The Minnesota governor said that the path to tyranny “is littered with people telling you you’re overreacting”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was testifying before Congress about his state’s handling of immigration when he learned Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security news conference Thursday.
The irony, he told the attendees of the Center for American Progress’ “Listening to Lead” event Friday, was in lawmakers grilling him and his colleagues, Govs. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y. and JB Pritzker, D-Ill., over the “incredible crime of treating people like human beings” as FBI agents tackled a sitting senator to the ground and handcuffed him in Los Angeles.
“I am not prone to hyperbole. I am prone to, like, popping off a little bit. I know that,” Walz said, prefacing his argument that Americans are living in a “dangerous” time. “I believed all along we were marching towards authoritarianism, and people were telling me in December, ‘You know, you’re overreacting.’ And I said, “The road to authoritarianism is littered with people telling you you’re overreacting.”
It’s technically redundant, but it’s also meaningful, intentional, and warranted. Especially when at least half of our legacy media establishment is committed to grossly misrepresenting the entire fascistic political movement, and the other half seems to be going whole hog on false equivalence and theatrical shock at entirely predictable authoritarian developments.
It’s a lot like how we need to refer to the rapist Brock Turner (who is a rapist), for the simple reason that it needs to be aggressively forced into public perception. A lot like how the rapist Brock Turner aggressively forced himself on his rape victim, except the outcome here is increased public knowledge instead of Brock Turner (the rapist) getting his jollies.
I agree. I also think a bit of humor can help spread a message. I think the statement is kinda funny and I do think they are terrorists, and so do they.