Letters to the Editor: This isn’t 2020. Don’t worry about the overthrow of the U.S. government

Pro-Trump rioters try to force their way though police barricades at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. To the editor: While everything UC Davis professor Garen Wintemute writes about political violence is accurate and concerning, personally I don’t worry too much about an actual overthrow of the government, assuming Vice President Kamala Harris wins in November. When faced with the overwhelming might of U.S. forces commanded by rational officers and a rational president, they will back down and flee. To the editor: A research team at UC Davis reports that more than 40% of the Proud Boys and militia supporters it surveyed thought that “having a strong leader for America more important than having a democracy.” That was the scariest statement about American politics I had ever heard — until the next sentence, and then the next one and so on, culminating in the finding that “nearly 20% of Proud Boys supporters and 28% of militia supporters said that they were very or completely willing to kill someone to advance an important political objective.” What’s even scarier is that the man who would be president has done nothing and is not expected to do anything to dissuade this.