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1. People are making comparisons with 1968 & now. Obviously there are big differences (no assassinations, no military drafts). But there are also some useful points of comparisons (nation wide protests & riots, including by the police).
2. The big point of comparison with 1968 is that there's a legitimacy crisis: a significant chunk of the population has lost faith in the government.
3. Some thoughts on the legitimacy crisis but also the more hopeful signs (with a dash of Natalie Zemon Davis & @TomSugrue) here: thenation.com/subject/police…
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Jeet Heer
@HeerJeet
1. To give credit where credit is due, Tom Cotton really played the New York Times like suckers. He got them to valid his ideas as a legitimate part of the discourse and also gets now to play the free speech martyr to political correctness. He's a smart guy.
2. Cotton is worth thinking about in his own right: he's really vying for the role of being Trump 2.0 -- the smarter and more competent Trump who can win in 2024 & create a more durably authoritarian regime than Trump has managed.
3. Going back to 2016, I've been saying that Trump is not really the American Mussolini as some fear. Rather Trump is the Yankee Gabriele D’Annunzio, the feckless adventurer who shows the weaknesses of the system and thereby prefigures the Duce to come.
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Jeet Heer
@HeerJeet
1. Trump is doing a lot of scary things and there are people whispering his ears (ahem, Tom Cotton) who want him to do far worse. But it's worth keeping in mind that he's doing this out of weakness, not strength.
2. Trump wants to be a strongman but he's weak, weak, weak. That's the dynamic here. His coalition is splintering and he's getting pummelled in the polls. The hard right -- Coulter, Carlson -- are goading him by calling him weak. And he's weak enough to listen.
3. More thoughts here on how Trump's weakness -- his political weakness, his character weakness -- is driving things. thenation.com/article/politi…
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Jeet Heer
@HeerJeet
1. How often have we had this conversation:
A: "Trump is an aspiring authoritarian"
B: "Actually, he's just an incompetent buffoon."
In truth, it's not just that Trump is both an authoritarian & a buffoon but that this combination (a common one) makes him more dangerous.
2. Trump wants to use the military to squash the protests. The military, especially after the backlash to Monday night's church photo op fiasco, is pushing back, hard. So: incompetence, yes. But Trump has plenty of fall back positions: egging on cops & militias.
3. Another fall back position now that the army isn't doing what he wants is mercenaries. We might already be seeing some fo that.
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