January 6th is burned into the memories of billions of people around the world where thousands of angry white guys, enraged by bullshit fed them by the president of the United States and his cronies, violently stormed the US Capitol with the intent of halting  the certification of an election, the result of which they didn’t like.  They stormed both chambers of Congress with the intent of making “citizens’ arrests” of duly elected representatives who they also didn’t like.

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The notion of vigilantes “arresting” people they don’t like or disagree with is not just silly fantasy; it’s an extremely dangerous behavior, coddled in many states like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona where gun nuts and goofballs control the politics.  Said gun nuts and goofballs, fed a continuous stream of nonsense about their “rights” on rightwing social media and television, actually believe they are somehow deputized to enforce non-existent laws they unilaterally have decided violate their absolute right to do what they want.  Law enforcement and elected officials have let them get away with it, and that’s how you get dozens of “militias” marching into cities to “provide security” during racist demonstrations and brainwashed extremists storming the Capitol with zip tie handcuffs to “arrest” elected officials.

It happened again last week when a father and two of his friends showed up at an elementary school in Arizona brandishing zip tie handcuffs to “arrest” the principal for “breaking the law”.  The supposed law she broke was asking the father to quarantine his son after he was exposed to a COVID positive classmate at the school.  The brainwashed father was outraged by public health policy established to protect citizens, and in his libertarian fever dream believed he had the authority to stop that public policy by “arresting” the principal.  Lord knows what would have happened to her had they accomplished their self appointed task.  The principal stood up to them and when they refused to leave, called police.  The man had one of his friends stream the confrontation on Instagram, stupidly incriminating himself and his pals.  He was later arrested, and charges were being prepared for the other two goons.

This latest episode of brainwashed extremists acting as vigilantes is yet another example of the danger of disinformation and cynical use of propaganda to achieve political success.  Republicans in Congress are actually attempting to conceal the conspiracy with Trump to overturn the election, and others are using non-existent voter fraud, disinformation about public health policy, and the divisive abortion issue to keep the base in a froth and as an excuse to enact cruel public policy to serve their own political ends.

I keep waiting for the political pendulum to begin swinging back the other way, but it keeps its inexorable climb on the far right end of the arc towards more insanity and cruelty.  Short of a complete collapse of the GOP, I fear this won’t end well as violence seems to be the default response to sane public policy.