You know, if you watch cable news all day as I do, you should have already seen an extremely disturbing trend appearing. And if you’re paying attention, it should scare the hell out of you.
While no cable news networks actually cover Trump rallies, they still send reporters out to talk to the delusional rubes that populate those things. And when they talk to these misguided cretins, one thing becomes clear. Way too many of them are obsessed with the idea of another civil war.
When reporters ask a question, they’re greeted with replies like Let ’em try it, we’re headed for a civil war anyway! Or It’s about time for another civil war, so bring it on! Things have gotten out of control! But what I fear is that these denuded souls actually still envision a civil war as their loyal soldiers, in uniform, carrying the stars–and–bars off to glorious battle! Their vision of a civil war is more in line with Gone With The Wind, and much less in line with Lincoln.
And nothing could be further from the truth. Over the last week or so, both CNN, as well as MSNBC have had on a professor and research specialist named Barbara F. Walter. She spent more than 10 years exploring the fundamentals and designs of democracy worldwide, excluding the United States, and what denotes the health of the Democracy.
And what she found was frightening. There are three levels, a democracy, a middle zone, and autocracy. And the United States is now in that middle zone.
But it’s the matrix that the group came up with that should scarify everybody in the United States silly. In the study, healthy democracies have competing political parties with alternate ideological and issue platforms. This gives people a choice. But where democracy starts to decay is when one of the two parties moves away from an ideological, idea driven platform, and regresses into national and cultural issues.
Which is exactly what is happening in the Republican party today. The GOP base is almost universally an almost exclusively white, older, lower educated base with strong white nationalist tendencies. They see the United States as a majority white Christian nation, and it is changing, and nothing they can do will change that. And so the party has shifted away from ideology, and into the realm of maintaining power as a white minority.
Which to me sums up the current day GOP and their base to a T. But what’s even scarier is the way that Professor Walter sees any eventual civil war as coming off. Trombies see it as a replay of 1865, with massed armies fighting it out to the death. But in the current world, that isn’t the way it will work. It will be much worse.
Professor Walter envisions a future American civil war as being more like the insurrection in Northern Ireland than the first US civil war. The insurgents will be in the minority, and they know it, so a series of pitched battles between massed forces would be disastrous for the insurgents. Instead, they would engage in lightning strikes, bombings, and political assassinations. And federal forces would be reduced to rooting them out and either rounding them up, or killing them off in brief skirmishes. That is the next civil war that the Trombies are so looking forward to and glorifying.
This is what scares me. The GOP base, being made up of mostly white, older, moistly southern voters, as well as white supremacists stuck in the glory days of the civil war south, keep deluding themselves into thinking that this will be a glorious war of liberation. But it won’t. It will be a filthy guerilla war with untold cost to innocent lives. This is what is at stake in 2022 and 2024.
Address these issues in your next piece instead of projecting.
More and more voters (including Democrats) are seeing just how incompetent our so called neo-liberal Democrat/Socialist leaders are. They are an elitist, snobby (and usually wealthy), virtue signaling, hypocritical, preachy, bunch of do-gooders who can’t comprehend that most Americans simply wish to be left alone by government. Worse, they are completely unaware of their evangelizing, self righteous, totalitarian tendencies. Their delusional childlike beliefs about Biden’s current mental state (or Harris’ abilities) are astounding, fanatical and dangerous.
Whatever our faults, “Captain”, we do understand the basics of survival as the last two years have proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The only thing your kind’s antics (and yes, I DO lump you and yours in with the fascist creeps described above; you just crave authoritarianism of a slightly different flavor) will succeed in doing is making the opposite argument believable. You have chosen to be powerless…so why bother taking you seriously?
funny, I’m not seeing this. BTW, tell me just how much Americans “wish to be left alone by government” when they want their asses bailed out of the various and numerous things that go wrong in life. Tell me just how much they want this when they sign up for S.S. and Medicare/caid. Tell me how much they want this when they want their infrastructure repaired, upgraded, etc. When they want their schools funded. When they need workers and the only people applying are people from other countries. When their crops get destroyed (and this will be an increasing event) and they need to collect on crop insurance. When the wildfire headed for their homes needs to be fought and there aren’t enough V.F.D. folks to do it. And let’s not even get into the military’s functions-they want to end that also? Haven’t heard THAT either.
I read what you wrote and what immediately comes to mind is YOU play at being free from the government until you need them. But boy it sounds real bad-ass when you say it right? Well, no. It’s sounds fucking stupid. Sounds like you’ve no idea what the words “Social Contract” mean. Contracts are NEVER one-way agreements-you do know THAT don’t you?
You seem to want some authoritarian regime to take the place of our democratic republic but you don’t seem to realize that when the tyrant takes over ALL of your freedoms (and BTW, the guns will be the first things taken from you-you do know THAT don’t you?) they’ll be gone until the tyrant is removed–and that will be a bit more difficult than voting someone out of office. You don’t VOTE tyrants out of office-they’re yours until they are overthrown.
Our nation was formed to remove us FROM tyrannical (i.e. kings/queens) rule. There was a time when tyrants, authoritarians, fascists, etc. were considered bad things. There was a reason for this you know.
You fucking moron, you don’t destroy the beacon of democracy, which was what we have been labeled in the past, just because your orange shit-gibbon LOST a FREE AND FAIR ELECTION. You do not destroy the nation which allows you to express your views freely and fairly (right or wrong) just because you do not like the bad parts of our nation’s history and you want to try to erase it. It cannot be done nor should any intelligent person want it done. We become a greater nation by embracing ALL of our history. I’m guessing you do not understand this.
One other thing, if you think those of us who realize the value of governance by the government we have chosen in those same free and fair elections are going to just roll over and allow you morons to destroy our nation, my g_d you’re fucking stupid beyond anything reasonable. Do you think we do not have guns ourselves? Are you really that fucking asinine? Given what you wrote, I’d have to say “Yes”.
Amen !
Think on this Captain – The difference between Dems and the GQP is that Dems ARE a big tent party. We welcome diversity and difference of opinions. We want an egalitarian society where everyone has opportunity and the chance to get ahead. A society where we do not abuse and denigrate “others”. A society that shares the wealth with those who provided the blood sweat and tears that created it.
The GQP has become a party of goose-stepping zombies who want to keep us mired in a system that takes from the poor and gives and gives and gives to the already rich. You are part of a party that has no platform, no plans to improve the lives of its citizenry. A party that takes credit for the good things you fight to prevent. A party that lets people go hungry and homeless, a party that lets roads and bridges crumble, a party that allows mentally deficient men to own guns and kill children, church goers, shoppers, movie watchers en masse. Yours is a party that willfully spreads misinformation about a deadly virus that continues to kill thousands of your own party members.
Yours is a party that put a sociopathic con man at its helm, a man who would burn down his own house to stroke his ego. A party of wimpy elected officials who cower and sit back and let our Constitution and the rule of law be trampled so they can keep their seats and act like slobbering sycophants. Yours is a party that pays lip service to the tenets of Christianity while worshipping (cowering) at the feet of your “golden idol”.
I’m proud to be a Democrat – we at least observe and practice the true principles of a democratic society. You sir, like the rest of your party, don’t.
Thank you , you nailed it ! Democrats hold this country together . My father once told me when I asked what was the difference between Dems and Republicans and he said ” Republicans take care of the rich and Democrats take care of the poor “
Captain kangaroo had more insight than ur delusional crap. Fuck u traitor. Go drink ur poison grapejuice so u can free up space for a real person.
Sigh…you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Fine…someone needs to. Speaking as someone who lives in a county now made infamous for banning the graphic novel Mauz, I can tell you that the majority of the loudmouths are huffing. Will there be some violence? Of course…they’ve a proven track record on that by now. But “Civil War”? Come the hell on.
By and large, these people only WISH they were as vicious as the IRA. You have to remember that they only have any kind of “courage” with official sanction (think Deathsantis). Take that away and while they’ll stew, they’ll do nothing about it. They need far better leadership than they currently have to go that distance (and no, Bannon doesn’t count). Also, never forget that these people’s favorite hobby is “owning the libs”. Watching us cower every time they make a threat is one of the few joys they have left. It’s a trick abusers use all the time, especially when they become physically unable to dish out actual harm. So save your fear for things worthy of it, like COVID.
Deep down, they all want to die than live in the world that’s coming. While some would say that makes them dangerous, Sun Tzu didn’t agree: “An enemy who wishes to die can be slain.” And in the event they push their luck too far, which is coming, slain they shall be.
^^^^^THIS^^^^^
Although if threatened my response is “Bring it if you have the guts!”
Mitch admitted that there only platform is to block Joe Biden presidency. That’s it. Now what confuses me is why the people that elected these
Clowns are going to do about this. And of course several of these a- holes have gone back and told their people how they secured money from Joe Biden’s programs after voting no on the program. What scumbags!