A more reasonable take on the whole "Civil War II" discussion...
- Thread starter torbee
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Yes, fake lawyer. I'll remember that when I pay my bar association dues.
I'm sure I'm a fake veteran as well. And I have fake friends that are still in the military. I imagine I have fake parents as well. I imagine you are fake as well.
If a state seceded, formally and via their elected representatives or referendum, what would be the reasons you wouldn't want the federal government to 'allow it'?
WonderfulPretty thoughtful and well-researched article in the New Yorker on the subject -- ironically extensively quoting the very same expert yesterday's more strident article also did -- but this one much more realistic and even-keeled, IMO.
These two excerpts are how I expect things to evolve:
Walter made it clear that she wanted to avoid “an exercise in fear-mongering”; she is wary of coming off as sensationalist. In fact, she takes pains to avoid overheated speculation and relays her warning about the potential for civil war in clinical terms. Yet, like those who spoke up clearly about the dangers of global warming decades ago, Walter delivers a grave message that we ignore at our peril. So much remains in flux. She is careful to say that a twenty-first-century American civil war would bear no resemblance to the consuming and symmetrical conflict that was played out on the battlefields of the eighteen-sixties. Instead she foresees, if the worst comes about, an era of scattered yet persistent acts of violence: bombings, political assassinations, destabilizing acts of asymmetric warfare carried out by extremist groups that have coalesced via social media.
And
“We’re not headed to fascism or Putinism,” Levitsky told me, “but I do think we could be headed to recurring constitutional crises, periods of competitive authoritarian and minority rule, and episodes of pretty significant violence that could include bombings, assassinations, and rallies where people are killed. In 2020, we saw people being killed on the streets for political reasons. This isn’t apocalypse, but it is a horrendous place to be.”
Is a Civil War Ahead?
A year after the attack on the Capitol, America is suspended between democracy and autocracy.www.newyorker.com
"Dearest Muhkayleeigh,
I Tok to you from the aftermath of the Battle of The Outlets at Ellis Park. Lo, it was a terrible meeting. Three of us fell at the Foot Locker. I fear The Banana Republic will not hold the fortnight, despite our best efforts. I am comforted, however, as General Bezos' son assured headquarters that Jennifer Rubin's dispatches would reach the people via the retweets of @cigaretteman ...
Do kiss Buhraydon for me and tell mother that I found the candles she so cherishes.
Yours non-binarly,
Pat"
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From what I've seen, the left has rioted looting businesses and assaulted some people. (completely wrong and should be dealt with.)
That's a far cry from blowing up a federal building killing a bunch of civilians and kids and trying to overthrow the free election of a country.
I'm not in favor of any extremists but the right are the ones that have done truly scary shit up until now.
You take away people’s votes, and destroy our constitution, and they will not ignore it. I for one will be ready to take to the streets.
Have you shared your fears with a mental health professional?
‘Cause I’m not sure if Twitter is actually the therapy you need.
I would challenge its is the extremist on the right responding to the agitation by the left but we are splitting hairs. Step one is getting past the left and right shit and the rationale people calling out extremist.
I think the "response" is what we're talking about here. Responding with marches or demonstrations is appropriate. Blowing up buildings is a different story.
Both sides have nutjobs. Thus far, the nutjobs on the right have been behind mass casualty violent events.
So...this is a little more reasonable. I think it's very reasonable to sound the alarm that the extremities of our political rhetoric are very likely to turn into more real world acts of violence if we don't turn it down.
Where I balk is all this "end of Democracy" and civil war crap, and the idea that political unrest turning hot is somehow unprecedented in the United States. Has nobody heard of the 1960s and 1970s? Riots, terrorist attacks, police violence, bombings, assassinations...from all sides. And just like today, whether the violence was being perpetrated by police at Kent State or the Weather Underground or by the Black Panthers or against the Black Panthers, there was somebody in government or prominent in media or the culture defending it.
This shit isn't new, and wasn't new in the 1960s either, 1900-1920 was pretty damn bad too. FFS we had a literal New York City riot with thousands of people 1922 about people wearing straw hats past September.
IF we are entering into another hot period, we should be talking about it and discussing it in that context. We should be trying to avoid it.
The idea that we are somehow living in the most dangerous times or something like that just isn't true, but it feels like some are just hell bent on on making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. The continued talk that this is literally the end of America or democracy or the white race or whatever else apocalyptic bullshit does nothing but fan the flames of the desperate fringe and encourage them to take up violence.
Actual "credible" people compare masks to Nazi on stars on Jews, and voter ID laws to literally Jim Crow segregation but on steroids, and then want to clutch their pearls when disordered people act on that? Those people can quite literally suck a tailpipe as far as I'm concerned.
Where I balk is all this "end of Democracy" and civil war crap, and the idea that political unrest turning hot is somehow unprecedented in the United States. Has nobody heard of the 1960s and 1970s? Riots, terrorist attacks, police violence, bombings, assassinations...from all sides. And just like today, whether the violence was being perpetrated by police at Kent State or the Weather Underground or by the Black Panthers or against the Black Panthers, there was somebody in government or prominent in media or the culture defending it.
This shit isn't new, and wasn't new in the 1960s either, 1900-1920 was pretty damn bad too. FFS we had a literal New York City riot with thousands of people 1922 about people wearing straw hats past September.
IF we are entering into another hot period, we should be talking about it and discussing it in that context. We should be trying to avoid it.
The idea that we are somehow living in the most dangerous times or something like that just isn't true, but it feels like some are just hell bent on on making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. The continued talk that this is literally the end of America or democracy or the white race or whatever else apocalyptic bullshit does nothing but fan the flames of the desperate fringe and encourage them to take up violence.
Actual "credible" people compare masks to Nazi on stars on Jews, and voter ID laws to literally Jim Crow segregation but on steroids, and then want to clutch their pearls when disordered people act on that? Those people can quite literally suck a tailpipe as far as I'm concerned.
Yes Oklahoma City and the proposal earlier in this thread that there would be bombings of municipalities and assassinations.
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I am of the belief that the unrest you mention (60s and 70s and even earlier) and that we're seeing today are all, in many ways, still reverberations from the ORIGINAL Civil War. At least many of the antecedent reasons for the various causes can be traced back to then, or even the nation's founding. One might argue we have always been in a state of "cold" civil war, since our nation is made up of so many disparate cultures and beliefs (religious, political, etc.) systems. We appear to be at the beginning of another reasonably "hot" era, due to many of the same, old, underlying issues.
I know I've raved about it here before several times, but anyone who really is into this stuff should really read this book. It convinced me that we will never really be one "united" country in anything but name:
There are things we can unify around, like free trade and travel, mutual defense, and the protections of the bill of rights.I know I've raved about it here before several times, but anyone who really is into this stuff should really read this book. It convinced me that we will never really be one "united" country in anything but name:
Leave most of the rest to the states so people have easier access to what they’re seeking.
The consolidation turns the Union into a zero sum game, and that’s a mistake and break with the principles it was founded upon.
Wow. You pretty much nailed it. Presidents have been assassinated and the country didn't derail into a civil war. Literal wars were fought between labor and corporations at times in this country, the Harlan County War and the Homestead Strike. Throughout the country's history there have been periods of violence that have come & gone & reappeared again.
This is not the end of times.
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And my fellow liberals/progressives will be mad at me for saying this, but one can make a strong argument that we also have seen the executive branch lean more "authoritarian" than truly democratic during the FDR administration. Now, one can also make a compelling argument that that was a GOOD thing to help us navigate the Great Depression and WWII -- but if a modern GOP president attempted some of the things FDR did, many of the usual suspects would be howling about the "death of democracy." It should also be noted that many conservatives of that era did, also, do a lot of howling about that.
Sound familiar?
In the years leading up to its entry into World War II, the United States was bitterly divided over the New Deal and vehemently at odds over whether it should enter the conflict erupting in Europe. Even during the war, the country remained beset by racial and ethnic animosities that pitted Protestants against Catholics, Catholics against Jews and white Americans against people of color. Partisan rancor posed a steep barrier to the extreme measures that mobilization required: mass taxation, rationing, wage and price fixing, conscription, and surveillance. The business community sharply resisted the shift from civilian to military production. Organized labor loudly demanded its share of wartime prosperity. Even as the country fell in line with this vast expansion of state authority, outwardly uniting behind the war effort, discord boiled just beneath the surface, revealing itself in violent homefront outbursts and acid displays of political demagoguery.
How World War II Almost Broke American Politics
Today we celebrate the war as a feel-good moment of unity. The truth is, the country had harsh divisions we’d recognize today.
www.politico.com
I am of the belief that the unrest you mention (60s and 70s and even earlier) and that we're seeing today are all, in many ways, still reverberations from the ORIGINAL Civil War. At least many of the antecedent reasons for the various causes can be traced back to then, or even the nation's founding. One might argue we have always been in a state of "cold" civil war, since our nation is made up of so many disparate cultures and belief (religious, political, etc.) systems.
I know I've raved about it here before several times, but anyone who really is into this stuff should really read this book. It convinced me that we will never really be one "united" country in anything but name:
So, I can go along with that concept...which to me only reinforces the idea that we're not in the end days, so let's stop working people up into a self fulfilling prophecy. There are too many people with too much to gain by this conflict.
I'd really like the whole discussion reframed to exactly what you're talking about. Why do we go through these cycles where political divisions spill out into more "hot" incidents (although the true hot "political violence" of our current times is being blown WAY out of proportion in terms of our history).
I'm not arguing that the temperature is too hot and the incidents are disturbing, in the context of say the last three decades. Do these periods have precipitating events (labor movement, Vietnam/civil rights, Trump)?
Are they cyclical...is it like in The Godfather where these things have to happen every so often to clear the bad blood?
Is it a matter of the population aging far enough along past the last Troubles that they become susceptible to the idea that We Are Living In the Very Worst Times? I really think that has a lot to do with it...some of the things I read online (and on here) are so objectively wrong and short sighted that it really begs the question how many of the most agitating individuals are more than 16 years old. This comes from both sides.
My favorite (least) from the lefties is this believe that somehow people of color in this country are living in a golden era of discrimination and racism, that white supremacy is WORSE than it was 50 or 100 years ago. That is patently absurd on every level.
On the MAGA side, it's this conviction that somehow the very odiousness of Trump is the secret sauce, and that Republicans are otherwise unable to win elections, as if we didn't have Republican presidents for like two thirds of the previous 50 years. Somehow they can't think further back than EIGHT YEARS. It's not like Obama was FDR after 22 years in office. Which is to say nothing of the success Republicans have had in congress, and massive success in state houses, well before Trump even decided he was a Republican.
So part of me wonders how much of it is a stupid short memory as a culture, and we have to go through this from time to time before people realize again how stupid it is.
And I mentioned it on another stand alone thread...one of the very biggest reasons for this is one of the most incredibly boring.
Thanks to gerrymandering (by both Republicans and Democrats), the proportions of competitive seats in congress has cratered. There have never been so few actual Representatives that actually need to compete for their seat, or in any way appeal to independents and moderates.
All the talk is about the Senate being non-proportional to the population, but at least that is exactly the explicit design of the framers.
However, the framers never envisioned nor prescribed that an overwhelming majority of house seats be earmarked to one party or the other. The system only works with some form of electoral competition, and the lack thereof encourages the lousy government we receive.
It's not just to say "sure, the Republicans gerrymandered that district from a 50/50 to a Trump +10 district. But the Democrats can stitch it back to a Biden +8 when they get control. So it's fair."
Or "Sure the Republicans gerrymandered two more seats in North Carolina, but the Democrats redistricted three more for them in Wisconsin. So it's a wash."
It's not the shear advantage one way or the other...it's that each party is looking for not the most seats, but the most non-competitive seats. Whichever side is advantaged, noncompetitive seats lead to the problem of embarrassing reps with little responsibility toward any kind of compromise...hell even any kind of legislation at all. They don't even have to get up there and tout their accomplishments, their legislative successes, or the pork they delivered.
The most productive possible reform for our political issues would be rules that guaranteed that all redistricting must result in XX% competitive districts based on the last x election cycles. But if there's anything Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it's having no interest in that sauce.
Thanks to gerrymandering (by both Republicans and Democrats), the proportions of competitive seats in congress has cratered. There have never been so few actual Representatives that actually need to compete for their seat, or in any way appeal to independents and moderates.
All the talk is about the Senate being non-proportional to the population, but at least that is exactly the explicit design of the framers.
However, the framers never envisioned nor prescribed that an overwhelming majority of house seats be earmarked to one party or the other. The system only works with some form of electoral competition, and the lack thereof encourages the lousy government we receive.
It's not just to say "sure, the Republicans gerrymandered that district from a 50/50 to a Trump +10 district. But the Democrats can stitch it back to a Biden +8 when they get control. So it's fair."
Or "Sure the Republicans gerrymandered two more seats in North Carolina, but the Democrats redistricted three more for them in Wisconsin. So it's a wash."
It's not the shear advantage one way or the other...it's that each party is looking for not the most seats, but the most non-competitive seats. Whichever side is advantaged, noncompetitive seats lead to the problem of embarrassing reps with little responsibility toward any kind of compromise...hell even any kind of legislation at all. They don't even have to get up there and tout their accomplishments, their legislative successes, or the pork they delivered.
The most productive possible reform for our political issues would be rules that guaranteed that all redistricting must result in XX% competitive districts based on the last x election cycles. But if there's anything Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it's having no interest in that sauce.
