Well, not by you, certainly not, but that may have to do with the quality of the convincing that you have to offer. Hopping around, moving goalposts, and claiming that your unfounded and counterfactual accusations are “essentially” correct is not a good way to convince anyone of anything at all.
Have you ever convinced anyone of anything in any thread in which you have participated?
Thanks, you too.
Remember what I said about General Lee falling for what in essence was the propaganda of the South Itself and leading to disaster?
Nah, still bet on Blue, yours was a good reply to remind me that in your scenario we can really expect the Red side to turn up the misinformation and anti-science up to 11 and like General Lee, fall for the misinformation and lead the Reds to doom in key areas and moments. One big area of misinformation that I expect will be their own made up support for insurrection that is there actually, and they will propagandize too that their wild chances of victory in an area are very reliable. The Blue side with science and better information will prevail. Of course, after a lot of pain regardless of that advantage.
Jesus this thread…
Ok, let’s set up a probably shit but semi-realistic scenario. California creates a referendum to secede. It didn’t come out of nowhere, it took months to implement and give people time to think. It passed. Let’s liken it to Brexit. California tries to make it as amicable as possible and comes up with all kinds of proposals for trade and customs etc…Trump has none of it. Says he won’t recognize Californiaexit and that if its actually implemented he will declare an emergency and ‘do everything in his power to prevent it.’ Oregon and Washington say they will secede if Trump wont recognize Californias right to form its own country. Now during this whole time you’re gonna have a lot of people moving. Reds moving out, blues moving in possibly. So its not like magically Civil War has been declared. California secedes, Trump declares an emergency and Oregon and Washington secede.
Colorado, NY and the New England states say they will not raise their hands against their former American brothers. Their governors say “you can piss off Trump, if you think you’re gonna mobilize their national guards.” Not wanting anymore fracturing, Trump goes with what he has outside of those states.
There. Theres your scenario. Run with it. Both sides have nukes. Both sides have fleets. Not that I’m entirely sure the military will support either side. I don’t even have any confidence in the seceding states having the balls to seize a federal military base. I think everyone is just gonna be shitting their pants.
I hope liberals like fish. I mean LOTS of fish. Or paying $150 for a 6 oz filet.
And where exactly do the blue states expect to get all their fuel? Gas will rise to $20 a gallon for them. Assuming OPEC doesn’t squeeze them by the balls even more.
Im being facetious. California will do ok for oil and beef. Its the east coast thats gonna hurt.
Too many contradictions. If California doesn’t have the balls to seize a federal military base, then they don’t have nukes. Or a fleet. Or an army.
Besides, why would California try to leave? We have the 5th largest economy on the planet all by our lonesome. Seems to me that a little extortion would go a lot farther than trying to walk out. Think along the lines of a large-state Lysistrata. See what happens to the US economy when California et al stop loving them long time.
Feel free to construct your own thought exercise scenarios. I’m a fairly decent fiction writer and I could easily construct an ideal liberal universe where everyone has a fluffy bunny and unicorns are farting rainbows. However, I don’t think that would be paying respect to the OP. Actually if you, or any other participants in this thread want to hypothesise a scenario where a blue government foments a revolution, and your scenario speculates the ultimate results favourable to the blue side please do so. I’m sure a well-constructed effort will make an entertaining read.
Blue America has a stronger claim to the rule of law, so if a war were to break out, odds are that Blue States would be on the side of the Constitution. That presents a stronger claim that the Armed Forces — who in general have a strong loyalty to the Constitution, and not so much to their states or political beliefs — would probably align themselves with the ones who better support democracy, civil society, civil rights, the rule of law, and so on.
FTR when I said everyone would be shitting their pants…I meant everyone. Not just Californians. Just trying to make clear that I wasn’t saying Californians are cowards.
While most military personnel may be GOP, how does that break down according to rank? Do officers tend to be GOP? NCOs?
If two countries were created, would we expect the military of WhiteJesusland to have equal access to chip design innovators like Intel, Nvidia or ARM? Or are we expecting Bay Area tech workers to move to a Republican Silicon Valley? Or for a new Republican Silicon Valley to be created independently of them?
In the event that America really went all-out blue vs. red civil war, all high-tech industries would suffer massive interference or disruption, Silicon Valley included.
There are also chipmakers/silicon companies in red states, such as Texas Instruments in Dallas, etc.
Part of creating a universe depends also on looking at what is plausible in the real world too, going for the very wrong idea that meat was going to be banned is a very serious error, like having Harry Turtledove give the Nazis workable cold fusion. Hence the point about not believing in the propaganda from one’s side, what it is worrisome (and a teachable moment) is that the one that harped about the meat thing is recognized misleader Mark Morano. Point being that what I do see as a factor that should not be ignored in a world building exercise is how huge the propaganda factor is in leading a group like the Reds to plausibly jump into disaster. Propaganda is one item that should not be ignored when doing an exercise like this one. Mark Morano and buddies are part of a huge work of fiction that is attempted to be passed as reality.
From World Building errors:
That was snark, right?
Well, when all arguments are traded and everything is said there is only one way left to find out. You will have to do it.
You accept the premise of a 21st century American civil war, and further accept the premise that this civil war could be a revolt against a far-left blue government, but find it inconceivable that such a government would be anti-meat? You be you, but that’s a strange rebuttal.
I’m sure you’re aware that militant veganism is a thing.
Over the past few years, promoters of vegetarian/vegan lifestyles have loudly pointed out that the meat industry is a significant source of carbon dioxide.
And the slogan “Meat is Murder” has been around for decades. Morrissey even wrote a song about it.
As for Mark Marano, I’d never heard of him before. Seems like he’s a climate change denier. So what? As for doing my homework, here’s my list of a far left agenda:
• shutting down the coal industry
• outlawing hate speech
• increasing social and welfare spending
• outlaw meat
• implement draconian gun controls
• divert spending on the military
• institute high carbon taxes
• Universal Basic Income
• free Internet
• ‘social progress officers’
Except for social progress officers, which I was using as a rephrased term for USSR political commissars, every item on that list is a far left proposal, although some are harshly labelled.
Regardless, this thread is about off the wall speculation on which side would win a blue vs red American civil war. You think the blue side would win. Why?
So in 1860s, right wingers went to war so they could own other humans. Maybe in 2021, right wingers may go to war to… eat hot dogs?
I’m not sure if that’s progress or not.
On what basis are you describing the Confederates as right wing?
We do not have to shut down coal production by fiat or force, economics is doing that quite handily, so it would be better to state that the red side rises up in arms because of loss of subsidies and government support.
The toughest anti-gun legislation that has been seriously discussed, because the pro-gun constituency is so large and powerful, involves background checks and maybe a roll back to a 90’s era so-called ‘assault weapon’ ban. I remember the 90’s vividly, there absolutely were conservative resistance actions including violence, none of them succeeded and indeed were widely condemned.
Increased social welfare spending and increased progressive taxation has huge support in polls going back a long while. I don’t see how this motivates a serious threat to a blue government, my support for this is every single large social spending program we’ve ever enacted.
Outlawing meat is absurd. Like, fucking ridiculous… on par with claiming the left wants to institute sharia law. I can’t take it seriously and neither should you. Now. That being said, I can see the cost of meat rising as agricultural policy shifts away from subsidies encouraging mono-crop production of corn and soybeans to something a bit more environmentally sustainable. I don’t think anybody is going to start shooting anybody over a dollar a pound increase in the cost of beef. Certainly not enough to cause social upheaval.
Divert money away from the military. Sure. The military is bloated and over funded and if you want to make a case that spending cuts will foment rebellion, why did that not happen during the sequester with a 10% reduction across the board? Why didn’t the military rise in rebellion during the draw down from cold war highs in the 90’s? There’s plenty of room for cuts without running this risk.
Institute high carbon taxes. Fair, maybe. I don’t know what you would consider ‘high’ carbon taxes and further since carbon taxes are a market based approach that is something actually advocated for by big business rather than top down regulation, I don’t see how this is going to be a huge motivator either.
Universal basic income. This really puzzles me… you think people would rise up and take to the streets for being given a check every month just like everybody else? Huh.
Free Internet. Big telecom is the single most hated industry in the country… by far. Municipal internet outperforms them on almost every single metric and is hugely popular in areas where it exists. I don’t buy it.
‘Social Progress Officers’ I don’t even know where to begin with this. Where did you get such an idea?
Violence isn’t going to start in a serious way coming from the blue side, if it starts it will originate from the right, will lack any legitimacy and because of this will be crushed. The reason why you’re hearing so much dark muttering about civil war on the right with commensurate fantasies at the prospect of somehow ‘winning’ such a confrontation is because they know they cannot continue stacking the deck in their favor to hold onto power; the forces arrayed against them are too large and any further attempts will be nakedly apparent as undemocratic. I’d say that they’re a half step past that line right now (Hi, North Carolina!), they’re facing long term irrelevancy on the national stage and local centers of power for them don’t have the muscle to influence the rest of the country very much. You’re not going to see Alabama, for instance, setting national standards for fuel economy by default as California can. Right now the right in this country, every day, is the strongest it will be for the foreseeable future and every day that passes means that any chance of them forcing their viewpoints and agenda on the rest of us diminishes greatly.
Isn’t it funny that your response is “someone else will save us” whether talking about this issue or if you ever had a situation where you needed to defend yourself?
I’m thinking he is right. Here’s why:
The blue states are more of the controlling type. They will have passed law or laws that they want enforced. The red states, not so much.
So if the blue states are the aggressors and it turns into a straight blue vs red war with the blue trying to take back control of red areas. They lose, and they lose quite easily. Again, assuming that either: the military stays out of it, or the military also splits red vs blue.
So the red states are not the ‘controlling type’? They don’t care about enforcing the laws that they have passed or will pass? Good to know.
IMO, whoever starts the civil war (the equivalent of bombing Fort Sumter) will lose. That side will be rightfully seen as the aggressor against the United States, and the US military will crush them.