A minority but significant part of the establishment has long favored Christian nationalist authoritarianism, as I wrote in The Family. This isn’t an accusation, just an observation based on their own correspondence in archives.

That doesn’t mean the threat now is nothing new. It is. Until now elite authoritarians angled for control within a somewhat democratic system. They stayed in the ring. Now they’re wading through the stands, hitting everybody and grabbing whatever they can.

Proud Boys, dangerous as they may be, are a distraction. The riot to really worry about isn’t the one they seem to be hoping for Jan 6; it’s the slo-mo riot of MAGA, chewing up the last vestiges of the establishment GOP in Congress and state legislatures.

In 1942, the founder of the National Prayer Breakfast--and a close advisor to many senators, including Homer Capehart, later a champion of SS men--called for Christian nationalists to follow the "strategy" of Hitler, but w/ Jesus instead of Adolf.

Many congressional members of that organization, the Family, have long endorsed authoritarianism abroad. I don't mean the way all US pols do, pretending it's democratic--they've endorsed authoritarianism for what it is. They say it's what Jesus wants.

(But "not all" members of the Family, scream the token centrists. That's true. But all members of the Family contributed to the clout with which it advocated for and even helped install authoritarians abroad.)

In their archived correspondence, members of the Family would occasionally fantasize about authoritarianism at home. But by & large, brutally or banally, they worked w/in a system. In part because the system was easy to game; in part because they couldn't imagine overthrowing it.

This is what's changed on the far right: Not just the nuts but the big wheels can now imagine overthrowing the system instead of gaming it. What was once only possible in El Salvador or Somalia or Indonesia is now a violent ecstasy they dream of--and work toward--at home.