Letter to the Editor: New radicalized politics are violent

Democracy is about getting what the majority wants. Democracy makes it possible for change to take place peacefully, according to election results. Those who lost made short concession speeches. At most, we got grumbles from a few of those who lost.

Well, everyone “played nice” until the 2020 election. At that time, the Republicans split into two factions: The first Republican faction — the “play nasty” faction — said Donald Trump was the real winner because Joe Biden’s “win” of the election was due to a “rigged election.”

The second Republican faction said there was really nothing wrong with the election, and Biden really won, legitimately. None of the investigations and recounts found any “rig” beyond minor human error. “Conspiracy theories,” such as the “2000 Mules” story, have been debunked.

This essay is about the continually increasing radicalization of the first faction. The second — “play nice” — faction (the real Republicans) deserve special recognition for upholding our democracy.

Below, I cite titles of internet articles because (a.) the title of the article gives the conclusion of the article, and (b.) you can easily do an internet search and verify how I am using the article. They are all free from open-access sites.

A study with the title, “The War Comes Home: The Evolution of Domestic Terrorism in the United States,” has a great deal of statistics. A quote about that report from a Politico Playbook e-newsletter (dated Nov. 1) says that the study show that “two-thirds of domestic terrorism ... came from far-right extremists and ... one-fifth came from far-left extremists.” I wonder if the far-left extremists could have been responding to the far right, which would make almost all political violence directly or indirectly caused by the far right.

An article with the title, “Pro-Trump Rally Warns Lindsey Graham, Top Dems to Face Death by Year’s End,” is amazing because it showed a projected image with photos of both Republicans, as well as Democrats! This is a minority movement on an extermination mission. At the top of the image is the sentence: “Angel of Death is coming for them by year-end.” Speakers at the rally included QAnon followers and 2020 election deniers. Are we going down the rabbit hole?

Another article, titled “MAGA’s Disturbing Transformation Into a Church, Trump Into Its Savior,” is mixing politics with religion. Do you want to replace our democracy with a theocracy like they have in Iran?

Another article has the title, “Pro-Trump Tour Flies Off The Rails Over ‘Demonic Satellites’ and ‘Deep State’ McDonald’s.” Yes, that McDonald’s is the international hamburger chain. Will our grocery stores be next in this demonization and demagoguery?

The election-steal story started with the 2020 election. But look at this article, “Lessons from pro-Trump election breaches across America,” on the Axios website. I quote from that article, “Four experts tell Axios the only significant, known breaches related to the 2020 election came from actors supporting former President Trump.” Read it yourself.

Arthur E. Sowers

Harbeson