If after all that is happened, they are still voting Republican, then, yes, that’s exactly what they are voting for. The masks have been off for quite a while now. There’s nothing left to hide behind. If anyone wants something other than that, they’re not still voting Republican.
We aren’t going to have a second civil war, we are going to have something much worse. We’re just going to concede. We won’t ever put up a fight for our country, it is already effectively gone.
The Civil War was nice and cleanly demarcated. States versus states. We got to line up on the battlefield and duke it out to decide whose policies were going to win. We are far too integrated now to have such a clean war. You can’t effectively raise armies and draw battle lines based on the urban vs rural divide.
Moreover, the liberal side is simply not willing to fight it out. We’ve had our history whitewashed and believe that everything that was actually fought for with the threat of violence and actual violence, like what worker protections and rights we have, civil rights, etc. were actually won primarily by peaceful movements asking nicely. The powers that actually run this country don’t want people thinking that violence and the threat of violence works - because they would be the target of some of that - so we we teach our history under the guise of being more enlightened to emphasize that peacefully getting together and singing kumbaya and asking nicely for human rights is how change is made, and that violence is inherently bad and not a valid tool. Most liberals have internalized this idea and are shocked at the idea that you may have to use violence to fight for your rights and to maintain the control of the people over its government.
The old leftists in the US - the sort that got us out of the Robber Baron age into something where workers were treated almost like human beings - knew that you had to use the threat of violence, or at least a high compliance mass strike (and/or sabotage0, to get there. Most liberals today are not leftists - very few people in the US are actually left, at best they’re all neoliberals who have been successfully fenced in in terms of being convinced that they have thoughts that rock the boat too much. They don’t have fight in them, only compliance. They will grumble a bit but ultimately not significantly resist our upcoming perpetual fascist government.
Modern liberals won’t fight. They won’t even fight hard now, in the courts and in words, when it’s easy. We have an ongoing coup attempt, and no one is seriously going to do anything about it. You might say “but the January 6 hearings are being conducted right now” but you all know in your hearts that nothing is going to happen with them. No serious repercussions, no real safekeeping of our society.
So many people are naive and desperate to believe that we’re not actually in a coup, because despite an absolute mountain range of evidence that things are not normal, they still desperately want to believe that it can’t happen here, that America is not some third world banana republic where exactly what is currently happening can happen. Even on these very boards, you have people arguing regularly the Jan 6 and the ongoing Republican attempts to bypass the institutional mechanisms of democracy aren’t a coup attempt. They are willfully blind. So we’ve collectively decided that denial and not rocking the boat are going to be our response to a blatant ongoing attempt to overthrow our system of government. We’re not even fighting it now, when it’s easy. We’re certainly not going to be fighting it in a martial way. There’s no way you’re going to get many modern liberals to actually arm themselves and subject themselves to danger and violence to fight for their country in a new civil war. They are still clamoring to disarm themselves, completely oblivious to the fact that routine political violence is going to be in our future and that they’re only conceding that it will be one sided.
Which is another factor that works in the fascist’s favor. They are willing to commit violence to get their way, and the liberals are not. This is part of how they are going to instill minority rule.
A new civil war would’ve given us a fighting chance. What actually is going to happen is that the fascists will win without a shot being fired, without even peaceful methods of beating them weren’t really pursued. We just gave up, buried our head in the sand, and let them have it.
What makes you think things like this happen on a state by state basis only? They’re also using every means possible—including the Supreme Court—to change things at the federal level too, which can be used to mess with “blue” states. What is way more likely to happen is that any blueness at the state and local level will be neutralised, long before there’s any chance for blue areas to secede.
A separated country doesn’t mean they’re going to lay siege on the other half. They still need our money. The vast majority of GDP in the US comes from blue areas. If we let them have part of the country to turn into their own little Christian Afghanistan, they would still be happy to sell us their food - they would need to, to try to keep things together. The two countries that succeeded the US would almost certainly be huge trade partners. The ultra rich would still be running the show, and they would still profit from that situation.
There’s no easy, clean way to divide the US like this, but if there was, that would be a worthwhile solution, or at least it would be far superior to simply letting the fascists takeover the whole country and enforce minority rule.
I’ve daydreamed that we could have some sort of magic crystal ball or some other way to see alternate histories, and I wish we could see the hypothetical history where we let the south secede in 1860 and now, after enforcing all of their regressive policies they became a third world theocratic shithole like Afghanistan - or maybe a richer one, like Saudi Arabia.
If we were able to divide the country and allow people the chance to move to choose their side, it wouldn’t take long at all for the conservative side to completely fall apart under the toxic effects of their own policies. Ironically, we’d be thinking about strong borders to keep out refugees from that shithole.
Why on earth would we fight a war to preserve this? I would love to cut huge chunks of red state America out of my nation and I don’t want any blood shed to keep them. I am sick to death of my politics and culture being dominated by de-educated religious fanatics that are hostile to democracy.
Yep, that’s what all the signs point to.
Honestly, I’m done arguing with you. You seem to know definitively how something we’ve never encountered before will turn out with no room for disagreement.
It was asked how I’m preparing for coming fascism, i replied that I’m mentally preparing for a civil war, with a hope for something better to eventually come from it. Not debate the logistics of whether it is or isn’t possible for the United States to successfully break up.
You’re forgetting that not all states are either red or blue. I live in a purple state. Do purple states have to align with either the new red or blue countries or can we maintain our purple status as an independent state? I’d rather not move if I don’t have to.
I suspected this OP would turn into a paranoid rant.
What about the “New USA” stopping social security payments to expatriates, and not allowing you to take money out of the country? I spoke with a South African several years ago who wanted to move to the USA, but could not take any money with him.
What about this is paranoid? Everything is happening right out in the open. Nothing here is either hidden or implausible. Did the Nazi party allow liberal cities like Berlin to secede? What about Stalin? There won’t be a secession of liberal areas. There will be a right wing takeover and that will be it, possibly for the lifetimes of anyone participating on this board.
Right, if they were smart, they’d have all moved to Somalia by now.
I’m bookmarking this thread so I can zombie it in a decade or so during President Ocasio-Cortez’s inauguration.
The problem is that you’d be cutting out the vast majority of the country; less cutting off your nose to spite your face than amputating all limbs and selling both kidneys.
Now that would really spark a civil war!
Stranger
Because you think Republicans are not planning right now to ensure they won’t lose any future elections through tactics such as Republican legislatures sending Republican electors to the electoral college regardless of the popular vote? Or because you think the system is immune to such shenanigans?
So basically, the rational thing to do is smother our kids?
Good for those of you who are old and have no attachments and can watch everything go to hell and not feel anything personally, but there are those of us who do have something to lose, physically or emotionally, and I don’t know about the rest of them, but I feel kind of insulted and abandoned when others shrug their shoulders and basically say, “I’m just going to sit back and watch the world burn. I don’t have any stake in it anymore, so what do I care?”
(Huh, I finally put a longstanding vague feeling into words. Nice.)
Well said. I’m sick of hearing supposedly grown people saying Violence is never the answer.
When something worthwhile is on the line, violence is very often the only answer.
“Violence” is different from “Civil War”, especially one so severe that we won’t stay together as a nation. A clear win by the Republicans of at least the Presidency and one chamber of Congress, or a large enough win by Democrats that they win even without conservative meddling will still result in violence, but not necessarily one that would be so intense or of such a nature that it would be civil war.
However, such a clear win by the Republicans would still result in a “fascist authoritarian regime”, so that’s small comfort.
Oh, all of us shall suffer, don’t you worry, even those of us who have less life to live. You won’t be alone. But if you really believe you have more at stake than others, what do you propose? Have you a call to action for us? Do you see any leadership who can show us a way forward? Ocasio-Cortes has been name-checked in this thread. I’d love to think she might represent a beacon of hope. I don’t see that she has been able to have much influence yet in raising an organized opposition. Has anyone else?
Oh, I wish I had answers to your questions. But I’m a nobody, which is why I understand the feelings of helplessness in general. But at the same time, I can’t help but react to what I see as “oh, well, not my problem anymore, have at it, and good luck.” Besides, that still doesn’t answer my question of whether I’m expected to tell my nephews to give up on their hopes and dreams, encourage my nieces to get their tubes tied, or whether planning for retirement is pointless.
Not disputing your statement, but noting that the extent of it really depends on who you define “we.” I can imagine those with a direct personal stake in the outcome, especially existential, were and are putting up a hell of a fight. (I assume you’re mostly speaking of prevention; I can definitely see some trouble starting when the mass arrests and executions begin in earnest, for similar reasons as above.)
Huh, something I just thought of: is it possible for any of those who disagree with the OP’s premise (not saying I’m one of them) to debate without those who agree thinking of them as incredibly privileged and naive of plain “sun rises in the East” realities? If not, is there any point to discussion?