On Tyranny Lesson 6: Be Wary of Paramilitaries

This is the next lesson from Timothy Snyder's excellent book, On Tyranny. He does a good job of sharing with us how the merger of paramilitaries and police and military forces are an important red flag when it comes to the health of our democracy. Once we get to that point, as he notes, the end democracy as we know it has happened. That paramilitaries and legitimate police and military forces can merge in the run-up to a successful coup and the consolidation of power is something that we can find plenty of evidence for in our history books. We are not special in the US. We have our own paramilitary forces (e.g., Proud Boys, Three Percenters, etc.) who have at least some allies in law enforcement and in the military. Given that we had a coup attempt in January 2021, we needed a much more comprehensive understanding of how that coup happened and to what extent the paramilitaries involved were enabled by law enforcement. I think we got some clues from the January 6 Commission when it was operating in Congress in 2021 and 2022, and from special prosecutor Jack Smith's work. And although Smith's work will ultimately come to nought insofar as a criminal conviction of Trump goes, it will still offer us a window into how that particular failed coup happened. As Dr. Snyder notes, a failed coup is predictive of future coup attempts, so we really need to be mindful. One question that I don't think has been answered adequately is how interconnected police departments and military units are to these paramilitaries. We really need to know that if we want to be able to nip the next coup attempt in the bud. In the meantime, be mindful. We regrettably live in some very interesting times.

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