The First and Second Amendments Clashed in Charlottesville, Virginia — The Guns Won, by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern

"When people bring weapons to a protest, it is frightening. It is scary. It chills freedom of speech. You will you will watch what you say around men who are carrying weapons that could shoot a hole the size of a grapefruit in your body in a second. And that’s not what what freedom of expression is supposed to mean."

June 18, 2020 — The Cult to the Shining City on a Hill, by Virginia Heffernan and Jared Yates Sexton

"Conspiracy theories are simplified explanations of larger, more complex problems... So instead, you give them a story. And when you actually look at the New World Order or Deep State or QAnon, it is basically the idea of globalism and de-industrialisation that has hurt middle America. But it involves supernatural evil and it involves heroes and villains as opposed to bottom lines and profits. And when you actually look at it through that, your natural sort of prejudices start to come in. And the more that you’re hurt and the more that you do not have opportunities, the more that you might be drawn into it. So, again, it’s an illusion that is used to create this base and this anger. And when you actually look throughout history, you see that authoritarian states are always based on those groups of people who either had power, or perceived that they had power, feeling like they’re losing power. And then the conspiracy theory fills in the holes. And then also you have a person who comes in and directs the anger, which is what Trump has been doing. And what the Republican Party has done now for decades."

November, 1985 ⁠— Donald Trump’s Ultimate Deal: In which we see the world through the eyes of Qaddafi’s pilot, by Ron Rosenbaum

"The dove was art director Nancy Butkus’s idea; Butkus was aware of Trump’s interest in what he called 'The Subject' — i.e., the nuclear-arms race and the urgent need for a deal-maker such as himself to (literally) save the world from surefire annihilation."