One of his most important points is that Biden's election as President initially provides only a reprieve from Trumpism. Not least because we can expect Trump to continue to lead what Snyder's calls a coup faction in the Republican Party.
People who have been following the far right systematically are not surprised by this. Daryl Johnson is one of them. About a week before this article, when the news first came out about Heather Heyer having been murdered by a neo-nazi in Charlottesville in 2017, I was literally attenting a panel that David Neiwert had organized about the seriousness of far-right terrorism in the US and how authorities were dangerously ignoring it. In fact, the way the Obama-Biden Administration handled he controversy over Johnson's official report or far-right terrorism in 2009 was one of the *worst* mistakes of their government. "By 2010, there were no intelligence analysts at DHS working domestic terrorism threats."
I just saw a post-Capitol-invasion interview with Timothy Snyder, who talks about how the Trumpistas are now a "coup faction" within the Republican Party, and how Biden's election in itself is only a reprieve from Trumpism. Biden and Harris really cannot afford to act like they are living in a world where Both Sides Do It and the real existing Republican Party is looking for some kind of Bipartisan harmony for it's own sake. After the spectacle this week at the Capitol, there's every reason to think the violent radical right will be even more active the next four years against the government that Trump's Coup Faction is claiming to be completely illegitimate.
He has numerous interesting observations besides, including about how authoritarians play on fear and how reducing the real fears - including the kind that come of what liberals sometimes sneer at as "economic uncertainty" - is essential to undercutting popular support for the Republican Coup Faction. He also stresses how important it is to deal effectively with the COVID-19 pandemic. As uncomfortable as it may be to the Brunch Liberalism approach ("we have a Democratic President again so we can all go back to brunch now"), the Biden-Harris Administration has to find a way to counter Republican obstructionism than the Obama-Biden Administration did. The obstacles to doing so are clearly huge. But the stakes are even bigger.
One of the biggest mistakes of the Obama-Biden Administration was caving to malicious Republican criticism - from the perspective of January 2021 seditious criticism - of the Homeland Security report on the real danger of far-right terrorism that was authored by Daryl Johnson, who described that failure in I warned of right-wing violence in 2009. Republicans objected. I was right. Washington Post 08/21/2017. This was published just over a week after Heather Heyer having been murdered by a neo-nazi in Charlottesville. "By 2010, there were no intelligence analysts at DHS working domestic terrorism threats."
Just to be clear. This was a decision by the Obama-Biden Department of Homeland Security whose chief Janet Napolitano - who served as president of the University of California 2013-2020 - went so far as to formally rescind the report that came under fire from Republicans. This was a decision made in response to irresponsible criticism from Republicans, an irresponsible surrender in pursuit of the illusionary goal of Bipartisan harmony with the Republican Party that was quickly radicalizing itself into the party of Donald Trump.
Paul Krugman returns to the theme of dealing with Radical Republicans, one which is is very familiar for him in Appeasement Got Us Where We Are New York Times 01/07/2021.
He's right on this, as he so often is, "Donald Trump ... is indeed a fascist — an authoritarian willing to use violence to achieve his racial nationalist goals. So are many of his supporters."
Krugman face-planted for a day or so in December over the $2,000 checks, then realized he was being careless about the politics of it. But he was one of the most prominent people who are were saying things like this during the Cheney-Bush Administration about the need to reign in their lawlessness. He's not at all new to this issue, and he's been trying for the last 20 years or so to get Democratic leaders to focus on how serious a problem Republican lawlessness is and has been.
Joe Biden has a moral and a political duty to hold Donald Trump and his enablers to account. A politics of “forgive and forget” will not unify the nation—it will simply ensure that Democrats lose control of Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024.
— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) January 4, 2021
https://t.co/cJiUWirsVG
Krugman's point about the Michigan precedents is important. Armed Trumpistas last year walked right into the Michigan capitol building while the legislature was in session to intimidate the legislators. The Capitol attack was the same kind of action only with obviously more immediately murderous intentions.
And Krugman is right about this, too: "this isn’t over. If you aren’t terrified about what Trump might do between now and Inauguration Day, you haven’t been paying attention."
WSJ re DJT must resign:“he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.” https://t.co/iMhhmd2flp
— John W. Dean (@JohnWDean) January 10, 2021
And this: "Don’t say that we should look forward, not back; accountability for past actions will be crucial if we want the future to be better." If the Biden Justice Depaprtment operates as it's legally required to do, it will conduct professional, independent investigations of major crimes committed under Trump and prosecute them as crimes. How many hundreds of thousands of black citizens are disenfranchised today because they got convicted of marijuana possession and their state legislatures still aren't willing to "look forward, not backward" even decades later when it comes to them?
A historical reminder. Before last week, the Capitol had not been raided by armed enemies of America since the War of 1812. But white supremacist violence has struck the Capitol before. Like when the seditious, pro-slavery South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks nearly beat Massachusetts antislavery Sen. Charles Sumner nearly to death in the Senate chamber in 1856.
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