It Could Happen Here

Cracked failed for a reason...

 

I haven’t had a chance to listen to it, but the topic has been batted around here. While I can imagine violence occurring following a trump defeat by a minority of his supporters, turning worse if he refuses to leave the White House, I don’t see the possibility of anything approaching a “Civil War.” If trump manages to steal the election with Russian help? Democrats will work to repair the damage, with a likely majority in both the House and Senate. That would be the best we could hope for in that scenario, in my opinion. There could be an incident here and there, but I very much doubt if it would be anything significant.

 

A civil war in terms of two standing domestic armies is ridiculous. Whoever controls the pentagon controls the country. It’s just that simple. Even the most liberal Democrats won’t challenge an envoy of tanks and marines surrounding the White House, if Trump orders troops to patrol San Francisco to shoot anyone with a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker.

However.... what could be possible is if Trump steals the election and refuses to leave office....

NATO, Canada, South Korea, Australia, and our other European allies could refuse to accept Trumps legitimacy, and work through American companies and essentially the American oligarchs to design a global organized economic approach to weakening Trump to force him out of office.

American corporations have the power to get him out of office, but that’s hard to see happening because they are making out like bandits under his corruption that benefits billionaires and grifters.

....

The idea of a civil war is straight up right wing propaganda used to inject fear into people like Mick, Hollic, Texx, etc. so they continue to believe that Democrats are such an existential threat that they’ll allow Trump be a criminal in the Oval Office.

It’s just that simple. Pu$$y hat wearing libtards are not rolling out an army of Prius’s to the White House to remove Trump by force and then torturing him by forcing him to drink a Kale Smoothie. This idea of Democrats creating a standing army is hilariously stupid.

Our Allies turning on us economically like the world did to Putin and Russia after 2014 and weakening our economy is likely if Trump and his supporters choose to overthrow our democracy through rigging elections and destroying a free press to suppress its own citizens.

 

I haven’t listened to the podcast but my understanding of a civil war breaking out in the US isn’t between standing armies but would be if Trump loses the a closely contested election or the Senate does actually vote to remove him from office. In that case Trump refuses to accept it and publicly calls out his supporters to take up arms. Armed Trump supporters march in Washington whole groups of armed trump supporters carry out terrorist attacks around the country.

The other scenario is Trump wins a closely contested election and many on the left don’t accept it. Mass protest turn out resembling what we see in Hong Kong leftist groups reminiscent of the Weatherman and Black Panthers take up arms. Cities descend into chaos.

 

The best episode of the podcast is the one where he talks about all the off the shelf technology that ISIS used to create and sustain an arms industry.

Also, talks about tannerite, the totally legal binary explosive you can mail order.

To me, the most likely touchpoint is people finally manage to "do something" about school shootings, push their way through the NRA resistance, and as a result go a little too far a little too fast, and the yahoos start shooting when people show up to confiscate their AR-15's.

One point he makes repeatedly is how in every civil war he has direct experience with, nobody saw it coming or expected it until it was happening - Syria, Ukraine, etc. They just woke up one day, and - surprise - we're in the middle of a civil war!

 

I wouldn’t put much stock in this idea that liberals are just pu$$ies who wouldn’t fight back. As I stated in my post above during much of the 60’s and 70’s much of the threat of terrorism was Leftists groups and as we see with Antifa there are plenty on the Left who are more than willing to fight.

Also not that long ago myself and many others would be surprised to see Hong Kong youth fighting back against HKPD. Most of the young in Hong Kong absorbed in the same things that most young Asians were, video games, K-pop and all manner of cutesy things. I remember in 2011 teaching a Judo class at a university in Hong Kong and nearly all of the students there seemed softer than their American counterparts. Yet these same people are now defying the PRC.

 

Just for the hell of it, I’ve quoted myself with my original post spoilered, because I wanted to add a couple of possible scenarios. The 1st is an assumption that we (Democrats) would have a majority in the House and Senate (and trump “wins”) is based on the Russians being more effective returning trump to office than preventing the Democratic Party from increasing its House majority, and winning the majority in the Senate. In 2020, the math favors Democrats running for the Senate, just as it favored the GOP in 2018. Fewer D’s are running for reelection than R’s. The GOP will be up against it holding on to the Senate. I think Democrats will have at least a 5 seat majority.

The 2nd? There will be another effort to impeach trump, there being nothing preventing a second attempt that I know of, and with a D majority in both Houses of Congress, nothing to prevent a more thorough investigation. If anything, Russian interference will be even more obvious. With 4 years stretching out with trump being in the White House (yes, it’s a nightmare scenario), there will be plenty of time to go to court and get all the documentation being withheld today (although I’m still optimistic that more will be coming to light soon in the present day), and to force those refusing to do their patriotic duty today to testify before Congress, to finally testify.

My hope is that more GOP senators will be willing to vote to impeach Mr trump. Any effort to add more very conservative, often unqualified (which is happening now) federal judges by trump will be stymied. Of course, the far better result would be a Democratic landslide giving us a Democratic president (probably a moderate one, as I think a moderate Democrat would have a better chance of overcoming Russia’s effort to “fix” the election by having a broader appeal to independent voters), a Democratic Senate and Democratic House.

Whoever the Democratic nominee is, everyone needs to volunteer to help get her or him elected. Considering how corrupt trump is, how joined at the hip he is with Putin, and how corrupt the Senate leadership is, with McConnell preventing over 275 bills, many bipartisan to come for a vote, some designed to prevent the Russians from tampering with our elections, it will take a huge turnout to defeat him and give the loyal opposition majorities in Congress.

I’ll be volunteering at a phone bank in Austin. Will you?

 

The other thing - of course the US military could stomp a bunch of angry civilians - they have the tools and ability to flatten entire cities - but would they actually do so when it resulted in thousands of Americans dying, and images of US cities on the evening news looking like Fallujah or Syria which would only turn more people against the government.

Disproportionate force response is counter productive and only serves to escalate the conflict, as the PRC should be learning in Hong Kong. "We had to destroy the village to save it."

Operating domestically, the military would need to walk on eggshells, which a bunch of yahoos in their prepper bunkers wouldn't.

 

I'm not sure this is quite right - many fewer Dems are up for re-election, but almost all the R's are in Trump states. If Trump wins, Dems need to gain 4 net seats. They'll lose one in Alabama, so they need to win 5 others. The only ones in play are Colorado, Maine, Arizona, North Carolina, and 2 in Georgia. So they'd have to win 5 of the 6 races, 4 of which are in likely Trump states. They'd also have to hold their seat in Michigan.

Dems have an outside chance of getting to 50/50 in the Senate, and controlling it if a Dem wins the Presidency, but that's probably realistically the best case scenario. A Biden + Dem-wave election dominating with independents is the only extreme outside shot of 51+.

The real opportunity for Dems isn't until 2022, when a bunch of GOPers from 2010 and 2016 got into purple/blue states (Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin).

 

I wouldn’t argue with you, but I’m trying to be optimistic. A 5 seat majority in the Senate may be hoping for too much, but I think we’ll get at least 51. It’s still about a year until the election. A lot can and probably will happen that could change the outcome more in favor of the Democrats. It’s not impossible that McConnell could lose his seat, as well as Graham, in my opinion.

 

You are not describing a civil war. That is not a domestic standing army. That is called protesting.

The civil rights movement was probably the most effective movement in terms of enacting change. That was not violent. Liberal groups will likely use organizing tactics like that. Nobody will advocate for violence, and terrorist type of acts. That is nonsense.

The fear on the right of ANTIFA is a right wing fever dream and if you buy into that garbage I feel sorry for you. I’m pretty damn liberal, and keep in the loop with groups like Indivisible, swing left, etc. and I have never came across one single person who rubbed elbows with Antifa.

Antifa (the real one) was a group in Europe pre WW2 that was used as propaganda to ultimately allow Hitler to use the military for domestic policing and to gain more power.

It should be no surprise at all that current right wing groups that sympathize with Nazis are trying to recreate and repropogate the concept of an Antifa threat (even using the same name) in order to sway right wing supporters to use aggressive and potentially violent tactics to silence the voice of the people who might speak out to right wing ideals.

Please do not buy into that propaganda nonsense. You need to understand the historical significance and how the use of this propaganda tactic led to straight up fascism in Europe post WW1.

 

In Portland where all the "stuff" happens Antifa is a legit very real thing. They arent the drooling baby killers that the right makes them out to be, but they exist.

They are a bunch of Portland residents who are trying to oppose the Patriot Prayer and Proud Boy goons who gather from all across the country to terrorize the liberal city for being liberal. And there are "kids" who like to respond to violence with violence. There have been many real brawls.

They have spokespeople and websites and everything:

http://rosecityantifa.org/

A bunch of other liberal cities like Minneapolis have legit Antifa orgs as well.

 

Today the Secretary of the Navy and the Admiral in charge of the Navy Seals have threatened to resign if Trump overrides them on discharging Gallagher. The Sec of Defense and Chairman of Joint Chiefs have relayed their own opposition to the White House.

trump has indicated he will block any attempt to expel Gallagher.

this is the first real test of what the military would do if trump crosses the line

 

We would have martial law in a heartbeat, and then you would see a schism within the military wrt certain units. You'd have the military fighting each other, which I just don't ever see happening no matter how bad things get. I don't see a point in the remotely near future where the military does any sort of large scale action against civilians.

Maybe I'm being naive or overly positive. I hope not.

 

Yes I know there are actual Antifa groups. My point is it’s not an actual organization that can overthrow a government and install communism like the right is led to believe. If you watch Hannity or look at any of their websites, their media presents them as an existential crisis that every liberal, Democrat, Soros, Hollywood, etc. are all secretly a part of, and at plotting together to take over the country. Sounds insane until you actually catch a segment on Fox about them and if you didn’t know any better you’d assume this was a well funded organization on par with Al Qaeda, or ISIS.

My point is the over the top presentation of these groups is kind of the point. It’s propaganda used to divide us by pumping fear of liberals into their viewers.

 

If the breakdown in society can happen in HK, one of the most peaceful and safe cities in the world, it can happen anywhere.

 

That **** going down in Barcelona is scary

 

It sad to see some of you guys suggesting Russia can put Trump back in the White House. It never happened. Whatever they did Americans voted in legitimate polls.

This whole idea of Russia causing chaos here is ridiculous. Evem accepting they changed some people's minds.

Our politics have always been tribal. I hear journalists say the Nixon impeachment was just as divided in people's opinions of guilt and now time has eroded the Nixon.

Im like who do these journalists talk to because there are still plenty who support Nixon

 

If the Senate convicted Trump it would be following a big shift in opinion and a loss of Trump support.

Its sad its political and not factual but since its political we can assume an overwhelming majority of Americans would be in agreement