Yesterday afternoon's internet and cell phone outage made it that much easier to sit in front of the TV, transfixed, by what was unfolding at the nation's Capitol.
UMD's Dr. Cindy Rugeley, head of the Political Science department, pulls no punches in her analysis of the events Wednesday. Demonstrations by thousands of President Trump's supporters turned violent and a mob swarmed the Capitol building. One person was shot and later died.
Rugeley, who is recommending a book called How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt for anyone concerned about this frightening turn in several years of frightening turns, points out that the threat is closer to home than we might realize. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, rumored to be a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate in 2022, tweeted (and then deleted) a call for President Trump to impose martial law in seven states - including Minnesota - apparently to overturn the results of the US presidential election in Trump's favor.
"We don't have a polarization problem," states Rugeley, flatly. "We have a democracy problem."
