Thanks to the venal mendacity and histrionics of right-wing media and politicians, there are still people in this country who believe the streets of Seattle are occupied by violent hordes of anarchists who roam freely, beyond the control of soft-on-crime, lefty civic leaders.
This misperception was formed in 2020 when six of blocks on Capitol Hill were given over to a largely peaceful encampment of anti-racism protesters, an “autonomous zone” that fizzled out in less than a month. To now allege that Seattle is a hell hole wracked with crime and insurrection is no more true than the canard that Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., are similarly consumed by chaos.
Yet, the Trump administration has used these falsehoods to justify sending armed troops into both LA and the nation’s capital with the implied threat that military units could be sent to Seattle, Chicago and other cities governed 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 moves to seize more power and punish his enemies suggest that may be his dream — then he is enabled, not just by right-wing ideologues and armed extremists, but by the millions of deluded Americans who believe his lies and the lies they are fed by Fox News and social media.
Hannah Arendt, the 20th century historian and philosopher who fled Nazi Germany, invented the term “the banality of evil.” Yes, authoritarians need a cadre fiercely committed to their cause, but Arendt said they depend, even more, on the many others who are not particularly ideological, yet rally to the dictator because they believe his lies and distorted version of the truth.
How many of those people do we have in the United States? Enough to give one aspiring authoritarian a second term in the White House.
See more of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View other syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
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