The analogy is not quite the same. If someone is robbing your house, society has at a least a 99% consensus that this robbery is wrong. They will agree to invest society's resources towards investigation, prosecution, and prison. There is a great societal unity in how to handle this crime.
30% of Virginians voted for the Republican candidate in the gubernatorial election. That election was the opportunity for the voters to express their displeasure with how the Republicans have been acting since after January 6. What is on the mind of the 30%. Let me guess: they prefer a one-party oligarchy over a democracy.
Not only that, some of this 30% is willing to invoke mass civil unrest. Many of them are willing to die in this service. They only need the word from their leader. This "threat" has to be taken seriously by the people in charge. Maybe they made the right call by trying to go soft. Maybe not. Had they gone hard, the USA might be a 100 Waco-type situations by now. And that might be its future anyways.
If nothing else, the January 6 insurrection attempt clearly established the threat is very real. To say that the threat has not worked its ways into the deliberations of the people in charge would be naïve.
I kind of feel sorry for the people in charge trying to figure out the best way to handle this situation. Should they have gone hard early and risked an early rebellion? Or should they have waited to see if some of that political force dissipates? Who really knows? But there is nothing you or I or many other Medium political contributors can do to change the short-term future of the USA.
Joe Biden was talking tough this morning. Why? Does he know something to come down in the next few weeks? Is he forcing Mr. Trump to play some cards? Is this play based on an indepth psychological analysis of Mr. Trump and his base? (Yes, the psychologists are working full time on this matter). Or is the tough talk just an admission that the soft talk has not gained the results the Biden team was looking for? Unfortunately, you and I are not flies on the wall to understand why this statement was made today.
But we can still try to build this new democracy as that near future unfolds. We even build it during a one-party oligarchy. That is what we can control.
