The Consequences of a Reichstag Fire are Already in Place

​Masha Gessen, in Harpers: 

"When we talk about the Reichstag fire, we talk about the consequences of a catastrophic event. But in our case, these consequences - a legal state of emergency, a sense of living under siege, popular mobilization, and an epidemic of conspiratorial thinking - are already in place. Indeed, they are preconditions of our current predicament. …
To be worthy of the lofty name “resistance,” the opposition to Trump must aim to break the country’s post-9/11 trajectory. It must question the very premise of the war on terror, challenge the very fact of a perpetual state of emergency, and confront not only the Trump presidency but the legacy of the Bush and Obama Administrations."