José Niño
Politics in America is turning out to be incredibly polarized, to the point where basic political norms are no longer respected.
The 2016 and 2020 elections featured their own sets of election legitimacy controversies. Democrats were convinced that Russia installed former President Donald Trump in office in 2016, whereas many Republicans believed that the 2020 election was stolen.
The latter perception is obviously more grounded in reality than the former. Nevertheless, the gripes people have had with the past two elections show that there are electoral legitimacy questions in the US, which illustrates the growing lack of confidence people have with the current system.
Currently, we are seeing growing incidents of people, who are disenchanted with the political system, using extra-political means to air out their grievances.
Just look at the case of Nicholas Roske, the individual arrested for allegedly attempting the assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was one of the conservative Supreme Court justices who former President Donald Trump selected to solidify the conservative slant of the court. This has infuriated the Left, especially in light of recent Supreme Court rulings on abortion and the Second Amendment that have not gone their way.
According to an FBI report, Roske even had plans to target two other Supreme Court justices and was seeking advice online on Internet forums on how to carry out those attacks.
Roske was allegedly communicating with users on Reddit, where he spilled the beans about his plan to kill Kavanaugh and two other Supreme Court justices.
The FBI uncovered one conversation between Roske and an internet user that went as follows:
“im gonna stop roe v wade from being overturned,” Roske said to the internet user per Fox News. The user replied, “what u tryna do.””Remove some people from the Supreme Court,” Roske replied.The unknown user said, “two dead judges ain’t gonna do nothing. The whole government is f*cked There’s no fixing that You would die before you killed them all.”
“Yeah but I could get at least one, which would change the votes for decades to come, and I am shooting for 3 all of the major decisions for the past 10 years have been along party lines so if there are more liberal than conservative judges, they will have the power,” Roske said in response.
On June 8, 2022, Roske was arrested standing outside the home of Kavanaugh in Chevy Chase, Maryland. When he was arrested, Roske was armed with a gun and knife. He allegedly told law enforcement that he was outside Kavanaugh’s home in order to kill him.
With how polarized and unstable US politics is turning, Roske’s case is likely a model that many other political radicals will try to emulate, sadly.
This country must have strong political leadership in order to restore confidence in institutions. If our political class is not able to rise to the occasion and pass policies that benefit all Americans and restore order, more chaotic incidents will follow.
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