flooding the food banks even more than we do already, they continue making snap judgments on something they know nothing about!
Carry-on Patrick!
I’ll be reading!
Bingo Jack!
Why are some of you so critical of each other?
Each of us may or may not offer our thoughts after reading Sheila’s blog. Try not to be so judgmental. I gain insight from most everyone’s comments, but don’t appreciate put downs.
Not much to add today, with so many great responses
There is this one area where I think we tend to disagree a bit, Sheila, but RIchardallen started out with many of my thoughts.
Violent left – not since the ’60s – even the anti-science, “animal liberation” people have lessened their attacks on scientists. Yes, the left has it’s anti-vaxers and their “anything labeled ‘natural’ is godly” people, but the Dems never embraced the SDS nor the Weathermen – there weren’t armed protesters saying “the Democrats won, or we are starting an insurrection.”
I remember John Oliver’s visual ensemble of the numbers of climate change scientist and climate change deniers – the same might hold true of left-wing political crazies versus their right-wing counterparts – as I’ve pointed out before, Bernie may talk like a bomb-throwing radical, but his policies are FDR 2.0 – too liberal for some, but not all that outside the mainstream.
We need a collective foe. Without one we always turn on each other