I think they’ve been pushing for it long before Jan 6th. Had to look up how long ago Ruby Ridge and the Bundy case happened. That anti-government rhetoric and Second Amendment supporter mashup is the toxic stew they’ve been marinating in since Reagan.
I have to disagree. The major problem that hasn’t been resolved yet is that the extremists on the right and their allies (corporate interests, wealthy individuals, and those willing to gain profit or power no matter what the cost to others) are dominating the dialogue and they have been working on that since the '80s. Now, we are seeing the terrible payoff for allowing all of their “media spin,” lies, mischaracterizations, and manipulation of the facts air 24/7, make front page news, and achieve the highest ranking on social media. Those reports were lightly challenged or contested, if at all, and of course facts, truth, and retractions wound up somewhere near the back page, or as follow-up pieces which gain a fraction of the attention of the original.
Publications and news networks that used to be considered bastions of the left have been corrupted by their corporate owners, so now they are echo chambers that will take any poll, ill-considered study, or opinion piece, and publish it. The GOP/GQP used both-siderism to game the press so that it all largely reflects their interests and views, and casts anything positive from the left in a negative or threatening light. It’s gotten so bad that even supposedly liberal late night talk show hosts are repeating these talking points as jokes.
Hence the unchecked Biden-bashing (active and passive) we see on a regular basis, in terms of the pandemic, the supply chain, the economy, and the stock market. Every gain is immediately followed by some measure to detract from or derail it, but for some reason, I haven’t seen much in the press about how that mysteriously happens every time. Stock market starts to rally, and suddenly a few tech firms or industry leaders make announcements or make moves to tank it again. I expect this to continue through the mid-terms, because the narrative they are pushing is “the economy is bad because Democrats are in charge.”
The big challenge is getting that message to the people when those in opposition control most of the media. It’s in the interest of media moguls and pols to keep people uniformed and fighting each other, rather than paying attention to what they are doing. This is how they repeatedly convince people to vote against their own interests.
