I’ve mentioned Professor Turchin’s observation of elite internecine wars that occur when societies are falling apart before. Here’s far-right, but slowly moving towards admitting uncomfortable truths, pundit Erick Erickson today:
Like the truth or not, but the truth is that the President of the United States stoked the passions and fanned the flames of a mob that stormed the United States Capitol in a physical attack on the separation of powers designed to disrupt the democratic processes and institutions of our republic. If the Congress will not act because of partisan passions, the partisans and politicians have failed and our system is as broken as those storming the Capitol claimed.
If the first branch of government will not act to remove the President who sent the mob to shut them down, the first branch of government is shutting itself down and rendering itself irrelevant. This is a bigger issue than a single President, but big issues require big moments of leadership and we are now a nation of small spines in our political class. Small spines do not lead, they are led, and they are being led by a mob of malcontents more comfortable wrapped in lies than truth.
That’s remarkably close to Professor Turchin’s description of the fate of so many historical elites, such as the Roman Senators who were slaughtered for opposing the Roman Emperor.
We can know who has frantically wrapped themselves in lies, knowingly or not. Yesterday, WaPo provided comprehensive lists of names of those who chose to tear at the fabric of the United States. A quick search reveals, for local readers, that Minnesota Representatives Fishbach and Hagedorn participated in this shameful drama, even after the salutary lesson of the breaching of the Capitol. In two years will come the opportunity to remove them from public office. That should be the first priority of both the Democrats and the Republicans in Minnesota. And if that necessitates the removal of Trumpist Jennifer Carnahan from her position in the MN GOP, so much the better.
Now is the time to draw back and consider where we’re going. As Erickson notes, the chronic lying of the monetarily motivated right is one factor. So are the Evangelical leaders who prance about on their national stages, pretending they have some mystical connection to the Divine, and encouraging irrationality as a result.
It’s all damaging the country, and I have to wonder if similar bullshit – at least in the case of the religious aspect – occurred during all of those other historical internecine wars.
I don’t like vengeance, but it’s going to become necessary to at least confront the deluded and persuade them that they’ve screwed up and have some owning up to do. And that could be very hard to do.
