The Politics of Innocence

[Chris]

A new era of politics, or just a continuation of the old?

The Politics of Innocence

...The American regime, founded on the idea of limited government, presumed that citizens were competent and largely capable of taking care of themselves. Our competence was developed, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, through the mediating institutions of family, church, civic associations, and municipal government. No citizen competence, no limited government. That was Tocqueville’s formula—the American formula.

The first phase of the American regime, characterized by citizen competence, lasted for more than a century. Supplanting it was the second, progressive, phase of the American regime, in which expert competence purportedly replaced citizen competence. The Biden administration came to power claiming the mantle of expert competence. “The adults are back in charge,” our legacy media jubilantly proclaimed.

The failings of the so-called adults in the Biden administration are a consequence of a shift to a third phase of the American regime, a shift so large that it would be more accurate to say it is the end of one type of regime and its replacement by another. The American fixation on the politics of competence, whether citizen or expert, is being replaced by the politics of innocence.

In this new politics, what matters most is your standing as an innocent victim. If you are not an innocent victim, you are anonymous or, more likely, a threat....

See posts by midcan or richard or jet to see examples of the right as threat.

[RMNIXON]

We are certainly doing all we can to make it easier to fail both in personal life and in Government Service.

Have you noticed that "The Buck Stops Here" Biden people have endless excuses for everything negative happening under his watch, and the left media repeat all of them. Very rare that they question anything.

[Chris]

Yes, the Biden people seem to find it easy to push the buck onto outside threats.

[Chris]

The whole idea is to demonize the right, not with facts, but mere rhetoric.

Obama assails 'politics of meanness' as he campaigns in Virginia governor race

Former President Barack Obama exhorted Virginians to support Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s candidacy for governor, warning of the dire consequences for the state and the country if he were to lose.

“We’re at a turning point right now both here and in America and around the world. There's a mood out there, we see it: a politics of meanness,” Obama told an estimated crowd of around 2,000 people on a sun-dappled afternoon at Virginia Commonwealth University.

...Obama also said Younkin has attempted to “quietly cultivate support from those who seek to tear down our democracy.”...

[jet57]

A new era of politics, or just a continuation of the old?

The Politics of Innocence



See posts by midcan or richard or jet to see examples of the right as threat.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/escala...-united-states

This analysis makes several arguments. First, far-right terrorism has significantly outpaced terrorism from other types of perpetrators, including from far-left networks and individuals inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Right-wing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994, and the total number of right-wing attacks and plots has grown significantly during the past six years. Right-wing extremists perpetrated two thirds of the attacks and plots in the United States in 2019 and over 90 percent between January 1 and May 8, 2020. Second, terrorism in the United States will likely increase over the next year in response to several factors.