Not always true. Whites in the American South had plenty of exposure to black people. As German Nazis had plenty of exposure to Jews. Sometimes ideology overcomes lived experience.
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.” Got it.
Why does your definition have more weight than mine? Who are you and what is your experience with war?
I recently read the book How Civil Wars Start by Barbara F. Walter. She made a pretty convincing case that we’re a lot closer to civil war in the U.S. than a lot of people realize. She also said that, if we do have a war, it won’t be like the civil war of the 1860s, with armies, battles, and fronts. Rather, it will involve private militias, assassinations, bombings, attacks on government buildings. . . We’ve already seen some of this.
I don’t know what effect interacting with a lot of people has on racist attitudes. But on politics as a whole, looked at one-dimensionally as Democrats vs. Republicans, what I said empirically holds true. For instance, in Ohio, the county with the largest number of Trump voters, my own Cuyahoga (home to Cleveland and its suburbs), is also the county that had the highest percentage of Clinton and Biden voters. This is, of course, because it’s the most populated county overall, and as I said, interacting with a large number of people, of any political stripe, tends to make one liberal.
Which is why Donald Trump, who’s lived in New York City all his life, is a liberal.
Oh wait.
I do think the simple reductionist “city = liberal, all we have to do to expose people and their ignorance will melt away” is an idea we adopt at our peril.
There are reasons why Babylon, Egypt, Rome, Britain, all of the empires before us didn’t last. Their structural advantages should have been permanent, right? Just funnel the rurals through the superior structure, rinse, repeat.
There are corruption issues with people like Trump. Trump is an ignoramus because: White AND Inherited Wealth AND AND AND he lives in a very well functioning society where his skill base can be very narrow and he can still be a great success. Trump isn’t George Washington. He couldn’t run an estate to save his life. Some of the founders couldn’t either, they were privileged too, but at least there was more exposure. It really doesn’t work over the long run, and we can’t prevent it from happening because all designed societal structures will eventually age, become corrupt, and be supplanted by newer, better structures.
But some of Trump’s ignorance is BECAUSE he’s from NYC. Not IN SPITE OF.
60, female, wheelchair. Even if I were of a reasonable age, as an inside outside mechanic AES certified to work in nuke plants, I seriously doubt I would be front line fodder. And right now, I am more in danger from guerilla/insurgent/asshat MAGA/imitation special forces wankers strutting around trying to take over.
I ask again- is there a link to the actual survey anywhere?
Because I am skeptical. I have seen “alarming” surveys, then when I checked the actual survey- it was not really alarming.
How long could the government continue to fuel, arm and repair sophisticated weapons systems in the face of sabotage, supply blockages and the defection or non-cooperation of a large part of the civil population?
What I’m seeing in this and other related threads is the presumption that conservatives will be the aggressors in a period of civil strife. But while that might be true for a tiny minority of fanatical MAGA Trumpians, I just don’t think the vast majority of conservatives think that way. What I mostly see among the conservative gun owners I know is the conviction that they’re the ones most likely to be oppressed by an ever-more expansive government seeking dictatorial or even totalitarian control over their lives. And what they mostly plan is to become as self-sufficient as possible to avoid both dependency on a regimented “ration coupon” government and to ride out the civil disorder that may eventually occur. As far as violence goes, what I mostly hear is something that might be termed “armed civil disobedience”; as in “no, we are not going to obey your dictates, and no we are not going to meekly be rounded up into prison camps. Your move.”
It sounds like the original survey was rather vague in terms of definitions and timing. It was presumably meant to attract attention to issues of gun control. There is a difference between saying something nebulous in an anonymous survey and being incredibly angry that the local fast food restaurant is only offering your favourite snack for a limited time.
Sure, there is frustration about Covid, upheaval of traditional roles and nostalgia for times that never were. Here are some possible issues - I think too much has been made of them, but this may be because Canadian militants are often considered eccentric:
There’s a reason why I used words like “tend” and “likely”. There are exceptions. In fact, it’s inherent to the point I was making that there are exceptions, lots of them.
All too often, the Republican prepper version of “self-sufficient” is “have enough guns to be able to steal from everyone else”. How many of them know how to grow their own vegetables, or can their own produce themselves? Repair or make their own clothes? Do their own home and vehicle maintenance? If the shit the preppers are expecting ever hits the fan, my octogenarian hippie mother is going to be a lot more prepared than most of the “preppers”.
Or maybe they will …
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dallas-delays-moving-homeless-camp-after-activists-show-up/ar-AAZSBE4
I found the article below reporting on the same thing and they cited this study by the Researchers from the University of California-Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and the California Violence Research Center - Views of American Democracy and Society and Support for Political Violence: First Report from a Nationwide Population-Representative Survey (PDF)
Thank you, that appears to be a solid study.
Do note that only on the civil war question, only 5% “very strongly agree” and only 8% strongly agree, so that is not as bad as the article makes out. This is why we need to see the actual study.
But you know, the 50% who think civil war might be coming does not alarm me half so much as "but more than 40% agreed that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a
democracy” and that “in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants.” Good news is that 56% disagreed with the first and 57% with the second. And the “strongly agrees” were a small minority.
This partially explains it:“. Compared to nonrespondents, respondents were older and more frequently white, non-Hispanic;”
The study also did not note the % of Dems vs GOP.
And there’s more. While this is a different study this would seem be measuring the same sentiment as the one in the OP:
Is this the usual conservative weekend warrior, 2A bluster or something more?
In the other study only 13% “strongly agree” (or better).
I mean, if we define this as more Jan 6 shenanigans, violent riots and such, then sure, quite a few Americans will think that could be.
I suspect not. Even for the Actual, Historical Nazis, the Final Solution wasn’t their first solution. It took them some time to build up to that.
The problem is, deploying those assets takes time, and commitment. When exactly do you decide it’s time to turn the attack helicopters on fellow US citizens?
Let’s say Biden (or some other Dem) pulls off a win in 2024. And then a large group of Proud Boys decide to re-enact something like the Tulsa Massacre. They find some relatively isolated community with a large population of people they hate, and arrange for an armed mob of racists to storm the community, kill as many people as they can in an hour or two, and then disperse into the surrounding areas. How exactly would the US military respond to that?
Would you bomb every neighborhood that you could track one or more vehicles to? Would you blow up some bridges so they couldn’t escape? Would you send troops house-to-house looking for suspects?
Now imagine an attack like that happening every month or so, but always in a different location. And never a location you have troops guarding, because even the racists aren’t that stupid.
That could devolve into martial law, and suspension of rights, which upsets more people, leading to an even bigger crackdown. If it gets bad enough, it will mean Apache helicopters and attack drones responding to events, even if not in real time. The fight will be brought to the perpetrators, and the inevitable innocent casualties will just be shrugged away as acceptable losses.
The other thing that is happening with domestic terrorism, is some groups in the government have been saying it is the largest threat facing the country, while other groups are sympathetic to the terrorists. Look (through all of our partisan goggles) at the differential police response depending on which particular group is protesting.
It’s these differences in responses that I see moving a terror campaign into civil war territory. Armed and organized government groups deciding to follow different instructions, eventually leading to direct confrontations.