Is the United States heading towards a dictatorship?
The Far-Right Danger is Real.
On January 9th 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol began its televised hearings into the January 6th Trump-inspired riot during which hundreds of hooligans stormed into the U.S. Capitol building.
At least five people died as a direct result of the riot. An unknown number of rioters were injured – five were hospitalized — and at least 138 police officers were injured, with 15 hospitalized.
The Donald Trump-inspired mob built a gallows in front of the Capitol building, threatening as they stormed the building to literally hang Vice President Mike Pence. His crime? His refusal to give in to pressures to ignore the validated Presidential election results that proved Joe Biden had won and to illegally certify Trump as the winner instead.
One would hope that with the January 6th 2021, riot now long past, there is nothing more to worry about. In fact, quite the opposite is the case.
Former President Trump’s deranged base continues to believe that he, not Joe Biden, won the election. This is in sprite of the fact that Trump’s then Attorney General, Bill Barr, has publicly stated on numerous occasions that Trump’s allegations of voter fraud are a total fiction.
Not surprisingly, a large majority of Americans no longer believe in the integrity of their electoral system. The seeds are being planted for a coup.
Interviewer Paul Jay recently discussed the power of Christian extremism in the U.S. military and in Congress with Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and the threat these “Christian nationalists” pose to American democracy.
Christian nationalists, according to Weinstein, are people who want an autocratic religious American state based on fundamentalist Christianity. Weinstein estimates that between 28% and 34%, maybe 35% of the military would qualify as Christian nationalists.
Weinstein believes that the threat of a coup in the U.S. is very real and that the country is one major incident away from a civil war.
The threat exists for Canada as well, given Canada’s close trading relationship with the United States. Paul Jay suggests that this kind of government in the U.S could easily use access to the American market to overthrow any Canadian government that doesn’t at the very least comply in some way.
The American far right is just waiting for the opportune time to execute their plan to impose a military dictatorship.
The danger is real.
And the fast-approaching climate crisis – to say nothing of inflation and the ongoing pandemic –may bring about just the set of conditions that will give these dark forces that window of opportunity.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (June 16, 2022): 420.73ppm
One year ago (June 16, 2021): 419.21 pm
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