Playing my tiny violin. But this stuff is more important than many may realize. To understand why, you have to understand that the foot soldiers of the right come in two main flavors; bullies and apparatchiks. 1/ nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/…
The bullies want to beat people up — but most will only do it if they don't expect personal consequences. That's probably why the feared wave of violence around the Biden inauguration didn't happen: the 1/6 rioters were shocked to realize they might actually face arrest 2/
The apparatchiks are happy to undermine democracy if it's good for their career. It's a rude shock finding that Trump White House on your resume actually hurts your prospects 3/
What all this says is that all the past accommodations made for these people were deeply destructive. Letting militia members who menaced state houses walk away free set the stage for the storming of the Capitol 4/
Giving Trumpists business gigs and academic visiting appointments encouraged their successors to try overturning an election 5/
I'm not suggesting extraordinary retribution; all we need to do is enforce the law and not reward complicity with malevolence — as opposed to giving right-wingers a free pass the rest of us don't get. You'll be surprised how much that helps 6/
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