After interviewing politicians for the print column, I was struck by how several made the same point: that they had spent some years pushing for an end to executions, and that at subsequent elections, they had been braced for a backlash or attacks by opponents, but that they never came.
The coincidental success of Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and William Inge on the Broadway stage in the 1950s was followed by a backlash of attacks, mainly from straight male critics deploring their supposed sexism: their women characters were distortions, either because they were "really" men or because, as women, they were hated by their misogynistic homosexual authors.
To say this recent jump in hate-crimes is a predictable backlash to terror attacks is not the full story.
American Sikhs continue to report harassment, violence, and vandalism – particularly as backlash after terrorist attacks like that in San Bernardino, California.
Mr. Romney utilized the full force of his formidable campaign machinery to create a backlash against the attacks on his record at Bain.
In the past, he has provoked a backlash after terror attacks by fulminating against Muslims and shifting too quickly onto the offensive.
It is unlike the backlash after terrorist attacks, which targeted Irish people in the 70s, or Muslims and those thought to be Muslims, more recently.
When I say that this isn't simply a backlash to terror attacks but the return of traditional racism, it sounds painfully obvious – but the point isn't without controversy.
In Islamabad, the 111th Infantry Brigade, known as the "coup brigade" because its proximity to the capital has led it to execute the Army's periodic takeovers of government, has deployed with the paramilitary Rangers to strengthen the city's defenses in the capital against an expected backlash of terrorist attacks.
But Ambrose, when asked about the possibility of an Islamophobic backlash from the attacks, also had a message for Canada's Muslim community.
