Violence Begets Violence -- Just The Way They Like It

[Cross-posted at Orcinus.]

Watching the scenes unfold last night from Chicago and elsewhere, it became obvious that, largely as many of us have feared, Donald Trump is indeed leading the United States merrily down the path to an outbreak of not-kidding-honest-to-God-real thing fascism or proto-fascism, all without himself being a hardened fascist ideologue, but rather a right-wing populist demagogue. Then again, the two phenomena are only degrees apart, and that is what we are now seeing on the streets of the American political landscape.

Of course, while it was fairly clear that the protesters were peaceful until attacked by the Trump rally-goers, the reality also was that fighting eventually broke out on all sides and there was violence all around. Naturally, that meant that the media were already out there flogging their favorite "both sides do it" narrative.

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