What do you call what happened in Minneapolis if not an uprising? Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protect their neighbors and obstruct a pogrom being carried out by the government, and in the end ICE retreated and the architects of the project lost their jobs. Sure sounds like the people rose up to me.
The difference there is that the Feds essentially invaded an American city, beat and killed Americans, and that’s where people pushed back. A bloodless coup, like the original thread discussed, wouldn’t hit home for people in a way that seeing armed, masked men on your streets arresting your neighbors and coworkers does.
And, let’s think about this for a moment. The Feds invaded Minneapolis and St. Paul. They beat, arrested, and killed protesters. They snatched people off the street into unmarked vans. That wasn’t enough to cause real violet push back anywhere, not even in Minneapolis, which remained, thankfully, peaceful. The National Guard are still in DC, and people just get used to it.
Okay, just to make sure: we’re talking specifically about the circumstances described in the quote in the OP, and not in general under any circumstances, right? The subject line sort of implies the latter to me.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.
Yes, I think that if the House did that weird move to try and keep the GOP in the majority, the people won’t rise up and the states won’t secede.
I also think in general, if an authoritarian leader arose (I mean, we already have one) that pulled a Putin or Erogan and made elections mostly for show while clamping down on the press (or, moreso, I guess), we still wouldn’t rise up and the states won’t secede.
At least not right away, which is the hypothetical in the other thread that I was addressing. It would take years for the economic effects to be felt – the US economy is huge, and even these stupid tariffs and stupid wars aren’t really affecting rates or markets, so there’s a ton of momentum. The dollar is still mostly the currency of choice, we still control the flow of most money around the world.
Sure, after years or decades, things will change.
I’m asking whether this thread is about the citizens (not) rising up under any potential circumstance ever, or the specific conditions currently in play being discussed in the posts mentioned by the OP.
I’m sure you can come up with circumstances where people would rise up or the country would fall apart within days, weeks, or a few months. But, for example, Trump deciding to just stick around somehow and the SCOTUS allowing it? I don’t think that would do it.
China is already threatening the dollar as the currency of choice. The Euro is now the second most recognized currency. Everybody in the world hates Trump more every single day. If he were to foment an authoritarian coup, it wouldn’t take years for rest of the world to drop the dollar.
Nor would it take years for the economic effects to be felt. A week would suffice, with a recession or depression following. Money is fungible. If the U.S. isn’t the best and safest place for it, other places will beckon, and transfers are instantaneous. Talk about billionaires fleeing California because of a proposed, not even enacted, wealth tax. A coup would be a wealth tax on the entire country.
Yes, it would take years to drop the dollar. Nearly all oil contracts are in dollars and they are around for years. The US controls the SWIFT network, which is how banks send money to each other internationally.
There would be workaround eventually, but those wouldn’t happen in days or weeks.
We already have a would-be authoritarian in, who is tearing up or violating treaties left and right, threatening other sovereign nations (Panama, Canada, Norway) or kidnapping their heads of state, starting wars for no reason. The markets are at record highs.
On day two after the coup, we would still be the largest consumer market, one of the largest economies, the largest military, the largest trading partner. It would take time to unwind all of that, and so it would take time for the markets to fall apart. We have a ton of momentum, essentially.
At the risk of being in the squishy middle, I think everyone here has some good points.
I see it as a continuum between two extremes: 1) the boiling frog and 2) the tipping point, with room in between.
In scenario 1, the R’s position themselves as “just a normal disagreement” and really push the narrative that there were serious discrepancies with elections in certain areas that went against them. They also have their favorite media sources push “It’s just a political disagreement, nothing unusual here” and “both sides the same” They make every attempt to normalize a situation that is anything but normal. Essentially, they try to calm the public waters, while at the same time seizing unilateral power. They proceed to take over slowly and carefully, raising the temperature a bit at a time. National guard in the streets? Meh, they’re not actually doing anything. Rounding up small protests? Meh, they were all communists.
In scenario 2, the R’s make some kind of large mistake in their process. that leads to a tipping point; a massive public outcry. It’s been pointed out that the military firing into crowds, killing a number of people has led to this tipping point in the past in other countries. (I note that killing just a few people, one incident at a time does not quite lead to a national tipping point)
A mis-step in scenario 1 could lead directly to this - it could be a number of things, which might seem inconsequential at the time, but in hindsight we could point to and say “that was it. That was when the people had had enough.”
I agree that there can and, someday, will be tipping points that would hopefully put the US, or what’s left of it, back on some track. All I’m saying here is that the GOP in the House not ceding power or Trump not going away isn’t it.
If that causes the economy to collapse someday, with long bread lines and lots of unemployment, especially men, that could lead to a revolution sometime later.
We’re already the boiling frogs. And, it’s not the right-wing media that says both sides are the same – the right wing media says the Dems are evil incarnate. It’s the mainstream media that both-sides everything.
(Off-topic for this thread, but read this op-ed and compare the treatment of these GOP candidates to Platner: gift link)
Let me try approaching the issue from a different perspective.
Trump’s approval rating is down as low as 32% in good polls. He’s down 50 points with independents. Republicans have been steadily losing non-federal elections in seemingly safe districts the past two years. Their prospects in the midterms are so dismal on both the federal and state levels that they are practically in hysterics. A Democratic House is certain and a Democratic Senate is a good 50/50 bet.
Democratic state attorney generals are suing the government almost daily to stop illegal policies and tend to win most cases. Democratic legislatures keep passing bills that run counter to Trump’s whims.
Foreign governments are banding together in trade groups and agreements to shift away from reliance on the U.S. He is hated everywhere. A recent poll of 36 countries found people in 28 of them prefer China to America, the first time that has ever happened.
The stock market is up solely because of investment in AI and data centers. Trump is pushing them hard. In return more than 500 data center bans have been enacted nationwide. Even Greg Abbott in Texas called for an audit to halt projects if they don’t put guardrails on the power and water usage of the centers.
And there’s Iran, whose current list of demands has escalated to total capitulation by the U.S. while simultaneously relentlessly mocking Trump on social media. And he wants the “war” that’s ended 37 times to end so badly he may accept.
All this and many other pushbacks are happening right now while a democratically elected administration is breaking more norms than actual laws, although it is doing that as well. And your position is that if a true authoritarian dictatorship would take over in a coup, everybody would sit on the sidelines and watch instead of taking action?
No, the people are not rioting in the streets. That’s stupid, futile, even counterproductive: it just gives a target for violent suppression. To equate the lack of bodies constantly screaming with a lack of action is short-sighted. It extrapolates off a tiny segment of the available evidence. Hypertrophying one element of an entire society seldom yields accurate predictions.
Yes. I’m pushing against the claim that people would immediately rise up in a violent insurrection, or states would immediately start to secede. Most Americans don’t know and don’t care what other countries think of us, 30%-40% of Americans don’t even know who controls congress. There would be peaceful, or maybe less peaceful protests in blue cities and states, maybe the biggest protests ever! And they will do as much good as the No Kings biggest protest ever. If people’s wallets aren’t really hurting, and especially if it hasn’t changed in a dramatic fashion, they’re not going to get up off their butts.
Now, over time, if the US becomes (more of?) a pariah state and the economy crashes, etc., then, sure. But, that will take time.
Yep. I’ve often thought about violence, and how people decide that it’s time to engage in violence. And not enough people really do that. Those who think that Americans in general would rise up in revolt over a stolen election, should ask themselves: At what point would you (you personally) be willing to shoot a cop or soldier over this? Because until you reach that point, protests will largely just be an inconvenience, not a game-changer.
Even the right-wing pro-gun Rah-rah-rah types didn’t reach that point at the height of the J6 insurrection. The few times someone has pulled a gun during a protest have been pretty universally condemned.
I have old co-workers on my Facebook feed who aren’t paying any attention to what is happening. They don’t "do politics”. They post things like “why waste time being angry - go outside, hug your kids, have some fun”. I think a big problem is that they just cannot comprehend the magnitude of corruption Trump has wrought. They find it hard to believe that one person could actually commit so many crimes. And I get that. It’s something that the U.S., hell the world, has never seen. They think the dire warnings from the media are again just “politics” because hating Trump has been a thing for 10 years. Rather than let the flood of reality overwhelm them, they have disengaged from it. And there are many millions just like them. By the time things get really bad for them, it will be way too late.
That, but also: Ready access to guns is combined with the belief you cited (that they can rise up) as well as the belief that having guns = having freedom. Therefore, gunowners tend to believe that they’re freer than they are, and more in a position to do something about the alternative than they are. Both of those things make them even less likely to rise up.
My view as a Californian living in Canada is no way. Pretty much the entire eastern half of the state is viciously Republican, and the state is not anything like super-blue. Remember where Reagan came from?
California county election results maps for 2020 and 2024 from Reddit
I wouldn’t say the majority of gun owners feel that way, but the people who own guns because they WANT to have a chance to use them on people who, for whatever reason, disagree with them probably are.
I actually said that a majority of the guns, not the owners, thinking that those who have many guns may be more likely to swing rightward, but I don’t have any cites to back that up.
I disagree. Sustained guerilla operations can be highly effective. They collapsed the USSR in Afghanistan. The US lost sustained guerilla campaigns in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
small arms and IEDs are highly effective at bleeding an enemy dry until they realize the benefits don’t outweigh the drawbacks.
Also any insurgency against a right wing extremist government would have the support of NATO nations since they do not like Trump’s anti-NATO stances. So the rest of NATO and probably the rest of the developed world would be providing military aid, intelligence and funding to the insurgency.
Also US soldiers are held to a much higher level of discipline and professionalism than police. Police officers would welcome a fascist takeover, but with a military that about 40% votes democratic and has a lot of women and POC, who are trained in an environment of professionalism and accountability, they may not enforce oppression against the public the same way the police would.
But again, thats what ICE is for. Its supposed to be a right wing paramilitary organization that is loyal to Trump and his agenda.
In order for oppression to work, the victims have to be as helpless as possible. The south worked very hard to make black people helpless. Slaves weren’t allowed to read, travel or congregate. Under Jim Crow black people couldn’t vote, serve on juries or obtain any real capital (political capital, financial capital, etc). Also black people nationally have always been about 10-13% of the public.
By comparison the blue counties that the democratic candidate wins in elections makes up about 3/4 of America’s GDP. The rural red counties make up a lot of land mass, but they make up 1/4 of the US’s GDP. The Metro NYC area has more GDP (2.6 trillion) than the poorest 15 red states combined.
Democrats make up half of voters.
There are endless judges on the state and federal level who were appointed by democrats, or by Bush jr (who would be less authoritarian than Trump’s judges one would assume).
Democrats control the government in about 15-20 states, and almost all urban areas are democratic. Democrats have a lot of political power and financial capital.
Voting is just one step to resist authoritarianism. Jury nullification and insurgency are other options that may come up as time passes. We are seeing the beginnings of jury nullification as people resist ICE abuses by refusing to convict people who resist ICE.
This is a big factor - our military is still essentially set up to fight WWII- style conflicts of large armies against large armies. We’ve never been good at asymmetrical warfare. It’s the same reason Ukraine has been able to stalemate Russia for four years now.
40%? I thought about 30 million voted against Harris because of her cackle. About the same number still standing with Trump.