After a lifetime covering revolutions, insurgencies, dictatorships and strongmen leaders, I wondered if violence might possibly ever come back into American politics. Then the President of the United States threatened to shoot protestors and vowed to use “the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons… That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it..””
Authoritarian violence is demonstration violence. In other countries it can be done in the form of extrajudicial killings (Philippines) or assassinations (Brazil). In the USA, vicious dogs and Twitter threats. Celebrating officers for “loving” the use of force, and vowing to crush opponents with cruel, public violence, is a critical tool for anti-democratic leaders.
This can only escalate. Prepare.