excerpt from
The clear and present danger of Trump's enduring 'Big Lie'
<Beyond his committee's mission of uncovering what happened on Jan. 6 itself, Kinzinger has broader questions.
"More importantly in my mind, what is the rot in the system that led up to Jan. 6? And where have we come since? And how do we stop anything like this from happening again?" he asks. " 'Cause even though Jan. 6 technically failed, there's a lot of areas where you can learn from, if your goal is to overthrow a legitimate election and potentially do it successfully next time."
And that is precisely the lesson from history, says Yale professor Timothy Snyder.
"It wasn't enough, but next time, it could well be enough. And the fact that it's been rehearsed makes me worry," he says. "This is what historians and political scientists who study coups d'etat say. They say a failed coup is practice for a successful one."
What we're potentially looking at, Snyder warns, is nothing less than the end of the democratic United States as we've come to know it.
"That's just the reality," he says. "And in order to prevent things from being frightening, you have to look right at them and say, 'OK, that's the monster. How can I disassemble it? How can I take it to pieces? How can I make sure that that story isn't our only story?' But it will be unless we tell it to ourselves straight."
We have to confront that reality, Snyder says, if we are to find the courage and conviction to do something about it.>
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/23/1065277246/trump-big-lie-jan-6-election
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