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This is why the "calm down and let the process play out," "this is not who we are," "the institutions will save us," is so dangerous, arrogant, and stupid. It is a position born of ignorance and privilege.
It is a willful blindness to human history and human nature, a condescending belief that Americans are somehow constitutionally different—and superior to—the other 7 bln people on this planet, that our nature is one of calm deliberation, not violence—like *those* people.
It is a willful disregard for evidence screaming you in the face and therefore an inability to understand why things play out the way they do, leading to surprised and naive declarations of "this is not who we are."
It's not who we are until it is. It can't happen here until it does. The system works until it doesn't. The institutions hold until they don't. We're different than those other countries until we're not.
Americans are not ubermenschen. We are people. We are subject to the same forces of history and politics as the citizens of every other country on earth. We are not immune. We are not different. We are not superior.
It is time to stop lying to ourselves. It is time to listen to the voices—many of them black and brown as well as those who know and understand authoritarianism—who have been predicting every step of this fiasco for years.
This is who we are.
This is who we are.
