Thank you for the perspective. These are not the most violent times in our history, at least not in terms of political violence. My larger fear, however, is that we have never been this close to becoming trapped within an authoritarian system. And I feel horrible for saying this, but are we sure that our situation would be exponentially …
Thank you for the perspective. These are not the most violent times in our history, at least not in terms of political violence. My larger fear, however, is that we have never been this close to becoming trapped within an authoritarian system. And I feel horrible for saying this, but are we sure that our situation would be exponentially worse if Trump had in fact been killed? *Not* saying I wish that had happened; I'm only engaging in an academic question. The leaders who were assassinated in the 60s were all fundamentally good people engaged in the difficult work of bending the arc of justice. Are we sure that the assassination of an aspiring tyrant would unleash chaos? Having listened to a fair amount of interviews with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, she always emphasizes the importance of the cult leader's physical presence. If that were in fact to disappear, do we really know what would happen? Yes, I realize this is tangential to your post - still processing Tim and Bill's discussion from earlier as well.
Thank you for the perspective. These are not the most violent times in our history, at least not in terms of political violence. My larger fear, however, is that we have never been this close to becoming trapped within an authoritarian system. And I feel horrible for saying this, but are we sure that our situation would be exponentially worse if Trump had in fact been killed? *Not* saying I wish that had happened; I'm only engaging in an academic question. The leaders who were assassinated in the 60s were all fundamentally good people engaged in the difficult work of bending the arc of justice. Are we sure that the assassination of an aspiring tyrant would unleash chaos? Having listened to a fair amount of interviews with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, she always emphasizes the importance of the cult leader's physical presence. If that were in fact to disappear, do we really know what would happen? Yes, I realize this is tangential to your post - still processing Tim and Bill's discussion from earlier as well.
Tim Snyder has good thoughts on that very question.
https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny
Thank you!