Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Tearing Down The Guardrails

Jon Chait gets a lot of shit from the Left for his centrist takes on politics, but he's pretty much right when it comes to the current calls to limit the "mob."  Republicans have been much more virulent and violent over the past few decades, and now we have Leftist groups like Antifa rising to meet them.  Typical of this is the violence in NYC a few nights ago where a group of Proud Boys confronted heckling protestors.  Some of the protestors were arrested, then the Proud Boys went around the corner and started beating the living crap out of some people.  It's unclear whether any of the Proud Boys have been arrested yet.  Leftists shouted; Rightists attacked.  Trump and some journalists say that the Left was worse.

Rightists and Fascists need violence.  So far since 1992 most of the worst violence has been by Rightists, including a few mass shootings.  If and when Democrats regain control of the government, we should expect massive amounts of right wing violence.  Aside from the attempted assassinations at the GOP Congressional softball practice by a "lone gunman" the Left has not engaged in direct violence to the same extent as the Alt Right.  But we are one gerrymandered and voter suppression election away from that no longer become true.

It's not 1968 yet.

Yet.

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