Writing for Salon, Rick Perlstein throws away any pretense of journalistic objectivity with his headline: “Gun nuts are terrorizing America: The watershed moment everyone missed.” He begins with the government’s ignominious retreat from the armed standoff that they had initiated with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the Oath Keepers, militia members, and “Three Percenters” who stood with him:

Here is a truth so fundamental that it should be self-evident: When legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger. And yet that is exactly what happened at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch this spring: An alleged criminal defeated the cops, because the forces of lawlessness came at them with guns — then Bureau of Land Management officials further surrendered by removing the government markings from their vehicles to prevent violence against them.

What Perlstein doesn’t mention, but undoubtedly knows, is that if the armed federal muscle had not backed off, the only other option would have been a bloody battle. Killing in wholesale numbers, over a dispute about where cows eat. This guy wants the government to go into combat against American citizens, very possibly igniting civil war, and has the audacity to claim that it’s the “gun nuts” who “are terrorizing America.”

FK – Is the trash finally admitting what’s it’s really about? Are you ready for what will be required?