1/n SF/fantasy author, R.A. Lafferty, once wrote a short story, "The Groaning Hinges Of The World". If you don't pay attention, it can feel like your corner of the world suddenly flipped overnight. A false perception, but I'm guessing a lot feel that right now.
cc. @four4thefire https://twitter.com/MatthewKeysLive/status/1348372956246732800

2/n Every society has certain symbols attached to their institutions. Call these the national household gods, if you like, call them anything. But without them, you do not have a society. You have Hobbes until you have them. Cogent: the charge of impiety against Alcibiades.

3/n Yes, the 2020/2021 farrago in Portland, OR. The Crown Heights riot (actually a pogrom), 1991, in NYC, NY. The 2020 riots in Minneapolis, MN. The plot to kidnap & murder Whitmer in MI. The 2020 murder by protestors of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, in Atlanta, GA.
Yes, but...

4/n My impression most Americans dismiss that. "It's only OR, NY, MN, MI, GA! Besides, justified, made up, whatabout X".
But be seen on TV as dishonoring a *national* household god, smear poop on it, murder a guardian, then the world's hinges suddenly turn https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1348430484775317504

5/n More people should read the works of R.A. Lafferty. More people should consider how society's a network of expectations of social obligations & tolerances. Be seen to violate those badly, the society reacts strongly. Not much use complaining if you violated without thought.

6/ Sohrab Ahmari's a dishonest, self-serving propagandist. Doesn't matter here. What he says here is true, except it's Brian D. Sicknick, not Brian Sicknich. Doesn't matter. Sicknick was murdered during a violation of one of the few places almost all Americans hold sacred.

7/ This is also true. Maybe it should matter. There are other cases that should matter too. Secoriea Turner should matter. The Trumpalo woman assaulted by a mob of men back in early 2016 should matter. So on. But none of these matter now. The hinges turn. https://twitter.com/NewsM101/status/1348411570620149771

8/ Maybe going in public after your own second-in-command, your own Vice-President, or being seen to encourage mobs to violate a national secular holy place matters most. If you willfully turn hinges, they turn. Maybe not in the direction you expected. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/donald-trump-capitol-attack-impeachment-abc-poll-majority-joe-biden