Forget Russia – Americans pose greatest threat to America
conspiracy to kidnap democratically elected governor Gretchen Whitmer as 13 armed men planned to start a “civil war”.
She later went on to cite Trump’s stoking of divisions for the plot.
“When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight. When our leaders meet with, encourage or fraternise with domestic terrorists, they legitimise their actions and are complicit,” she said. “When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit. When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit.”
It wasn’t difficult to understand why Trump was in her crosshairs.
Inspired by the President’s demands to “liberate Michigan”, the kidnap attempt came just months after gun-toting demonstrators barged into Michigan’s Capitol building during protests over stay-home Covid orders that enraged many on the far right.
At one point Trump even pushed Whitmer to make a deal with the armed protesters, tweeting that “Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry”.
Those “very good people” were not to be mistaken, of course, with the “very fine people” Trump earlier said were among the armed white nationalists who turned the 2017 Charlottesville rally deadly.
The growing unrest among Americans has not gone unnoticed. Only last week, the Department of
Homeland Security released its first annual Homeland Threat Assessment report, the findings of which were shocking.
It discovered homegrown “ideologically motivated lone offenders and small groups pose the most likely terrorist threat” – more so than Al Qaeda or ISIS.
Cases like in Michigan and Denver show just how divided America has become.
The country is becoming unrecognisable to its allies as the deep troubles here are laid bare before the world.
America would do well to heed the lessons history has taught her. Systemic racism and the backlash against this ongoing social disorder only benefits those who practise the politics of fear and division, disguised under the name of law and order.
With a presidential election now just three weeks away America can surely not let the forces of chaos and conflict win again.
MEGHAN Markle this week warned against the pitfalls of social media, likening users to drug addicts.
The 39-year-old drew the striking comparison as she appeared at US business magazine Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Virtual Summit on Tuesday.
“There are very few things in this world where you call the person who’s engaging with it ‘a user’. People who are addicted to drugs are called users and people who are on social media are called users,” Meghan said.
Speaking via Zoom she added: “I have made a personal choice not to have any account so I don’t know what’s out there and in many ways that’s helpful for me.
“I do have concerns for people who have become obsessed with it and it has become a part of our daily culture for so many people, it’s an addiction like many others. There is something algorithmically that is creating this obsession and I think that’s very unhealthy for a lot of people.”
It was an astonishing turn around for Meghan.
Before finding global fame as member of the royal family the Duchess was an Instagram junkie with her prolific use of the social media site to further her own career. Makes you wonder what changed.
The country is becoming unrecognisable as the deep troubles here are laid bare