Seriously THIS!
This talk was going on when I was in grade school back in the 70s and 80s. Jeezus I had neighbors that were part of a batshit crazy militia group that was seriously thinking it would happen then. The far right have just been good at getting coverage about it of late.
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Weirdly, these groups are almost always at each others throats over their differences. Trump has/had given them a sort of coherence, but I think that their visibility and greater interconnectedness is also detrimental to them, in that they can’t really work well together, because they are so hardlined about their beliefs and differences are harder to work out they think now that they have a much more openly white supremacist in office. The racist hard right just can’t get along enough to make inroads into mainstream American, primarily because what gives them oxygen is their outsider pose! To be able to pull off a civil war level of violence, they’d had to be far more organized and work together in a way that they have not been able to do up to this point.
But they are still deeply dangerous because they can shift the right wing of the GOP into what are obviously (to most of us) racist positions (reconfigured as cultural arguments that might win over those who aren’t thinking critically about race). They can also continue to pull off under the radar acts of political violence, because of the Lone Wolf strategy (that was indeed a PLANNED set of strategies to provide plausible deniability to white supremacist groups as a whole). They may not be in a position to directly lead a civil war, but they can influence GOP policy enough and promote enough conspiracy theories that make Trump look like a victim of some conspiracy that ends in violence coming out of either an impeachment or a loss in 2020, and that CAN lead to serious unrest and a possible national state of emergency with the executive grabbing even more power than it has before (upsetting the checks and balances in the name of “freedom” for white people).
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True but they can do a good job at small scale disruption like the IRA did for a very long time. Only here they have allies in law enforcement.
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Yeah, absolutely. Part of my point in a way… I’m not saying that they’re not a real threat, because they are, especially when their actual activities are often ignored or waved off as marginal or unimportant. I think the threat they pose is not of a nature that it’s going to end in another civil war - they just don’t have the numbers for that. It’s more in shaping the mindset of the mainstream right. We’ve already seen that, how the GOP has been willing to coopt their language and some of their ideas as part of their mainstream platforms. When the democratic party has adopted positions of the actual left, it tends to be focused on making structural changes that benefit us all, not positions which mean the erosion of rights of entire groups of people in the American public. That I think is the difference right now. If the Democratic party moves left, they will enact policies which will benefit us all. If the GOP moves further right, it will mean the destruction of rights for large groups of human beings in the American fabric.
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Well, looking at what is going on from the outside… I’d call it a cold civil war.
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To be clear I was being a bit hyperbolic. I meant the rhetoric was bad. That the republicans have taken up an insane position they refuse to back down from (unconditional support for a criminal madman) and that’s the sole cause of this crisis. I didn’t mean that I’m hearing anyone talk about actually taking up arms.
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"The idea that a woman can be as powerful as a man is something that our society can’t deal with. But I am as powerful as a man and it drives them crazy”
Ohhhh HELLZ yes! You go AOC.
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Posting this thing I wrote again, because “off year” elections are starting to happen, as early as this month.
Sometimes it’s just school boards. Sometimes D.A.s and city council positions are up for vote. Maybe your area has a special election. The point is, whatever the position, get rid of the conservatives, or keep them out. Deny them any chance to fuck things up for the next higher level of government.
Make sure you are registered, find out when the elections are and where you vote, and if you’re unsure who the candidate are, you can ask your local Democratic party office (or DSA or Worker’s Party or whatever, I assume y’all are not Republicans, right) and ask for a slate card.
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ABV… Always Be Voting!
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…and remember that voting is the beginning of political engagement, not the end of it.
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Still waiting to hear her say anything that I disagree with.
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Can I buy you a drink? 
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You sure you’re woman enough?
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Now that is a martini for dealing with the times.
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I’d make an effort!
Cheers!
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In VA we have off-off year elections for legislature, gov, etc. This year will be just legislature, which usually makes for exceptionally low Democratic turnout. We need to change that this time around! If you are in VA, check your registration, find out what is on your ballot, and for God’s sake, get out and vote!
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Needs more Wilbur Ross
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