Jonathan Last: “After authoritarian regimes are toppled, monuments to the authoritarians are always removed. If you leave monuments to authoritarians standing, then you encourage (a) resistance from the out-of-power revanchists and (b) future strongmen who believe they can permanently mark history.”
“Would Trump supporters be antagonized by demolition of the Trump Presidential Palace Ballroom? I bet they would.”
“But we’ve tried the strategy of non-antagonism, in which Merrick Garland refrained from aggressively pursuing criminal accountability for Trump while Joe Biden shoveled money into red states to create jobs for Trump voters while building rural broadband and better roads to solve their Kitchen Table Issues.”
“Those acts of goodwill increased Trump’s vote share from 2020 to 2024. So maybe the way to persuade Republican voters to abandon their authoritarian project isn’t conciliation but domination.”
