Whether the enemy is defined as Biden voters, women, or “Third World foreigners,” all such approaches to political argument are guilty of indulging in a destructive fantasy. This fantasy can be distilled into the following statement: Everything would be great if only we didn’t have to share the country with THEM.
Politics is how the members of a diverse and pluralistic community seek to reach accommodation with one another, despite their differences. Populism, in this respect, must be understood as a form of anti-politics that encourages people to place their hopes in a pipe dream of uniformity and unanimity.
That pipe dream can only end in one of two ways: either disappointment when the demonized faction of the country fails to disappear—or civil violence when one side actively attempts to purify the polity by eliminating, expelling, or otherwise forcibly separating itself from the other.
Civil violence may well lie in our future. Recognizing that possibility is one thing. Actively courting it is something else entirely. Glenn Ellmers has unfortunately placed himself firmly in the latter camp.
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