It occurred to me early this morning that the wilder elements of the GOP view today’s political climate in the same way the more extreme Whigs viewed life under the Stuarts in the latter half of the 17th century. An out of touch government holding values that are anathema to the mainstream is using the political and legal systems to impose its will on the public. Essential freedoms are under attack. Conspiracies are everywhere, so conspiracy theories abound.
The problem with the analogy is that none of this is actually happening. Law enforcement has not been weaponized against the right. Biden is not trying to impose a woke agenda on anyone. First Amendment rights are still intact, and there are no Christian re-education camps. The threat to “freedom” from the woke left, to the extent that it actually exists, comes from a handful of activists who will soon find themselves expelled from Twitter. That’s not exactly the equivalent of Judge Jeffreys or the secret Treaty of Dover.
The analogy between the “rigged election” and the Popish Plot, on the other hand, is perfectly appropriate.