[flylock shox]

Following on the issue of why the Rittenhouse story may be so ominous to some, there's this today in the Washington Post:

The goal of the rally was to oppose the deployment of federal agents to quell protests in American cities — and to register new Democratic voters here in the heart of conservative East Texas.

But it had hardly begun when hundreds of conservative counterprotesters and supporters of President Trump, many with military-style rifles slung over their shoulders, swarmed the town square and began pushing and shoving and yelling obscenities.

One man punched Democrat Nancy Nichols in the chest, she said, and three others pinned her husband against Tyler's war memorial. Other armed men were positioned around the edges of the square in military-style defensive formation, their hands clutching their rifles.

"They were yelling Democrats are f---ing idiots and Democrats are demons," recalled Nichols, 65. "It makes me feel angry that this is allowed and that our police are allowing this kind of hate-filled atmosphere to take over."

...


In a spate of exchanges that have spanned from Kalamazoo, Mich., and Bloomington, Ind., to Chicago and Portland, Ore., people on both sides of the United States’ political and cultural divide have been filmed exchanging punches, beating one another with sticks and flagpoles, or standing face-to-face with weapons, often with police appearing to be little more than observers.

...

“This isn’t a politician’s fight — this is a people’s fight,” said Martin Holsome, who sits on the Rusk, Tex., town council and is aligned with several armed Texas groups. “What we have seen over the past six months to a year has conditioned us for what is going to happen, and you can either condition yourself to be prepared for it or you can condition yourself to be subject to it.”