"The plan to surround the Capitol includes assassinating Democrats as well as Republicans who didn’t support Trump’s effort to overturn the election ― and allowing other Republicans to enter the building and control government." huffpost.com/entry/democrat… via @HuffPostPol
also, some members of Congress want metal detectors at the Inauguration, in case one of their colleagues tries to assassinate the new president
it's not over yet
this seems to strengthen the case for bans on Trump/Qanon/Maga Twitter, Facebook and Parler accounts, given that they were being used to actively recruit armed insurrectionists
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If the voters don't eventually punish the Republicans who are calling for a de facto coup, then we have to conclude that a substantial number of Americans no longer believe in our democracy either.
Also, the work of Karen Stenner, which is cited in my book, Twilight of Democracy, suggests that in any population there is a large percentage of people who are uncomfortable with democracy; she suggests that we ought to find ways to reach out to them
Introducing Steven Yates, just named head of Radio Free Asia, the most important public diplomacy tool that the US has in China. He seems none too keen on our next president
Time for Christmas shopping 2020! So many good books were published this year, despite everything. Everyone should read Putin's People by @CatherineBelton, on the deep roots of Russia's current ruling class. I reviewed it for @TheAtlantic here: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
I also loved The Fifth Sun, by Camilla Townsend, which won the Cundill Prize. You think you know who the Aztecs are... but you don't. You think you know about the Conquest of Mexico...but you don't. mcgill.ca/newsroom/chann…
Really unexpected pleasure for me was Roderick Beaton's Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, the history of the contemporary *idea* of Greece. There are lots of parallels to the modern history of other countries, you will be surprised amazon.co.uk/Greece-Biograp…
On a different subject: we just watched Russia With Love, and as the credits rolled, I realized that the great Lotte Lenya played one of the bad guys. Weimar seems multiple eras away from James Bond/the 1960s, and yet one lifetime encompassed both.
Here she is singing Mack the Knife, the song Kurt Weill wrote for her
And here is Louis Armstrong singing Mack the Knife, with a shout-out to Lotte Lenya
Nobody wants to use the language needed to describe this kind of behavior, which belongs to the vocabulary of mental illness washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
Also, there is something deeply wrong with many of the people who are attracted to the soon-to-be-ex-president. Look at Powell. washingtonpost.com/investigations….