tech37 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 14, 2021 8:27 am
seacoaster wrote: ↑Sat Nov 13, 2021 8:14 am
tech37 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 13, 2021 8:06 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 13, 2021 7:54 am
The fever hasn't broken, "there's a storm coming".
So long as you guys admit the "fever" affects both the extreme left and right. It's all dangerous. But the NYT cheery picking doesn't help anyone except maybe the NYT. This is starting all over again with the MSM raising the temperature, creating the "storm".
I do agree that the
demonization is an issue infecting both sides. But the right's willingness to flirt with and say things that promote and countenance violence as a solution is distinctive, maybe not uniform, but a much more regular way of expressing what will be done in the event of an electoral loss. And part of this reality is the piece of luggage that always seems to accompany it: the clarion call of the "Second Amendment." To my knowledge, there weren't many Democrats or left of center types hanging out in the Speaker's office on the afternoon of January 6, 2021
Well said but what I think is truly "distinctive" is the right's reaction is based upon the fact (or at least perception) that basic freedoms are being infringed upon, including the right to bear arms of course. Rightly or wrongly, there wouldn't be a "regular way of expressing" if the threat on basic freedoms didn't exist. Point being, isn't it most always a reaction to the left, progressives, Dems...more than anything else?
For example, would the Jan 6 riots have occurred if the BLM/Antifa riots, looting, destruction had not continuously occurred or had not been either cheered on or ignored by the liberal media and Democrats in general? IMO, perhaps not. I think there was definitely an "it's our turn moment" even though I understand the impetus for both cases was different.
So that no one freaks out...I do understand the BLM rightful protests were based upon the G Floyd killing. There is certainly a fine line between BLM protesters and Antifa rioters though and we're talking rioting here which is unacceptable in any case as far as I'm concerned.
Well, certainly there's an element of Hegelian dialectic in the ebbs and flows of politics and social reaction.
But I question, with all sincerity, the straw men examples of what is begetting what and so forth thereon.
For instance, the 2nd Amendment. I don't, for instance, see any remotely rational. or even irrational, basis to suggest that Jan 6 was a reaction to an infringement or threat thereof to the "2nd Amendment right".
But let's explore that one just a bit. We do arguably have at least some implied gun rights in America, more so, really, than any other country in the world. Think about that last sentence. No other place in the world does government in any way protect citizens rights at all in owning, possessing, using weapons...there are places where governments do not have the necessary power to control weapons, but it's not because they wouldn't want to exercise such power.
As a result, we have orders of magnitude more guns per citizen than any other developed country. Orders of magnitude more gun deaths per citizen.
But we also know that our "rights" are not total. Our system has again and again adjudicated regulation and legislation of these rights, though always at the margin, never the fundamental premise. And there's nothing in the agenda of either party to suggest that otherwise is imminent.
Nor do we face, in the turn of the past election of POTUS to the Dems, any remotely imminent threat of such through legislative process. So, where's the existential crisis necessitating a coup attempt?
So, where is the perception of "2nd Amendment" threat actually coming from, if not actually a serious threat? The reality is that a majority of Republicans favor some gun regulation, indeed even a majority of card carrying NRA members do...so the only real debate is at the margin...and who stands to win and lose in this debate? And indeed wins more and more if the debate is hotter and hotter, if the perception of threat is raised? The gun manufacturers.
Fortunately, Jan 6 was not actually a 2nd Amendment protest, else the bloodshed would have been heavy.
But, IMO, the actual "2nd Amendment threat" is from those who use it as a cudgel to suggest that if they don't get their way through democracy, actually winning more votes, they will use these weapons to kill those who stand in their way.
I think you make a sound point that those who, at least think they were the most threatened by BLM (and the ensuing violence), saw those riots as giving permission to riot themselves if given an excuse to do so. The "our turn moment". I do think that dynamic was at play.
But who are those actually most threatened by BLM and racial justice protests and related violence and looting? surely the shopkeeper have a big beef, surely the good cops who do their best yet get lumped in with the bad have a legit beef, but who actually feels most threat by BLM?
But when he have Joe Biden decrying violence and looting, and Mitt Romney marching and saying "Black Lives Matter" we know that the center polity is not threatened by BLM or those riots.
But yup, those "white" people who think they are hated, think they're being told they should feel guilty, because they have long turned the other way on police violence towards blacks, think they're being told that they are "guilty" simply for being white. We've all heard these claims by
some white people. As a white person with KKK and slaveholding ancestors, yet not "guilty" of their actions, I call all that whining by fellow whites. Ignorance. Prejudice.
But that set of feelings, resentments, anxieties has been fanned and fanned by those who, in one way or another, profit from such feelings. Yes, there's extreme elements on the left that need to be pushed back on by moderate Dems and R's and I's, but they really aren't a serious threat to the safety and wellbeing of those who assume they are threatened.
But there is a very real anxiety of economic wellbeing among many working class folks, and it's very easy to put up straw men 'demons' to blame for these problems. Race, ethnicity, gender, religion are all easy avenues to turn these anxieties into blame, and rallying points.
And these are all the playbook of the authoritarian, more specifically the fascist.
Heck, what does Antifa, the "demon" of that summer explicitly stand against?
So, I do agree with you about the dialectical aspect of the ebbs and flows, but I'd suggest that it bears a harder look at what's really going on in the various reactions and counter reactions.
And I think that the direct assault on democracy, both violently and through every other machination, should be viewed as quite different than a protest in order to be heard. Not unrelated, but very, very different.
