Max Boot: Republicans are fomenting a violent insurgency in America. It may have already started.

The United States has a serious problem with political violence, particularly right-wing violence, which has overtaken Islamist attacks as the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat. The list of right-wing outrages includes Oklahoma City 1995 (168 dead), Pittsburgh 2018 (11 dead) and El Paso 2019 (23 dead). The 2020 Kenosha, Wis., shooting, which left two dead, is part of the same alarming trend. Even though Kyle Rittenhouse was found last week to have acted in self-defense, he remains morally culpable for showing up with an assault-style rifle at a protest, looking for trouble.

In many other instances — e.g., the 2018 pipe bombing attempts targeting critics of President Donald Trump — tragedy was only narrowly averted. The Jan. 6 riot was both horrible and not nearly as bad as it could have been: Though 140 police officers were injured in the worst assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812, the insurrectionists did not succeed in killing or kidnapping any lawmakers.

Faced with this alarming trend, a responsible political party would damp down its incendiary rhetoric and urge its supporters to moderate their zeal. That is not what Republicans are doing. They continue to fan the flames of hatred, violence and division.

Many on the right routinely depict Democrats as America’s enemies. At one recent conference, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said, “The left hates America,” while Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said: “Their grand ambition is to deconstruct the United States of America.” At the same time, Republicans make a fetish of gun ownership and use; weapons of war are the hottest fashion accessory in GOP campaign ads.

The message many Republicans receive is that violence is justified to save the United States from a leftist takeover. An audience member at a pro-Trump event spoke for many when he asked: “When do we get to use the guns?”

An American Enterprise Institute poll found that 39 percent of Republicans believe, “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.” Another survey by the University of Chicago found that 21 million adults believe the “use of force is justified” to restore Trump to the presidency. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/22/republicans-are-fomenting-violent-extremism-are-also-hostage-extremists/

Nicholas Goldberg: Focusing on Trump may be a bad strategy for Democrats. But let’s be honest: He’s the real issue

Republican officeholders who have sold their souls by cravenly capitulating to Trump and his falsehoods about the 2020 election should be voted out of Congress. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and his ilk have shown themselves to be dangerous and unprincipled, and they should pay for their irresponsibility.

I know there are plenty of Republicans who think that people like me are still in the grip of some sort of Trump derangement syndrome. But in my view, a second Trump term in office would be catastrophic for the United States, its reputation, its moral standing, its democratic process and its peace and security — not to mention for the future of the climate and the planet.

The mere possibility of a Trump restoration in 2024 should have voters of all parties leaping from their couches as if stung and running for the polls to vote no.

Sure, issues matter. It would be highly presumptuous of me to suggest voters shouldn’t be concerned about taxes and inflation and schools and all the other matters that make life easier or harder to live day-to-day. Democratic incumbents of course must persuade voters that they’re making progress fulfilling the promises they made during the last campaign.

But honestly, with the exception of climate change, it’s hard to think of any single issue that matters as much as the possibility of Trump’s return. And empowering his sycophants and enablers in the midterm empowers Trump himself two years later.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-15/democratic-strategy-trump-midterm-elections

 Michelle Cottle:The G.O.P. Has a Bad Men Problem

How upbeat is the Republican Party about its prospects for taking control of the House and Senate next year?

So upbeat that it apparently is cool with the fact that in three Senate races — Georgia, Missouri and Pennsylvania — it has leading candidates who have been accused of harassing, abusing, threatening or otherwise mistreating women.

Once upon a time, this situation likely would have provoked a major display of concern, or at least an attempt at damage control, by the Republican establishment. Instead many party officials are brushing off related questions like pesky bits of dryer fluff.

While the particulars of these cases vary — the allegations, the candidates’ responses, the warmth of the party’s embrace — the creeping not-so-casual misogyny is indicative of the dark path down which former President Donald continues to lead the G.O.P.

It is not simply that Mr. Trump has long worn his shabby treatment of women like a perverse merit badge — a symbol of how the rules of decent society do not apply to him. He also has made the Republican Party a welcoming place for other like-minded men. As president, rarely did he confront a harassment or abuse scandal in which he didn’t make clear his sympathies for the accused and his skepticism of the accusers. Pity the poor harasser. So misunderstood. So persecuted by humorless prigs. It almost takes the fun out of groping random chicks. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/19/opinion/trump-gop-misogyny.html

Christopher Mathias: Tucker Carlson's Jan. 6 'Documentary' Is His Most Nakedly Fascist Piece Of Propaganda Yet

Tucker Carlson’s “Patriot Purge,” a revisionist history of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, clocks in at an easily binge-watchable 70 minutes, spread over three episodes. It’s produced with the aesthetics and narrative suspense of an action thriller. The good guys are the “patriots” who stormed the Capitol. The bad guys are those in the media and government who are persecuting them. “The left is hunting the right,” Carlson warns his viewers.

It is the most nakedly fascist piece of propaganda Carlson has ever produced. And it comes at a dangerous moment: The insurrection is on its way to becoming as noble an enterprise as the Boston Tea Party for large parts of the American right.

“Patriot Purge” is deeply conversant with far-right mythologies about Jan. 6 and broader fantasies about supposed persecution of far-right groups by the federal government. That’s not surprising, considering who worked on the series: Carlson co-wrote “Patriot Purge” with a man who previously produced white nationalist movies, and the series counts two white nationalists among its protagonists. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-patriot-purge-is-fascist-january-6-revisionism_n_6192b4a9e4b05e93cbb3c1d7

Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg: Why We Are Leaving Fox News

Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis. But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible. 

A case in point: Patriot Purge, a three-part series hosted by Tucker Carlson. 

The special—which ran on Fox’s subscription streaming service earlier this month and was promoted on Fox News—is presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions. And its message is clear: The U.S. government is targeting patriotic Americans in the same manner —and with the same tools—that it used to target al Qaeda. 

“The domestic war on terror is here. It’s coming after half of the country,” says one protagonist. “The left is hunting the right, sticking them in Guantanamo Bay for American citizens—leaving them there to rot,” says another, over video of an individual in an orange jumpsuit being waterboarded.

This is not happening. And we think it’s dangerous to pretend it is. If a person with such a platform shares such misinformation loud enough and long enough, there are Americans who will believe—and act upon—it.

This isn’t theoretical. This is what actually happened on January 6, 2021.

Over the past five years, some of Fox’s top opinion hosts amplified the false claims and bizarre narratives of Donald Trump or offered up their own in his service. In this sense, the release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident, it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend. Patriot Purge creates an alternative history of January 6, contradicted not just by common sense, not just by the testimony and on-the-record statements of many participants, but by the reporting of the news division of Fox News itself. 

The tension between doing that work well and remaining loyal to Fox has tested us many times over the past few years. But with the release of Patriot Purge, we felt we could no longer “do right as we see it” and remain at Fox News. So we resigned. https://thedispatch.com/p/why-we-are-leaving-fox-news

David Brooks: Joe Biden Is Succeeding

If presidencies were judged by short-term popularity, the Biden effort would look pretty bad. But that’s a terrible measure. First-term presidents almost always see their party get hammered in the midterm after their inauguration. That’s especially true if the president achieved big things. Michigan State political scientist Matt Grossmann looked at House popular vote trends since 1953. Often when presidents succeeded in passing major legislation — Republicans as well as Democrats — voters swung against the president’s party. Look, just to take a recent example, at how Obamacare preceded a Democratic shellacking in 2010. People distrust change. Success mobilizes opposition. It’s often only in retrospect that these policies become popular and even sacred.

Presidents are judged by history, not the distraction and exhaustion of the moment. Did the person in the Oval Office address the core problem of the moment? The Biden administration passes that test. Sure, there have been failures — the shameful Afghanistan withdrawal, failing to renounce the excesses of the cultural left. But this administration will be judged by whether it reduced inequality, spread opportunity, created the material basis for greater national unity.

It is doing that. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/opinion/biden-infrastructure-stimulus-bill.html

Jennifer Rubin: It’s not ‘polarization.’ We suffer from Republican radicalization.

You know the argument: America is divided into warring camps. The center has collapsed. Compromise is impossible. We have become uncivil and angry.

While it’s true that the country is more deeply divided along partisan lines than it has been in the past, it is wrong to suggest a symmetrical devolution into irrational hatred. The polarization argument too often treats both sides as equally worthy of blame, characterizing the problem as a sort of free-floating affliction (e.g., “lack of trust”). This blurs the distinction between a Democratic Party that is marginally more progressive in policy positions than it was a decade ago, and a Republican Party that routinely lies, courts violence and seeks to define America as a White Christian nation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/18/its-not-polarization-we-suffer-republican-radicalization/

Griff Witte and Hannah Allam: Rittenhouse acquittal magnifies divisions in a polarized America

Ever since the early-morning hours that day in August 2020, when video footage of a teenager opening fire on the streets of Kenosha first started to circulate, Kyle Rittenhouse has been a human canvas onto which the nation’s political divisions were mapped.

To many on the right — including gun-rights groups, Trump loyalists and white supremacists — he was a folk hero, a vigilante for justice who had stood up to a rampaging mob.

Americans on the left, including racial-justice activists, gun-control advocates and police reformers, saw something quite different: a trigger-happy youth who had recklessly used his AR-15 to escalate an already-chaotic situation into the realm of deadly violence.

Those irreconcilable depictions played out vividly as news of Rittenhouse’s acquittal Friday on all counts in a Wisconsin courtroom ricocheted from coast to coast. Although the question before the jury had been relatively narrow — was Rittenhouse acting in self-defense, or not? — the jury’s decision was imbued with far greater resonance on both sides.

Rittenhouse’s defenders saw justice at work. His critics recorded one more count against a fundamentally unfair legal system.

Within seconds of the verdict, far-right forums were ablaze with celebratory messages and memes depicting Rittenhouse as a hero. In the Proud Boys public channel on Telegram, supporters mocked how upset “the left” would be once authorities release the gun used in the shootings, as is customary after an acquittal.

“NOT GUILTY!!!!!!!” tweeted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who had suggested earlier in the week he would offer Rittenhouse a congressional internship if he was acquitted.

“May Kyle and his family now live in peace,” added Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who urged her followers to donate to Rittenhouse’s legal defense. “Those who help, protect, and defend are the good guys.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/reaction-rittenhouse-verdict/2021/11/19/bd9c9ede-47d4-11ec-973c-be864f938c72_story.html

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The GOP bets on resentment over problem solving

The leaders of both parties in the House of Representatives offered the nation an important lesson last week about why our politics are broken and our national mood is so surly.

The master class was taught inadvertently by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and somewhat more consciously by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Their closing speeches on the Build Back Better bill passed by the House on Friday illustrates how our political parties are not even in the same business anymore.

The Republican enterprise is devoted to stoking anger and social resentment, not to enacting legislation. Democrats may take an eternity to do it, but they actually want to pass bills, create programs and spotlight day-to-day concerns (child care, health care) that government can plausibly address.

McCarthy’s 8 ½-hour rant reflected his need to mollify the GOP’s large right wing with a protracted, nihilistic scream of opposition, even if “some of his claims,” as The Post’s Marianna Sotomayor, Paul Kane and Jacqueline Alemany wrote, “wildly defied the facts.”

His marathon of negativity capped a week in which just two House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to censure Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) for tweeting an anime video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

The party’s collective refusal to draw a line against such odiousness speaks to a degree of extremism that is partly obscured by the willingness of a small number of Republicans, particularly in the Senate, to work with Democrats on a handful of issues.

The GOP now focuses on undermining our electoral system and stoking division across racial lines. In pursuit of these goals, Republicans are willing to tolerate and apologize for right-wing violence and intimations of violence by the likes of Gosar. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/21/gop-bets-resentment-over-problem-solving/