I am still interrupting the post I really want to get to to write this stuff, but I suppose I should take my turn. I have long put forward my theory that liberals are the ones who are aggressive in protest, but usually target objects, not people. Conservatives, on the other hand, are primarily defensive in their approach but speak quite openly about hurting others if it comes to it. I have worried that the limitations are breaking down on both sides over the last few years, with liberals increasingly targeting human beings, and conservatives increasingly traveling to other places and getting in people's faces.
Therefore, some of yesterday's behavior in DC was a bad sign. Not because conservatives don't have the right to go to DC and shout as much as liberals do, nor a claim that this will necessarily lead to more violence, but just a concerning development.
On the other hand, it's over, with no one setting up a compound on a few city blocks or taking this national. Also, even though lots of Trump supporters took the unusual (for them) step of traveling to protest (again, not unheard of before, just less likely. It is the center of the government after all), few were violent even after the seal of violence was broken, as can sometimes happen.
An additional bit, reading a couple of stories. Democrats, including my two House representatives, are moving to impeach Trump with two weeks to go for inciting violence. It is obviously grandstanding and political theater, which I dislike. Pretending to make a righteous point - it's self-deception. Yet because of that, is it not also dangerous? To engage in an act everyone knows is going nowhere, simply to infuriate - is that not also inciting? I would like to give people credit for at least thinking they are only standing up for principle, even if that is untrue. We do all deceive ourselves, and politicians are actually encouraged to by being surrounded with sycophants. Yet I am seeing too much of the commentary even in NH, where we are traditionally pretty reserved about being antagonistic, directed not at Trump but at setting his supporters in general on notice. That seems like inciting to me.
21 comments:
Mr. Trump has the handicap that he doesn't analyze his opponents or potential allies with an open mind. Not being able to put himself in their shoes he sees only the surface and measures everything in terms of short term personal support (not really loyalty but that is the term he applies). This leads him to be most comfortable in talking with fans rather than a wider audience. So a very short fuse and a public speaking style both direct and aggressive.
The media was almost as bad for George W Bush who is a completely different personality. Bush would politely take the insults while trying to bring a larger coalition on board.
The Democratic and Leftist attacks on Trump and his responses spiraled out of control. If you see Trump's election as someone who will kick butt in response but without a plan to get to a specific resolution, it fits the events.
This is tough role for any politician as the current socialist/leftists are quite cruel and unforgiving.
I was planning on studiously avoiding politics these last two days, but the display was too much to permit me to hold to that. Nevertheless I saw that Eric and Donald Trump, Jr., actively called for the arrest and prosecution of everyone involved in the invasion of the Capitol, as did every Republican political figure I noticed speaking on it. Some of them even turned to grandstanding gestures of repudiation of Trump as well as his supporters, especially Mitt Romney but also the lame duck Senator Kelly Loeffler from Georgia, who dropped her objections to certification in response to the riot. Even Trump himself, unable to outright condemn a display of support for himself, called for peace (even at his rally) and dispersal (after the fact).
Whereas, of course, during the summer's riots their opponents spoke movingly of 'mostly peaceful' protests while cities were literally on fire, and our new VP-elect actively raised money to bail people out of jail who were arrested doing it.
So I don't think there is any danger of a BLM or ANTIFA equivalent movement even beginning to develop on the right, and there definitely isn't one now: BLM/ANTIFA managed to put thousands of people in the street every night for a month in Portland. Trump managed to get tens of thousands of people once, but there is no infrastructure for a sustained movement that might be troublesome.
What I do think is genuinely dangerous is what you get to at the end: "...much of the commentary even in NH, where we are traditionally pretty reserved about being antagonistic, directed not at Trump but at setting his supporters in general on notice. That seems like inciting to me."
Yes, indeed. The right is happy to go along with prosecuting and making an example of the few bad actors, and this could be a unifying moment we all agreed to join hands and do together. But Trump has been banned by Facebook, silenced by Twitter, and his sale of Trump-centric hats and such barred by online Shopify. There's intensifying talk of treating his whole movement of supporters -- which runs to at least a few tens of millions of people, though not all of his voters are true supporters -- as if they were a kind of insurrection or domestic terrorist group.
That kind of repressive reaction, of which Pelosi's grandstanding (and Romney's) are exemplary, is what risks turning this into a real problem. You could have your few dozen rioters burned at the stake as an auto de fe, and almost the whole right would go along with it. Insofar as they try to suppress the whole movement, they'll be stoking the potential for a real insurgency conducted on grounds of manifest self-defense and defense of community. That's where, as you say, the right really roots itself.
Also dangerous: my conversations with friends on the Left indicate to me that they literally do not see any parallels between the cases of BLM/ANTIFA and yesterday's Dude in the Buffalo Hat. In fact, I would suggest they might see it as incitement to suggest that there are parallels between the cases.
Suppose that the legislators and aides and whatnot are in a vengeful mood. I assume that it would be no trick to get the names/etc of some tens of thousands of the protestors, who can be guilted-by-association. What sorts of deniable attacks could they arrange? IRS audits, maybe, but don't those require staff to run? Maybe doxing them all would do, and letting personal enemies track the information in distributed attacks on their jobs or them.
Mussolini defined fascism as the alignment of corporate with state power, James. That’s where we are. It’s not just social media bans. The flight attendant union is asking their airlines to reject all participants from their flights home — or any other flights. Pelosi’s House has requested TSA add them all to the no fly list as suspected risks. Grounded for life?
Senator Hawley lost his book contract today. No reason they couldn’t go on a black list forbidding book contracts; or hotel rooms; or credit cards. Banks could find suspicious insurrectionists to be credit risks for mortgages too.
If they want to, there’s a lot they can do.
I don't see the calls for impeachment as grandstanding. Trump committed sedition right in front of everyone, either by accident or on purpose, and either way he urgently needs to be removed. To take every legal action possible, even if those actions have no time to be completed, is the only responsible thing to do, otherwise you are not denouncing with maximum force something that needs to be denounced with maximum force.
I’m with Earl. Why wouldn’t you start impeachment? Just because there might not be enough time doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act if you believe it’s the right course.
GraniteDad: Just because there might not be enough time ...
Trump doesn't have to still be president to be impeached and convicted. It can be used to preclude his holding office in the future.
Grim: Mussolini defined fascism as the alignment of corporate with state power
Fascism is more than corporatism. Under fascism, everything is subsumed under the state.
John Stuart Mills also advocated a type of liberal corporatism.
"Trump doesn't have to still be president to be impeached and convicted. It can be used to preclude his holding office in the future."
I didn't know that. What a good idea. Thank you.
Earl, that would give many of us the willingness to be strongly against the Democrats.
Earl: Earl, that would give many of us the willingness to be strongly against the Democrats.
Don't think that would be any different than now. Don't worry, though. There's little chance of conviction in the Senate.
@Z: “Fascism is more than corporatism. Under fascism, everything is subsumed under the state.”
Discussion about what fascism consists of is quite old, and there are many opinions. Mussolini said something similar to that, too; but he also said what I paraphrased, and that fascism and corporatism were equivalent terms.
Grim: Mussolini said something similar to that
That claim is usually based on a mis-attribution: "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power." The quote limits fascism. Also, Mussolini's use of the term "corporativismo" does not mean business corporations, but something more akin to syndicalism with corporations and unions organized by sector. Again, corporatism is not limited to fascism, so can't be the definition of fascism.
I’m not really interested in arguing about whether Mussolini or you had the better understanding of fascism. You’re welcome to take that up with him. I’m merely pointing out that my citation was accurate.
Grim: I’m merely pointing out that my citation was accurate.
Except for the lack of citation, sure.
I have only a tiny window on the world and don't know if my observations are correct, but here's what I saw after the riot on the WH: Every conservative denounced the violence. Every liberal denounced Trump.
@lelia - yes. For a few, the desire is solely to punish Trump.
That would be childish but understandable, and something of what politicians embrace when the take the job at all, though there are some limitations to that. I am more concerned about the statements about punishing his supporters, other than those who have committed actual crimes. That is rather chilling. We see it in an informal way from all sides on political matters, as in "Ambassador X shouldn't be appointed by Trump because years ago was appointed by Clinton to the South American Trade Commission," or "That new commentator on ABC pretends to be hard on both sides, but he did work in the Obama White House." And the politicians themselves certainly know these things (and a hundred more under the surface that they hold grudges about) and act on them. Publicly targeting supporters is something we have not seen much of heretofore - though I have certainly seen it at work of people quietly being shunted to the side because of having the wrong political opinions. Not fired, just never in the right circles again.
I may be overlooking large examples of this group targeting happening before, and I am certainly not going to risk saying it is "unprecedented" without having thought about it some. Maybe there are 1950s and 1960s examples, for example.
There's been one group that has been targeted for generations, though for years in a more kind and gentle manner. Southerners and Rednecks. As a group, they were solid Democrats but now are seen as Trump "supporters" and the claws have come out.
I should try to find a copy of the application for the Rude, Crude, & Socially Unacceptable assistance form that my sister and I created one evening after drinking (perhaps too much) Southern Comfort and coffee. This was in the 80s, before my sister moved to the UK and lost her mind and soul to "toxic progressivism".
The form instructed that it must be filled out with K&B purple ink. And from there hit every redneck and 'low class' stereotype in favor at the time. It was extra funny to us because some of them were quite close to home. (Although not the inbreeding which we couldn't find anywhere in our genealogy of ancestors from Virginia to Texas. We assumed it existed because popular culture said it did and were a little bit surprised to find it didn't.)
The questions ranged from 'how many axles does your mobile home have' to 'how many of your in-laws (include all marriages) trace their ancestors back to pond scum". Multiple choice questions about non-working appliances in the front yard started with the assumption there were at least two.
I, OTOH, have two first cousin marriages in my tree, both around 1760, in the group that moved from puritan New England to Nova Scotia when they were given land (because the Arcadians were getting kicked out so that they could go to Louisiana and become Cajuns).
I'm guessing in such a small settler group, there was a shortage of choices for partners.
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