Usually we define vigilantes as the barbarians at the gate who want to disrupt the order of things.  What if the state itself becomes that disruptor bringing the chaos not protecting us from it?  Two law professors, Jon Michaels, of UCLA, and David Noll, of Rutgers University, make a compelling case in “Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy”, that we are on the precipice of this happening in the present moment.  And it’s not the first time in our history when this has happened.  It was true when northern abolitionists emancipated southern slavocracy and then, following the Civil War, when emancipated Black Americans sought to implement Reconstruction and were instead faced with Jim Crow laws, designed to maintain white dominance.  The book describes the American right’s twenty-first century resurrection of state-supported vigilantism, which has made a roaring comeback following the failed coup of January 6, 2021.  The upcoming election and its aftermath will fill in the picture more as we see the traps set for our democracy since January 7, 2021, most noticeable already in red states across the country.