The normalization of death threats as standard right wing political behavior has already hollowed out local election workers, now it’s risking educators and our public health corps.
Remind me again why journalists still don’t treat this as an acute, national emergency?
A USPHS officer told me, "if they equipped and trained us like the Navy - gave us a sidearm, body armor, took care of our families, then maybe. But they don't"
Fewer journalists who would also like to receive fewer death threats. Pelosi's husband was attacked and Romney hired personal security yet both seem pretty unmotivated to do anything legislative about it. It's deeply fucked up.
I've always said Trump was a 2nd-tier mob boss (too afraid to get his own hands dirty to be 1st tier) and he's using the same techniques as the mob -- play ball or else. The other people who regularly used threats of violence for political ends were, of course, the Brownshirts.
They are dismantling the administrative state one low-level worker at a time. This strategy depends on those above them not actually caring enough to provide protection for front-line workers.
This is the strategy the unions used to wear down 19th century capital and win major concessions.
