A federal government under GOP control will take your money, your votes, and your right to safety and security. It will also force your state to compete with other states during a pandemic. If the common good must be sacrificed for power and profit, so be it.
I think that the people on the left, who don't see this conflict brewing, don't see it because they don't WANT to see it. They don't want to have do anything beyond voting. If they are somehow disallowed to vote, it will just stop there and we'll all be under a dictatorship. If you posted this piece on the WaPo, you would get shredded by Democrats who don't want to hear the truth of what is really at stake. They don't want to be reminded that they're too cowardly to fight for democracy if push comes to shove.
Also, we have no access to guns. I can't get a gun defend myself without jumping through 10 flaming hoops in MA. That puts us at a huge disadvantage imo.
Agreed....far too many liberals are still deluding themselves that everything will take care of itself as if voting is the only activity required. The right wing has seen itself in mortal conflict with the left for decades but liberals still can't recognize the reactionary agitation and the long-term peril we face.
I don't think actual military conflict is coming or required. I believe the elements of the right as defined in John's article are substantially weaker politically than seems evident. They don't have the vote totals to win when liberals, you know, actually show up to vote! That's what happened in 2008 and 2012, and in the 2006 and 2018 midterms. The right's political success is as much of function of liberal fecklessness as much as the right's own effectiveness. If the left can consistently muster its power and political resources, we CAN destroy the Republican party.
I've always contended that Repugs don't win elections but that Democrats lose them. The consistent tendency to ignore non-presidential elections, the dismissal of the importance of the court system both state and federal, and the demand for perfect politicians and instant solutions to major political and economic challenges is just stupid....and now we're reaping the whirlwind.
Personally, if I were voting in person in Wisconsin today, I'd crawl on my knees over broken glass to maintain my franchise. The consistent subscribers of this blog I'm sure have the same mindset. More important is the need to construct a political, legal, and media infrastructure that is designed for aggressively accumulating political power. But do liberals in general have the fire in the belly, the mindset that we must build the toolkit for victorious political success, and the willingness to fight to the death for the future and for the Republic? I don't know, but we'll see.
I have to disagree on a few points. The GOP lock on the politics of the South and the heartland is ironclad. Unfortunately, Democratic strength relies on the turnout of the working poor, which means it's really only good for Presidential elections and national offices. Republicans routinely win a majority of everything else, which means they control election laws, redistricting, and have a solid base in Congress that makes any Democratic gains in Congress temporary.
Of course, we could mobilize our liberal working poor the same way the GOP mobilized the conservative working poor. Just remember that it took them over twenty years to get them to hate the opposition enough to be reliable voters. And party-wide, movement-wide dedication.
And you gotta make it entertaining, too. They won't listen if it isn't.
Are you suggesting we're getting close to an *actual* (Second) Civil War? What would that even look like? Or are you talking about a full-on *Cold* Civil War?
I think plenty of right-wing kooks would welcome a hot Civil War, these people are crazy. But what i think we're approaching is something akin to real tyranny, where an administration/political party is actually trying to usurp democracy. There will be some kind of inflection point where we either fight back in some real way or we lose our democracy.
For example, let's say Trump and the conservatives on the SCOTUS manage to cancel or delay elections in November... I'm not saying that will actually happen, but if it did, what would we do about it?
Trump is firing IGs and removing any kind of oversight he possibly can, but when is too far really too far? He can just chip away but no one is willing to draw any kind of real line in the sand. The more we give, the more they take. Will we wait until there's nothing left or will we eventually stop them.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm not overly confident we'd keep our democracy.
I live in the Bay Area, and no one I know talks about secession. Things are worse than a mess right now, but even if the Union would let us go (which I doubt), the Chinese navy would be on our shores in a matter of weeks.
I've been saying this for 3 years now. There is no logic in the USA as constructed now. Coastal California including San Diego and even Orange county now - all the way up to Oregon , Cascadia and the Northeast from DC to Maine are CLEARLY different countries now.
I, for one, am a liberal who would welcome whatever it takes to free California from the Feds. I once felt alone in this but since the 2016 election one hears about secession much more often.
I think that the people on the left, who don't see this conflict brewing, don't see it because they don't WANT to see it. They don't want to have do anything beyond voting. If they are somehow disallowed to vote, it will just stop there and we'll all be under a dictatorship. If you posted this piece on the WaPo, you would get shredded by Democrats who don't want to hear the truth of what is really at stake. They don't want to be reminded that they're too cowardly to fight for democracy if push comes to shove.
Also, we have no access to guns. I can't get a gun defend myself without jumping through 10 flaming hoops in MA. That puts us at a huge disadvantage imo.
Agreed....far too many liberals are still deluding themselves that everything will take care of itself as if voting is the only activity required. The right wing has seen itself in mortal conflict with the left for decades but liberals still can't recognize the reactionary agitation and the long-term peril we face.
I don't think actual military conflict is coming or required. I believe the elements of the right as defined in John's article are substantially weaker politically than seems evident. They don't have the vote totals to win when liberals, you know, actually show up to vote! That's what happened in 2008 and 2012, and in the 2006 and 2018 midterms. The right's political success is as much of function of liberal fecklessness as much as the right's own effectiveness. If the left can consistently muster its power and political resources, we CAN destroy the Republican party.
I've always contended that Repugs don't win elections but that Democrats lose them. The consistent tendency to ignore non-presidential elections, the dismissal of the importance of the court system both state and federal, and the demand for perfect politicians and instant solutions to major political and economic challenges is just stupid....and now we're reaping the whirlwind.
Personally, if I were voting in person in Wisconsin today, I'd crawl on my knees over broken glass to maintain my franchise. The consistent subscribers of this blog I'm sure have the same mindset. More important is the need to construct a political, legal, and media infrastructure that is designed for aggressively accumulating political power. But do liberals in general have the fire in the belly, the mindset that we must build the toolkit for victorious political success, and the willingness to fight to the death for the future and for the Republic? I don't know, but we'll see.
I have to disagree on a few points. The GOP lock on the politics of the South and the heartland is ironclad. Unfortunately, Democratic strength relies on the turnout of the working poor, which means it's really only good for Presidential elections and national offices. Republicans routinely win a majority of everything else, which means they control election laws, redistricting, and have a solid base in Congress that makes any Democratic gains in Congress temporary.
Of course, we could mobilize our liberal working poor the same way the GOP mobilized the conservative working poor. Just remember that it took them over twenty years to get them to hate the opposition enough to be reliable voters. And party-wide, movement-wide dedication.
And you gotta make it entertaining, too. They won't listen if it isn't.
Are you suggesting we're getting close to an *actual* (Second) Civil War? What would that even look like? Or are you talking about a full-on *Cold* Civil War?
I think plenty of right-wing kooks would welcome a hot Civil War, these people are crazy. But what i think we're approaching is something akin to real tyranny, where an administration/political party is actually trying to usurp democracy. There will be some kind of inflection point where we either fight back in some real way or we lose our democracy.
For example, let's say Trump and the conservatives on the SCOTUS manage to cancel or delay elections in November... I'm not saying that will actually happen, but if it did, what would we do about it?
Trump is firing IGs and removing any kind of oversight he possibly can, but when is too far really too far? He can just chip away but no one is willing to draw any kind of real line in the sand. The more we give, the more they take. Will we wait until there's nothing left or will we eventually stop them.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm not overly confident we'd keep our democracy.
It starts with California secession. And every day that becomes more openly discussed out here.
I live in the Bay Area, and no one I know talks about secession. Things are worse than a mess right now, but even if the Union would let us go (which I doubt), the Chinese navy would be on our shores in a matter of weeks.
I've been saying this for 3 years now. There is no logic in the USA as constructed now. Coastal California including San Diego and even Orange county now - all the way up to Oregon , Cascadia and the Northeast from DC to Maine are CLEARLY different countries now.
I, for one, am a liberal who would welcome whatever it takes to free California from the Feds. I once felt alone in this but since the 2016 election one hears about secession much more often.
They don’t see it because the NRA has vilified gun laws. Democrats for their own protection need to arm themselves.