The Trigger

The Washington Examiner:

Turchin wrote that the violence of the ’70s “provides us with a kind of a road map as to what to expect in the next few years.” The first thing to expect is an escalation of language that draws battle lines, fuses together the in-groups that will later spearhead violence, and demonizes and dehumanizes the dissidents’ opponents. The next phase, the “trigger,” has yet to happen. It is typically a “highly symbolic event,” often involving a “sacrificial victim.” For the Weather Underground and other similar groups in the 1970s, the trigger was the killing of the Black Panther Fred Hampton during a police raid in December 1969. After the trigger comes the spiral of violence and counterviolence.

That was written on March 12. George Floyd died two months later.