Peg -- if anything, it's amazing that that was the first time you've heard such talk speaking in person with such a one -- as has long been evident on this board, they are out there -- a solid 20%, maybe 25%, of our population anyway, hard-right, fundamentally (theo-)fascist to the core, many wanting, yearning for, a purging bloodbath in a violent absolutist/authoritarian revolution, a replay of the Civil War that would dwarf its toll and end the other way
it is not now and for some years now has not been just political business as usual in this post-Civil War country, even with the undercurrent of such hard-right stuff that has always been with us, from the start, and has always persisted since the Civil War -- this is a very particular time, and very particularly dangerous -- either the rest of us (continue to) at least adequately recognize the present situation for what it is and do enough to block the ambitions of our present hard right, or we don't -- where it is in fact difficult to overstate what all hangs in the balance