This is where the mindset of your average Far Right trump-worshipping Fox Not-News consuming wingnut is today (via Raw Story (paywall)):
An audience member asked a disturbing and stunning question at a speech given by close Trump family ally and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in Idaho on Monday, but instead of denouncing and disavowing the question itself as being anti-democratic, morally repugnant, illegal, based on falsehoods, and against his repeatedly avowed Christian values, Kirk offered an equally disturbing response.
"At this point, we're living under corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny," claimed the unidentified man, as Media Matters reports. "When do we get to use the guns? No, and I'm not — that's not a joke. I'm not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?..."
Charlie Kirk tried to downplay it, trying to deflect the blame onto the liberals the wingnuts are desperate to kill:
"They are trying to provoke you and everyone here. They are trying to make you do something that will be violent that will justify a takeover of your freedoms and liberties, the likes of which we have never seen," Kirk fear-mongered...
But Kirk can't hide this reality. Just look at the Far Right today. Driven by trump's Big Lie about a "stolen election" that wasn't. Inundated with misinformation across Facebook and Twitter and Dark Web rabbit holes. Every night Fox Not-News has wingnut talking head after wingnut talking head attacking Dr. Fauci and any vaccination efforts to end the COVID pandemic, clinging to unproven conspiracy theories and desperate to undo any efforts by Biden to bring America back to normal. There's Tucker Carlson violating every journalistic ethical norm shilling a ludicrous "false flag" story about the January 6th Insurrection, trying to both vindicate trump's coup attempt and hide the facts of what really happened at the same time.
The entire Far Right political environment is full of rage and hate right now, has been at this level ever since trump entered the White House and turned into the Hater-In-Chief. And none of this has calmed down after Biden won in 2020 and tossed trump to the curbside.
And this isn't a recent development. How far back to the wingnuts' "Librul Hunting Licenses" idea go, back to Obama's era or Bill Clinton's? Remember the John Birch Society putting up Wanted flyers for JFK accusing him of treason? The Far Right call to violence towards everyone they deem Liberal - and thus in their eyes Un-American - has been going on for decades, if not a full century of post-Civil War "Redeemer" and Klan-led violence.
This is the world we live in now: Daily threats of violence from enraged, ill-informed Far Right wingnuts raiding every school board meeting and driving every county elections official into hiding.
The question(s) remaining: Just how far is this all going to go? Where is the tipping point? When is that "other shoe" finally going to drop?
If you follow the likes of Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice, he's already noted that our nation has been enduring a low, simmering violent insurrection for some time. Not necessarily the violent backlash of the southern conservatives against the Sixties Civil Rights movement (there was kind of a cut-off point in the Seventies), but more along the anti-government flareups of militia groups inspired by the Turner Diaries and anti-immigrant haters feeding off of ancient anti-Semitic "Replacement Conspiracy" bullshit. What's caused all this to flare up now was the reactionary response to having someone like Barack Obama become President in 2008. The so-called Tea Party that rose up to challenge Obama's economic and health care policies quickly shifted into the old habits that kept the Far Right hating for decades.
To Silverman (and others in the Intelligence Community tracking national threats), it's stochastic terrorism: A situation where a person or group (usually ethnic/racial/gender) is targeted with demonization, to the point where an individual or small group is enraged enough to act against that target. In short: Fear-mongers/Rage-mongers accuse others of being EVIL and those mongers' audiences react with violence towards those others.
We've seen it with George Tiller, we've seen it with abortion clinic bombings, we've seen it with Black churches getting burned down, we've seen it in Charleston where an enraged racist killed Black parishioners at a prayer service, we've seen it with attacks on Jewish temples, we've seen it in Charlottesville, we've seen it on the Capitol steps this past January 6th.
We're already in this stage of violence, with no end in sight. As long as the Far Right media spews out their misinformation, as long as they point out others for demonizing, as long as they skirt the ethics of the First Amendment to sell their fear and hate without accountability, we won't see an end of the bloodshed.
What's for debate is the escalation.
Fear and hate are like drugs. At some point, the same hit isn't going to give you the same high. You start upping the dosage, looking for that high, never mind the damage the drug's toxicity does to your body, mind, and soul.
Just railing against Libruls and Black Lives Matter protestors and Immigrants and Muslims and Jews and Women won't cut it. Someone's going to want to push further into acts of insurrection. Not just the Republican voting base that does all the screaming, but a Republican leadership finding themselves egged on by pressure - from trump, from that rabid base - to openly rebel against a Biden regime they deem tyrannical.
The ongoing anti-vaccination movement, for example, has done a good job of getting Republican governors to reject the science and argue for FREEDOM against mandates to get vaccinated for workplaces and schools. Thing is, legal history has supported federal mandates before and even this hard-conservative Supreme Court will be loathe to overrule precedence. So any Republican Red State governor is going to run into a political conflict they might not win.
The pressure from the Far Right base to reject federal authority is going to increase, no matter how the GOP leadership will try to manage the message and keep the anger and violence limited to controllable outbursts. You can see it now from the anger of the mobs at the wingnut rallies. Any threat to the Far Right Narrative - any official investigation into the January 6 riots leading to arrests of the major ringleaders, any official shutdown of trump's Big Lie of a "stolen" election, any successful enforcement of the vaccine mandates - is going to require a disproportionate reaction from the Republicans that could trigger honest-to-God open warfare.
It most likely won't be straight-up secession. The political dynamics of such a move - even for a big state like Texas - would create utter chaos and likely fail (much faster than it did in the 1860s). I could go into greater detail of the problems building a new nation-state in the 21st Century can be, and I might do so later on...
With secession an unlikely event (for now), what will happen will be an ongoing legal battle between the Red State governments filing lawsuits against the U.S. government: To delay and obstruct any final enforcement of anything long enough for the 2022 or 2024 elections coming into effect and changing the political landscape to favor the Republicans (this is where all the damn gerrymandering of Texas, Florida, and Georgia is gonna suck). Insubordination and obstruction from the state agencies instead of open secession.
But if the Republicans delaying tactics fail, if their attempts to suppress voters and gerrymander things to hell and back fail, if the Democrats hold onto Congress in 2022 and then Biden wins re-election 2024 in spite of Republican howls of stolen votes, we can expect things to escalate even more. Because those losses will only enrage the Far Right base to believe trump's Big Lie even more.
At that point, the arguments against secession would go out the window. Convinced that they are losing power - similar to how they feared things would go in 1860 - and falling to minority status, the Far Right conservative elements will fall back into the desire to just quit what they'll see as a game rigged against them. In spite of the reality they have never proved in the past they were cheated, and likely won't prove it in the future.
So if it comes that far, will we see actual secession?
Any Red State looking to split from the United States in protest will find few overseas allies to help them, for starters: The most likely suspects - Russia, China, and Iran - just happen to be anathema to a majority of Americans, create an open act of hypocrisy (seeing how many Far Right ideologues hate those nations in principle), and create further schisms among their own secessionist ranks.
Those Red States will also find few financial allies. National and global banks will be reluctant to do business with a rebel state, and may pull back doing business with any corporations that tries to operate there. Considering many Red States already have low Gross Domestic Products, and rely too much on federal subsidies, those states will find themselves with economic crises right off the bat.
Even the need to start your own currency - the U.S. government is not about to let a seceding state rely on the federal dollar - would be a major headache. You'd have to consider exchange rates to other currencies, run the risk of inflation, and establish a fiscal policy to manage the money you have (or need to print). With few banks or foreign nations likely dealing with you - lest they anger the United States, which is still an economic powerhouse - any loans to provide a fiscal foundation won't be there for you. Considering the mindset of the Far Right, they'll likely try to set it to a Gold Standard (which could lead to inflation and immediate Panics) or worse go with a bitcoin (which would be vulnerable to speculation).
A small populated state without much of a tax base or commodities of value will find itself isolated real quick. A singular state in secession will get cut off from most interstate trade and shipping. Train shipping will also get cut off. Supply chains could fall apart. Considering the U.S. government will be in a hostile mood, you're likely to see your seaports and airports shut down. Any tie-ins to the nation's power grids will get cut off. If you think you can survive on your own electrical supply, just ask Texas how that worked this past winter.
Of the Red States that COULD pull of seceding on their own, Texas has enough resources and financial wealth to pull it off. However, they'd STILL run into the hostility of the remaining United States government cutting them off from any overseas allies. They'll even run into the hassles of suddenly having Mexico as a neighbor, which could come knocking with an army at the Rio Grande to discuss just where the border really is (remember kids, the treaty that ended the Mexican-American War was with the UNITED STATES, not Texas).
That's not even getting into the trouble any Red State will have with their own residents. Sure, in some Republican-led states the population is thoroughly conservative and eager to fight. But even in places like South Carolina or Kansas or Iowa or Indiana, there are pockets of Democratic Blue.
A seceding Red State is going to run into the likelihood of their Blue Metropolises seceding themselves. There is historic precedence: During the Civil War, most Confederate state had pockets of resistance from various counties or cities dominated by people who still thought of themselves as Unionists (or hated the slaveowners' political control). The current political landscape is the same: Much of the Republican control in large-populated Red states (Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio) are only that way due to extreme gerrymandering. The dense metro areas (Houston and San Antonio/Austin, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa/St. Pete, Atlanta, Charlotte, Cleveland) in those states are reliably Democratic and would resist any secession efforts.
Even then, this isn't 1860. Back then, it took time and effort to flee a state if you were no longer politically accepted anymore. Any Whig/Republican in the South by 1861 either kept their heads down and mouths shut, fled to the safety of a friendly county, or spent time more than once in Confederate jails until Union armies liberated the place.
Any Blue Democrat in 2024 can hop into an SUV with their family, pack up for a month's vacation, get the hell out of the Red State, stay with relatives in a safe Blue State until the secessionists are rounded up by the National Guard, and drive back to file any insurance claims on any damage their Red State neighbors may have inflicted on their homes in their absence. The Red State secessionists may try to blockade the Interstate highways but those would be the first points retaken by federal agents to ensure refugees can get out okay.
If the Red State in question succeeds in seceding, expect a brain drain of the more educated, more wealthy Democratic residents fleeing, reducing the value and business strength of that Red State. Colleges would likely shut down (especially as more liberal young adults will flee for their lives). Any educational investment generated by universities gone.
And if any Red State governor is foolish enough to call for secession, they better not plan on sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row. In this day and age, the U.S. army doesn't even have to drop paratroopers on your location to arrest you for treason: They can just fly in drones to target your cell phone's GPS and make you say bye-bye. Considering how the rest of the world views the wingnut trumpian factions with contempt, the only ones who'll file a war crimes complaint to the UN would be Russia and Bulgaria (maybe Brazil).
That's just the basic stuff I can game out if any Red State Republican leadership - any trumpian cultist - think they can win a fight here against the federal government if things escalate the way they want.
The end result no matter what - until the madness can break, until the liars are held accountable and facts and truth can reclaim our sanity - is still going to be suffering of innocent lives, bloodshed, and heartbreak.
But they can't win. The Far Right just can't win. They think they have the numbers but they don't. They know they have the weapons but they can't shoot us all. They think they have the rich and powerful on their side but the elites will abandon them in a heartbeat if their own asses are on the line. They think they'll own the courts and they believe they'll reclaim the reins of power, but they're not as good at cheating as they used to be, and the Constitution that forged this nation is stronger than they think.
All we have to remember is that we - the real Americans, the diverse, the loving and living, the moderate and the liberal and the progressive - outnumber them, and all we have to do is stand united and fight back.
(Update 11/5/21): Thanks again to Batocchio for adding this blog to Crooks & Liars ongoing Mike's Blog Round-Up! I'm a bit busy this month with NaNo but I may post every so often if something crazy happens...
(Update 11/9/21): We got demagogues like Dan Bongino out here encouraging his audience to rise up "against vaccine mandates" and that "we outnumber them" when talking about confronting evil liberals. We got Senator Ted "Cancun" Cruz openly talking secession for Texas in front of college students just in case Republicans don't retake the federal government in 2022/24.
This isn't idle talk. This is the ongoing Far Right Narrative pushing the stochastic terrorism of demonizing The Dread Other Libruls to further extremes right up to the point where another insurrection/coup takeover takes place. These wingnuts are spoiling for a fight, and it's horrifying how the mainstream media still laughs it off as "Free Speech" pandering. Right up until the blood spills...
4 comments:
"When do we get to use the guns?"
Last I checked, there's nothing stopping you from using them, so what you're really asking is "When can we murder without getting in trouble over it?"
Which, when you think about it, is a tacit admission that they know they can't "win" a "war" against the United States of America.
They're just butthurt and living in a goddamn fantasy world.
Real businesses and governments have very little interest in such fantasies, unless they become too problematic to order and the bottom line.
Consequences will follow disruptions to either, and the real losers will be the ordinary citizens whose lives get temporarily disrupted by the goddamn tantrums.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
I don't think it at all likely that a second US civil war would go at all like the first one. In 1861 the US Army was tiny, dwarfed in size by state militias, and enjoyed little if any qualitative advantage over them. It was a war fought between state militias called to federal service vs those called to confederal service.
If the states split up into two warring camps today, the only way that the relative economic power and population of the two groups would matter would be if the active duty US military somehow vanished.
If the active duty force stays together and breaks for one side or the other, it's game over immediately, and that would look more like a coup than a civil war, because no combination of states could do anything but lose immediately to that military. The states would have their police forces, and perhaps their NG units, that could over time be organized into armed forces that would be effective in the field, but that's exactly the advantage our large and very well-equipped and trained active duty forces would have, that they would be ready to roll out on day one and break up any state militias as they spend weeks and months trying to organize, equip, and train.
If the active duty force were to break pretty close to even, perhaps they would cancel each other out, and there would be time for the group of states with more people and a stronger economy to build a better army than the other group of states. Even here, though, consider that the forces that would have to be the nucleus of these new armies, NG units and police forces, lean fascist even in blue states. I am not an expert in the current makeup of NG units, but back when I was in the US Army and paid more attention to such things, most of California's NG combat units were from the Central Valley, and most of NY's were from upstate, and most of GA's were from cracker country. As for the police, I think their loyalty, even in deep blue cities like NYC and LA, is even more likely to lie with the fascist grouping of states. I consider the very strongest reason to defund the police these days is that they constitute an enemy within for anti-fascist states and cities. The anti-fascist states would first have to win internal wars against their own NG and police before they could start to build their armies to fight the fascist states.
I agree that the exchange at the Turning Point convention between Charlie Kirk and the guy who wanted to know when they get to go for their guns was important to understanding where their side's thinking is these days. I disagree though with this, that you stopped your analysis of what Kirk had to say just as he got to the part of his thinking that describes what plan they are putting into effect.
These people like to think of themselves as standing at the same cusp as the signers of the Declaration, who wrote that document to justify the resort to the armed opposition to the Crown they were already engaged in. The basic idea is that our allegiance in human law to the regime we live in now is contingent on that regime being responsive to our needs. English law and political practice included all sorts of means of redress to subjects who felt they were being abused by their govt, and the Declaration is mostly that, a list of abuses, and specifically the abuse that consisted of episodes of the Crown shutting off all the usual and expected means of redress that Englishmen are supposed to enjoy. Only such a long train of abuses, to include the categorical refusal of redress, justifies abandoning the allegiance owed in human law to the current govt, and the assertion of a natural law right to form a new govt.
The point that Kirk makes after your analysis leaves off is that their side still has abundant and powerful means of redress it has yet to use, the power they believe lies with their red states to nullify federal overreach. They need to hold off any disorganized armed effort such as the "go for our guns now" guy wants permission to get started, because what the leaders have queued up is state nullification. The D administration faced with state nullification of federal law, executive orders, or court rulings, would have to choose between letting the red states get away with their defiance, or trying to send in federal troops. If it's the latter, then their side goes for the guns.
But, realistically, and this is not what Kirk goes into explicitly, but is a question for people on our side, what's the likelihood that any D administration is going to send in the troops no matter what danger the red state nullification poses if allowed to stand? What their side calculates is that the best way to rob a bank is to own the bank. You get to steal more, indefinitely, and without the risk of overt violence and obvious illegality. Their plan is to use state ownership of even federal elections to steal those elections legally.
Maybe this administration and the military would send in the troops if a repeat of a 1/6 style overt insurrection that threatened election results were to occur. The gun enthusiast in the crowd at that Turning Point event wants to be a foot soldier, and now, in some such overt violence. Kirk, as the general officer tells him to calm down. Wait on the leadership to either win without overt violence, or, if the Ds show unexpected spine, that will be the time for gun guy to enlist in a far more organized fascist army.
IMHO a whole lot of the bravado about succession is rooted in the incorrect assumption that their red-state families are really rugged individualists. My neighbor, central Florida, thinks he's independent.
His grandmother:federally regulated pension, SS, Food-stamps, and Medicare pays him a token $50 a month for living in a cabin out back.
His idiot son: Meth, SS disability for a back problem, Medicaid contributes nothing.
His wife: Medicare, SS. Is undergoing kidney dialysis on the federal program.
Bill: Air force retirement, SS, Medicaid, retirement check from major corporation (out of state).
The vast majority of his income and benefits come from, or through, the federal government. Come outright secession and they might not be so cooperative. What then? He has guns. Rob a local bank?
But, he is sure he is independent. He's absolutely sure he can get along without the federal government. I asked him about his SS check and he said 'Sure, I'll get it still ... I earned it ... they owe me'.
Sure thing Bill.
And so it goes.
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