ACTUAL DISCUSSION IS THE WAY FORWARD, BUT WILL WE TAKE IT? The elite and media response to the riot at the Capitol has been of one voice: this is an attack on “our democracy.” What they don’t understand (or refuse to) is that if you think the election was unfree and unfair, as 30-40% of people apparently do according to polling, the fake election was the attack on democracy, and it already happened, making the government illegitimate! The endless hot takes by people racing to be the first or most vigorous to give these people the “to a gas chamber – go!” treatment, rather than trying to convince them they’re wrong about the election itself, is the opposite of what a healthy polity would produce, and vastly different from the elite reaction to the riots this summer. It’s straight out of the campus playbook I’ve dealt with for the last 17 years, and the consequences are likely to be even more dangerous.

(Bumped, by Glenn, because this is important.)