Even more to the point, “Hitler is so terrible that he’ll crash soon, and then we’ll have the proper communist revolution!”
That was the real thinking of the German Communist party in the run up to 1933, and possibly the biggest reason why they refused to work with the social democrats to curb the Nazis: they wanted Hitler to burn things down so they could take over, and the kind of incremental improvements the SDs wanted threatened that revolutionary goal.
“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.”
Oh yeah. And the people whinging about that never consider that the straight white men live in the same society as everyone else, and stuff like, say, massively reducing childhood poverty has positive impact on the whole society, the straight white men included.
I would like to see leading news sources start floating the question, “what makes a good leader?” (with suggestions) and challenge their peer news sources (and audience) to put some actual thought into who they envision can make tough decisions and find fair solutions to challenges we face.
Then I want that rebounding question to lead folks to brand idiots as * * UNFIT TO LEAD * * so it starts sinking in.
And then ask it at the debates.
I’d also like to see the same for, “what is the role of government?” To get people actually thinking about it. So many have this knee-jerk, “gobmint bad!” mentality, but when you start asking about roads and libraries and making sure our drinking water is safe they dial it back.
Um, no, a bunch of militia yahoos with AR-15s and Gadsden flags on their trucks will go up against first the National Guard, then the entire fucking US military.
You don’t get the coup Maher describes without military support. He quietly glosses over that, but not a single member of the Joint Chiefs ever even pretended to support Trump’s nonsense. They quietly deflected him out of respect for the office for four years. Push comes to shove though, you don’t get the entire military on board for a coup in the United States, even in 2024. Worst case scenario might be civil war more than coup, but that’s exceedingly unlikely with the modern professional military the US has now. This is not a bunch of scrappy farmers with muskets anymore.
I wish someone would explain that to Starmer and the Labour party in the UK. Biden hasn’t fucked up that badly yet, but it should be a warning to all Democrats.
“This is the way to political wilderness, do not go any further.”
And they will also be attacked by the left wing, who may not be as anti-gun as they assume and they know the cities that the right wingers are so scared of visiting.
Gonna call bull on this one. If any and I mean any significant movement happens the military will day one be there and no one will be able to get around the Capitol without proper identification and a reason to be there. No id and no good reason? Out to you go! Oh you want to try fighting? Smack, smack, smack! STOP RESISTING! I don’t think Bill Maher realizes we’ve literally shot at WW1 veterans who protested in the 20s for their back pay (MacArthur was the guy executing those orders). So I don’t really want to hear bull like some how a rag tag group of weekend warriors are going to stir up trouble in DC again. It’s not the same administration and past performance is not a good measure for future returns.
This I can believe, but we’re already there. Has this clown tried to go to upstate New York and not to one of the college towns. I mean villages out in the boonies. Same with any state for that matter. Go 50 miles out of the major metro and it’s hostile territory for anyone who ain’t cis, white, and Christian. And God help you if you’re black and/or queer.
The winner of the popular election with the certified electors gets sworn in and the loser gets ejected. What’s Trump gonna do? Demand the military to listen to him? That ain’t happening. Chain of command starts with POTUS and goes on down. There’s a near zero chance of some commanders trying to disobey but the odds are still vanishingly small. I really hate it when mediocre boomers that haven’t a clue about how these systems work and how the real world works in general (because they’re too busy huffing their own farts as if they’re french perfume) spouting off on these things. You don’t need to be exactly a political science major to understand how this’ll all track but a little civics and history does help you get a grasp of what’s going on.
Also generally military backed coups come from cultures where the military is its own privileged class/society unto itself. Usually coming with a monopoly on access to weapons and on state sanctioned violence against the citizenry. Something drummed out of military culture from inception in this country. The US military is not a society unto itself and never carried itself as such. Its not a Praetorian guard, there is no military aristocracy. So it does not have interests which would be met by an autocratic government.
At best you have extreme right wingers doing in this country what they have always done. Acted like violent terrorists, criminal gangs and occasionally corrupt politicians aspiring for respectability.
“People are afraid to go out anywhere where their political tribe isn’t in the majority”
You know, since you pointed it out, I really started to think about it a bit. I really think this is more of a privileged person’s attitude too, like Maher is projecting his own bubble of privilege onto the rest of us. The reality is more like even individual people’s families are not a cohesive “political tribe” and we’re constantly having to interact with people who may not think like us because of commerce, employment, and need for companionship to navigate our frayed social bonds while constantly remembering that anywhere and everywhere may be “enemy territory.”
It’s psychological abuse we’re all enduring and Maher is one of the very specific list of folks who has inflicted it on us for years from a very large pulpit.
… generally… (the Betsey DeVoses and Erik Princes of the U.S.A. make me beg to differ, at least on the socio-economic strata they clearly occupy)…
… generally… but… along those lines, “if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a–”
“–a duck.”
It’s a dang duck.
Let’s not forget the militarization
of
U.S.
police
forces,
who may have fewer qualms about how they treat U.S. residents and citizens compared to U.S service members who took oaths to defend the U.S. from all enemies foreign and domestic (my guess is that service members–active duty or otherwise–are still overwhelmingly ok with obeying chain-of-command, as opposed to cops and their own chain and whatever their interpretations of “rule of law” and “law enforcement”) (I believe I have integration of the U.S. military to thank for that difference):
