Cult Nation

National politics has robbed us of our selves.

State and federal security officials are reportedly bracing for armed demonstrations in all 50 states next week. Measures include layered fencing and secure areas, deployment of tactical teams, and designation of a “national special security event.”

We appear on the verge of literal Balkanization, a Yugoslavia-style social breakdown. Two stories demonstrate how we got to this awful place.

The first person to die by violence in the Capitol riots was Ashlii Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who’d served in two wars and worked at a San Diego-area pool supply company. She was part of the huge crowd that poured over outer gates like a flood tide only to be stopped by a locked entrance to the Speaker’s Hall. Dressed in snow boots and a Trump flag she wore as a cape, Babbitt appeared to be trying to break through when a Capitol guard shot her in the neck: