Amanda Marcotte: Trump's lasting legacy: The right's open embrace of terrorism / Epidemiologist warns of “contagion” of violent speech coming “from the White House” / Damon Linker: America is buckling

By Dilip -

Amanda Marcotte: Trump leaves a lasting legacy: The right's open embrace of terrorism   In any sensible society, Kyle Rittenhouse would be shunned across the political spectrum. The 17-year-old Illinois resident stands accused of shooting three people, killing two of them, during an August Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Whatever the specific facts of that incident, the larger truth is that Rittenhouse is lying in the bed he made for himself. If he had done the right thing, by simply staying at home and leaving the protesters alone, two men would be alive and he would not face homicide charges. But because he got enraptured by violent fantasies of armed confrontation with anti-racists, Rittenhouse picked up a gun, drove across state lines and got exactly what he was looking for. The results were tragic....

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/23/trumps-on-his-way-out-but-leaves-a-lasting-legacy-the-rights-open-embrace-of-terrorism/

Epidemiologist warns of “contagion” of violent speech coming “from the White House”  

Dr. Gary Slutkin is an epidemiologist who spent years working with the World Health Organization to respond to the AIDS crisis and epidemics in Africa and Latin America. After returning to the United States in the 1990s, he "saw the problem that the U.S. was having with violence." He soon launched a project that eventually became Cure Violence, a non-governmental organization that "stops the spread of violence in communities by using the methods and strategies associated with disease control."

Slutkin said in an interview with Salon that a dangerous "contagion" stemming from the White House has "empowered" certain groups to commit acts of violence. Slutkin, who avoided discussing Trump and the Republican Party by name, said that the election and the president's impending departure from the White House are critical in reducing "exposure" to the rhetoric that has fueled anger around the country, but that it will require significant "intervention" to reduce the threat of violence that the country has seen in cities like Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin...

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/23/epidemiologist-warns-of-contagion-of-violent-speech-coming-from-the-white-house/

Damon Linker: America is buckling  

Trump is just an expression of something far more widespread in American society. While most Republican officeholders respond passively to Trump's ignorant, hateful nonsense, millions of Republican voters cheer it on, taking their cues from him and media personalities who amplify or encourage his acting out. Why is it happening? As you'd expect in a nation of 330 million people, there are many causes. Some of it is an expression of assiduously cultivated partisan hatred of Democrats. Some of it is a consequence of a widespread collapse of trust in public institutions and a resulting turn to folk conspiracies as an alternative way of making sense of reality. 

And some of it seems to follow from a sheer love of conflict and combat for its own sake. A sizable portion of the American public appears to crave enemies. This feeds an increasingly agonistic politics modeled on warfare or a violent sporting event. Think of it as the resurgence of a warrior ethic unwilling to be tamped down by the niceties of liberal civilization. (Some Democrats also find a combative politics appealing, including the embrace of conspiracies, as we've seen throughout the Trump administration.) All of this is very dangerous. But it isn't our only problem....

https://theweek.com/articles/950834/america-buckling

Mohammed Hanif: The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise

You're fired ! Americans taunt Trump with his own catchphrase

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ends truce by warning ‘incompetent’ Democratic party

George Monbiot: Ayn Rand - A Manifesto for Psychopaths

Tom McTague: The Decline of the American World

Donald Trump: Democracy’s mirror image? By Philip Manow / David A. Bell - Fascism or Caesarism?

Jonathan Freedland - Donald Trump's plot against democracy could break America apart

Debt: The first five thousand years. By DAVID GRAEBER

HARRY BLAIN: America’s Wars always Come Home

Jill Lepore  A History of America’s military spending

Jonathan Freedland: Trump is destroying democracy in broad daylight // Chauncey DeVega: Vigilantes are preparing ‘to launch a coup’

Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real sickness runs much deeper

America isn't breaking. It was already broken. By Andrew Gawthorpe // Why This Time Is Different. By Dahlia Lithwick

Black and Unarmed and Killed by the Police…an incomplete list…This is America….

Houston Police chief to Trump: Please, keep your mouth shut if you can't be constructive

Donald Trump and American carnage // Will Urban Uprisings Help Trump?

May 1968 - June 1989. It's been five decades since 1968, and things are somehow worse

Justice in America: Authorities are Cracking down Hard on Black Protesters while Treating White Supremacist Reopeners with Kid Gloves

Protests in USA over the death of unarmed black man George Floyd at the hands of police - 25 cities have imposed curfews

Mukul Kesavan - Donald Trump and the global equalization of awfulness

Karl Marx: Letter to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America; 1865



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