quote:

a much-discussed essay written not long after Jan. 6 by Glenn Ellmers, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, the foremost pro-Trump think tank.

“Most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term,” Ellmers wrote. Because of their mischief, “our norms are now hopelessly corrupt and need to be destroyed.” All true patriots must come together in their shared purpose. “It’s all hands on deck.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com...lantes-insurrection/

That might be one of the most frightening things I've read recently.

quote:

President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might deplore this as an “assault on our democracy,” but “what they mean by ‘our democracy’ is their oligarchy,” the author and journalist Roger Kimball said in a September speech at Hillsdale College.

I have been exposed to a reasonable amount of extreme leftist philosophizing that sees American political institutions as an inherently (irredeemably) corrupt enabler of the capitalist American Oligarchy. As a result, I don't see this language or this kind of disrespect for "old fashioned" democratic norms as particularly the province of the extreme right.

Delete a few words about "assaults on democracy" and replace with some moderate policy language from Democrats about policing ... and Biden/Pelosi become illegitimate tools of capitalist repression, and the institutions they lead become legitimate targets of violent overthrow.

The difference, of course, is that one side seems to have thoroughly captured a major political party.