At first glance, it may seem that the brutal murder of Thomas à Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, by four of King Henry II of England’s knights on December 29, 1170 has nothing to do with the siege of the United States Capitol building by Trump supporters 851 years later on January 6, 2021. Yet the bloody tale of the “murder in the cathedral” offers a unilateral truth about just how dangerous a leader’s words can be, whether their intent is malicious or not. It’s a story about personal responsibility — or, rather, the abdication of it and the consequences of any leader’s words.

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According to the monk Edward Grim, a witness to the Archbishop’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral, King Henry said, “What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!” Others have reported that Henry said, “Will none of these lazy insignificant persons, whom I maintain, deliver me from this turbulent priest?” or, more directly stated in a later dramatization, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

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Absolutists, dictators, and mob bosses have long used direction via indirection as a way to keep their hands clean while others do their dirty work. For example, Hitler apologists and Holocaust deniers have argued for decades that as there is no known written directive from Hitler ordering the murder of all European Jews, Hitler could not have known about the mass murders committed under cover of invasion, or of the heinous machinations finalized at the January 20, 1942 Wannsee Conference. To them, Hitler is therefore a victim of malicious lies, the one innocent amidst all the carnage.

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The blood on the floor of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 is no less red than the blood that was splattered across the floor of Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170, save for one crucial difference: Donald Trump is not a king, not an absolute monarch, not the dictator he so wishes to be. He is beholden to the laws of a representative democracy, and must be held accountable.

Twitter banned an account associated with Steve Bannon on Thursday and YouTube removed one of his videos after the former Trump adviser called for the beheadings of two federal officials.

Bannon, in a video for his podcast recording, had said he wanted to behead FBI Director Christopher Wray and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert.

Bannon said he would “put the heads on pikes” as a “warning to federal bureaucrats,” referencing Tudor-era England.

“The @WarRoomPandemic account has been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules, specifically our policy on the glorification of violence,” Twitter said in a statement. The platform has an established policy against the glorification of violence.

President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, during his rally in Lansing, Michigan, on Tuesday, at one point taking credit for the FBI thwarting a plot to kidnap her and then immediately downplaying the actual threat that had been posed to Whitmer.

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"Hey, hey, hey hey," he told the audience, "I'm the one, it was our people that helped her out with her problem."

"I mean, we'll have to see if it's a problem. Right? People are entitled to say maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn't," he added. "It was our people -- my people, our people that helped her out. And then she blamed me for it. She blamed me and it was our people that helped her. I don't get it. How did you put her there?"

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The FBI revealed in early October it had uncovered an extremist group's plot to kidnap Whitmer at the Michigan state Capitol. The alleged domestic terrorism scheme included plans to overthrow several state governments that the suspects "believe are violating the US Constitution," including the government of Michigan and Whitmer, according to a federal criminal complaint.

...this month Mr. Jarrett, 75, broke the silence, plainly stating what happened to him: a stroke in late February 2018, followed by another one that May. It is unlikely he will ever perform in public again.

“I was paralyzed,” he told The New York Times, speaking by phone from his home in northwest New Jersey. “My left side is still partially paralyzed. I’m able to try to walk with a cane, but it took a long time for that, took a year or more. And I’m not getting around this house at all, really.”

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“Right now, I can’t even talk about this,” he said when the issue came up, and laughed his deflective laugh. “That’s what I feel about it.”

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“I can only play with my right hand, and it’s not convincing me anymore,” Mr. Jarrett said. “I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am — so I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”

The second pathway to subverting the election is even more ominous—but we must be cognizant of it because Trump is already laying the groundwork for how he can lose the popular vote, and even lose in the key swing states necessary for an Electoral College victory, but still remain president.

This spring, HBO aired The Plot Against America, based on the Philip Roth novel of how an authoritarian president could grab control of the United States government using emergency powers that no one could foresee. Recent press reports have revealed the compilation by the Brennan Center at New York University of an extensive list of presidential emergency powers that might be inappropriately invoked in a national security crisis. Attorney General William Barr, known for his extremist view of the expanse of presidential power, is widely believed to be developing a Justice Department opinion arguing that the president can exercise emergency powers in certain national security situations, while stating that the courts, being extremely reluctant to intervene in the sphere of a national security emergency, would allow the president to proceed unchecked.

Something like the following scenario is not just possible but increasingly probable because it is clear Trump will do anything to avoid the moniker he hates more than any other: "loser."

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We cannot let ourselves believe that this is a far-fetched scenario. We have just seen Trump threaten to invoke emergency powers under the Insurrection Act of 1807 to call up the U.S. military against domestic protesters. The remarkable apology by Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, stating that it was wrong to create a perception that the military would get directly involved in a domestic political protest and intervene against American civilians, underscores the corrupt use of executive powers Trump is willing to employ. As Fareed Zakaria recently said in summing up the lessons of former national security adviser John Bolton's new book: "Donald Trump will pay any price, make any deal, bend any rule, to assure his own survival and success."

Former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is receiving treatment for coronavirus at an Atlanta-area hospital, according to a statement posted to his Twitter account.

Cain, a contributor for conservative media outlet Newsmax, was hospitalized Wednesday "after he had development symptoms serious enough that he required hospitalization" and was informed Monday that he tested positive for the virus.

"Mr. Cain did not require a respirator, and he is awake and alert," according to the statement released Thursday.

Cain, as a co-chair of Black Voices for Trump, was one of the surrogates at President Donald Trump's June 20 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.