frontpage: sun oct 11

Okay, let's unpack this because The New York Times just published a sprawling investigation into the sheer terror that American public officials are facing right now.

Yeah, and it's pretty harrowing stuff.

It is.

I mean, if you still picture politics as, you know, town halls and baby kissing, today's papers are gonna just rip that illusion to shreds.

Since 2024, violent threats have targeted forty-four governors, seventy US senators, and nearly half of the entire House of Representatives.

Which is just a staggering volume of threats.

We are talking about explicit, uh, throat cutting threats over the phone, a state attorney general receiving a text message that literally just read, "Bang, bang, bang."

Wow.

And actual kinetic violence, like the firebombing of Governor Josh Shapiro's home.

It's almost like volunteering for a military deployment at this point.

That's actually a really apt way to frame it.

The sheer volume of these incidents has essentially created a, well, a new occupational hazard for public service.

Right.

We're well beyond the occasional angry constituent.

This is systemic intimidation.

Yeah, and it makes me think of the, uh, the evaporative cooling effect in physics.

Oh, sure.

You know, where the moderate low energy particles escape the system, and it leaves behind only the most volatile, highly agitated ones to run the whole machine.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, when Senator Elissa Slotkin in Michigan gets swatted-

And swatting is just incredibly dangerous.

Right, where someone fakes a police report to send a heavily armed tactical team to her house, and in her case, her dying father had to answer the door to rifles in his face.

Like, who is going to willingly sign up for that? How does this level of fear change the very machinery of our democracy?

That evaporative cooling analogy is really spot on.

Uh, swatting isn't just a prank.

Okay, let's unpack this because The New York Times just published a sprawling investigation into the sheer terror that American public officials are facing right now.

Yeah, and it's pretty harrowing stuff.

It is.

I mean, if you still picture politics as, you know, town halls and baby kissing, today's papers are gonna just rip that illusion to shreds.

Since 2024, violent threats have targeted forty-four governors, seventy US senators, and nearly half of the entire House of Representatives.

Which is just a staggering volume of threats.

We are talking about explicit, uh, throat cutting threats over the phone, a state attorney general receiving a text message that literally just read, "Bang, bang, bang."

Wow.

And actual kinetic violence, like the firebombing of Governor Josh Shapiro's home.

It's almost like volunteering for a military deployment at this point.

That's actually a really apt way to frame it.

The sheer volume of these incidents has essentially created a, well, a new occupational hazard for public service.

Right.

We're well beyond the occasional angry constituent.

This is systemic intimidation.

Yeah, and it makes me think of the, uh, the evaporative cooling effect in physics.

Oh, sure.

You know, where the moderate low energy particles escape the system, and it leaves behind only the most volatile, highly agitated ones to run the whole machine.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, when Senator Elissa Slotkin in Michigan gets swatted-

And swatting is just incredibly dangerous.

Right, where someone fakes a police report to send a heavily armed tactical team to her house, and in her case, her dying father had to answer the door to rifles in his face.

Like, who is going to willingly sign up for that? How does this level of fear change the very machinery of our democracy?

That evaporative cooling analogy is really spot on.

Uh, swatting isn't just a prank.