Ever since Donald Trump became a former president, news outlets and commentators have cited polls showing that many Republicans believe violence might be needed to save the country. As Trump's legal woes worsen, so do mainstream media warnings about the specter of violent response. But we've heard virtually nothing about the connections between two decades of nonstop U.S. warfare overseas and attitudes favoring political violence at home.
For more than 20 years, a bipartisan approach in Congress and the Oval Office has made sure that the United States uses enormous and lethal violence abroad. Stripped of the usual noble rhetoric, that approach amounts to "might makes right," an easy conceit when the U.S. military is by far the most powerful in the world. Reinforced in the name of a "war on terror," this self-righteous posturing has made perpetual war seem normal.
