“Republicans talk incessantly about other people’s violence. The rioters who burned buildings after George Floyd’s death. The criminals who make Chicago a murder capital. Immigrants who supposedly terrorize their host nation (they don’t). Criminal violence is a problem, but the kind of violence Republicans are now flirting with or sometimes outright endorsing is political – and therefore on a completely different plane of threat. Kyle Rittenhouse, an ill-supervised teenager who decided to grab an AR-15 and shoot people at a Kenosha riot (killing two and wounding one) was lionized by the GOP. His mother got a standing ovation at a fundraiser in Waukesha.”

“Ashli Babbitt has become a martyr. Allen West, former chair of the Texas GOP, speaks approvingly of secession. Former national security advisor and Trump confidant Michael Flynn suggests that we need a Myanmar-style coup. Some 28 percent of Republicans respond affirmatively to the proposition that ‘because things have gotten so far off track’ in the U.S., ‘true American patriots may have to resort to violence’ to save the country. Maybe that’s not so bad? Not even a third. Another poll framed it differently: ‘The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.’ Fifty-six percent of Republicans agreed. They are playing with fire. Nothing less than democratic legitimacy is on the line. These menacing signals suggest that January 6 may have been the overture, not the finale” – The Bulwark.