Matt Taibbi on Dick & Liz Cheney and the left's turn to authoritarianism.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-...oritarians
"Former Vice President Dick Cheney visited the House of Representatives yesterday. He and his daughter Liz were the only two Republicans present at a moment of silence commemorating the events of last January 6th. It was a touching scene, which perfectly described why the surviving anti-Trump Uniparty of the political mainstream is at least as much of a threat to democracy as the “insurrectionists” they never stop wailing about.
In a story entitled “Dick Cheney returns to the House and receives a warm welcome . . . from Democrats,” the Washington Post wrote that “Democrats put aside their fierce and lasting policy divides with the Cheneys to thank them for condemning the attack and Trump’s continued effort to undermine the 2020 presidential election results with his false claims of fraud.”
(News writing has become a pre-fab profession, like assembling IKEA furniture. All you need is an Allen wrench and a list of the latest clichés. “Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election” has replaced “Trump’s efforts to coordinate with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” and “Trump’s false claims of fraud” has replaced “Trump’s false claims of ‘fake news.’” Part of the significance of January 6th is that it updated popular propaganda stock, which had grown stale.)
I don’t mean to understate the seriousness of January 6th, even though it’s been absurdly misreported for over a year now. No one from a country where these things actually happen could mistake 1/6 for “a coup .” In the real version, the mob doesn’t take selfies and blaze doobies after seizing the palace,....
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The panic inspired convulsions across politics and the media. Ted Cruz made a plea for mainstream recognition by denouncing 1/6 as a “violent terrorist attack” before cowering in retreat on Tucker Carlson Tonight, in the process pantsing himself with audiences in all directions....
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Even if you find the Trump phenomenon troubling, his opposition is not only authoritarian, but organized and armed with the intellectual tools to understand and appreciate how the technological elimination of democracy might be achieved in the 21st century.
We’re living through a period where an unpleasantly likely outcome for the ordinary American is the invocation of emergency powers to eliminate basic rights. From which side is that threat most likely to come? The pattern during Trump’s presidency was hyping the Russian menace to justify increased surveillance and censorship. Russia has since been switched out in favor of two new emergency bugbears. The first is the rise of “domestic terrorism,” and if you don’t think Cheney-style democracy-canceling is on the minds of officials heading into the next presidential election, you haven’t been reading the growing pile of articles quoting military types advertising their preparations for counter-coup in 2024.
The second emergency of course is the pandemic, which ought to have been exhibit A in Trump’s uninterest in being a dictator — he could have legally invoked all sorts of powers and did not....
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This is why these people can’t be trusted with policies like vaccine passports and/or Merrick Garland’s plan to “methodically track” what he called “violent extremists” and domestic terrorists in the wake of 1/6. The latter idea is particularly troubling given that no one connected with that incident has been charged with anything like terrorism, for the simple reason that what happened wasn’t terrorism.
The potential applications for a souped-up domestic version of Cheney’s still-extant watch lists are horrific to consider. Are we going to widen the circle of people who will mysteriously find themselves unable to get bank accounts, transfer money, or attend schools? Do we want to leave it up to the White House to determine what’s reporting and what’s “obtaining national defense information,” particularly if they start stretching the concept to cover revelations about the pandemic? Yes, it’s a little ironic that some of the people now on those lists may have cheered their creation once upon a time, when the victims were mainly Muslims. But that doesn’t make the idea of expanding the policy any less asinine.
Cheney’s reappearance and the outpouring of loony commentary describing 1/6 as a “coup” or an “insurrection” (instead of something closer to the American version of a soccer riot) are related. ...."
