Wouldn't it be convenient if a massive spectacle was to occur, whereby the US public could see in 4K HDR the danger that populist political candidates introduce to the system, how it "threatens our most sacred institution: Democracy.
And as luck would have it, along comes a massive throng of obviously angry and delusional Trump supporters, with well advertised (and well known to authorities) plans to descend on the US Capitol, to "rescue Democracy", or some such nonsense.
So, what do you do in a situation where you have hordes of angry (and possibly armed) political extremists heading towards a politically strategic location, on a particularly important day (in your democracy)?
Do you:
a) Beef up security
b) Not beef up security
It seems like option (b) was chosen. Depending on what variable one is optimizing for, this was a terrible choice, or an excellent one.
As far as I can tell, this event seems to have had an extremely persuasive effect on the psyche and opinions of the average person. Who might benefit from this change in the mental state of the population, and in what ways?
Most people seem to find the very idea of thinking such thoughts to be extremely unpleasant, if not downright inappropriate. But to me, this is simple risk management. The lack of this sort of thinking in society seems downright dangerous to me.
I sometimes wonder what the origin of such norms is - is it organic (a common characteristic derived from evolution), or might it be synthetic?