Due to the venal lying and histrionics of right-wing media and politicians, there are nonetheless individuals on this nation who believe the streets of Seattle are occupied by violent hordes of anarchists who roam freely, past the management of soft-on-crime, lefty civic leaders.
This misperception was shaped in 2020 when six of blocks on Capitol Hill got over to a largely peaceable encampment of anti-racism protesters, an “autonomous zone” that fizzled out in lower than a month. To now allege that Seattle is a hell gap wracked with crime and rebellion isn’t any extra true than the canard that Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., are equally consumed by chaos.
But, the Trump administration has used these falsehoods to justify sending armed troops into both LA and the nation’s capital with the implied menace that army models may very well be despatched to Seattle, Chicago and different cities ruled by Democrats.
Using false pretexts to employ military force against unarmed citizens is the tactic of authoritarians. If President Donald Trump aspires to be a dictator — and his many strikes to grab extra energy and punish his enemies recommend which may be his dream — then he’s enabled, not simply by right-wing ideologues and armed extremists, however by the hundreds of thousands of deluded People who imagine his lies and the lies they’re fed by Fox Information and social media.
Hannah Arendt, the twentieth century historian and thinker who fled Nazi Germany, invented the time period “the banality of evil.” Sure, authoritarians want a cadre fiercely dedicated to their trigger, however Arendt mentioned they rely, much more, on the numerous others who are usually not notably ideological, but rally to the dictator as a result of they imagine his lies and distorted model of the reality.
What number of of these individuals do we’ve got in america? Sufficient to present one aspiring authoritarian a second time period within the White Home.
See extra of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View different syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
Editor’s observe: Seattle Occasions Opinion not appends remark threads on David Horsey’s cartoons. Too many feedback violated our community policies and reviewing the handfuls that had been flagged as inappropriate required an excessive amount of of our restricted workers time. You possibly can remark by way of a Letter to the Editor. Please e-mail us at letters@seattletimes.com and embrace your full title, tackle and phone quantity for verification solely. Letters are restricted to 200 phrases.
