The examples abound of America’s lurch toward greater extremism on both the right and left. It’s getting to the point where free speech is being stifled by self-righteous word police on the left and screaming, armed lunatics on the far right. Each side uses the other’s examples as justification for even more extreme behavior, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis so aptly demonstrated with his derisive reference to Dr. Anthony Fauci, saying, “Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.”
Supporters of former President Donald Trump, apparently unsatisfied with the results of their armed insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, are now calling online for attacks on the FBI and the launching of civil war. Two right-wing militants were convicted last week of conspiring to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
Other countries that failed to stop their drift toward the extremes saw nothing but pain and hardship, as Germans and Russians can attest. Central America is still reeling from bloody civil conflicts in the 1980s that culminated in direct attacks on the Catholic Church and the assassination in El Salvador of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero because right-wing militants didn’t like his words.
