https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/multitudes-dan-hancox-book-review-the-crowd-in-the-early-middle-ages-shane-bobrycki

We'll undoubtedly view, and possibly proudly join, a crowd of likeminded protesters during the next four years. The other side will surely hold their own Trump love fests. Who these groups include, how they originated, and most importantly, how they will act is obviously enormously consequential.

The New Yorker article provides excellent insight into past political assemblies, some you surely know of like the storming of the Bastille, and others that have largely faded with time. Close to home, and all too recently, the author reminds us of the horrors of those pious lynch mobs in America's south.

The article's closing paragraph hits hard, posing an uncomfortably far-reaching question:

"To turn a crowd into a mob is always easy; nor should we be surprised when four days later, or four years later, the anarchic mob resisting power becomes the power to be resisted. A crowd can become a mob; a crowd can even become an army. To turn a crowd into a community? Ah, that's the hard work. "

Peter T.