And the US military is filled with Christian Dominionists, Evangelical whackjobs who want a Christian theocracy…
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If it comes to civil war, it won’t be like the last one, with states going against each other. It won’t even be rural against urban. The closest parallel I can readily draw is Shiite vs Sunni civil war in Iraq. Military intervention has not shown itself to be very effective in that kind of deeply inter-meshed guerilla combat; armies are not instruments suited to law enforcement. Nor do I think the war would be against the government. I believe it would be neighbor against neighbor. At its worse, it could be as bad as the Rwandan genocide. I cannot overstate how bad it would be if this country’s cultural division decayed into actual war.
Most service-members are conservatives. If the fascists within American conservatism begin openly mass murdering, concentrating and trying to deport non-whites and non-straight people, the rest of them, many of them veterans and most of them armed, will have to decide if they’re going to fight the fascists or stand aside and do nothing.
Again, Trump is a symptom, not a cause. I’m much less worried about what his administration will do than I am abut what his support base will do if he doesn’t personally speak out strongly and persistently against the rising wave of violence.
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Uneducated white people are the pits.
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You missed the third option: enthusiastically take part on the fascist side.
(re: song 2,demonstration rather than endorsement)
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Sic semper evello mortem collaborators 
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Seems time to re-read The Handmaid’s Tale by literary chameleon genius Margaret Atwood.
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What scares me most… is this what they’re doing and they won.
Imagine what they’d have done if they lost…
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I don’t think the military is going to be able to avoid picking sides ina true civil war. The laws currently permit their intervention and deployment within the US. Guerilla warfare is most effective in wars of attrition against occupying forces. If it’s your home you’re fighting in, the calculus and price you’re willing to pay change rapidly. North Carolina isn’t a country an ocean away, it’s going to be home for a lot of soldiers. So a true civil war isn’t going to be resolved through the same tactics employed by people abroad. Civil wars can be long and bloody, and outside actors like Russia could easily aggravate matters to draw one out.
The only thing that keeps the military from deploying is a sustained series of street fights and terrorists attacks that aren’t part of a broader plot to secede or keep territory. That’s what you saw in Germany, pre Hitler. A lot of street fights. This goes to your point about Sunni versus Shia, which led to competing militias.
There’s a chance this fizzles, that Trump becomes a business as usual Republican and a lot of this gets swept downstream. If it doesn’t, and Muslim registration becomes a thing, I think a lot of liberals are going to have to reconsider their stance on the abolition of firearms.
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The racists, sexists and homophobes were always there. But the victory of Trump’s open embrace of it has emboldened them. He’s gotten himself into a unique position. If he keeps shooting his mouth off like he did during the election, they’ll take it as carte blanche to commit violent crimes against non-whites and non-straights. There was a moment during his interview with Lesley Stahl when he seemed to awkwardly accept his new position of perceived moral authority, at least among those who voted for him. Hopefully that was a glimmer of a man who wants to preside over an intact country, and not be the president on who’s watch American fell to pieces.
I honestly don’t think most liberals have the wherewithal to successfully fight a guerilla war. Guns aren’t something you learn well in a couple of weeks. Military boot camps struggle to train recruits well enough to at least kind of shoot straight and not blow their face off in three months, and most of those recruits come from conservative backgrounds where guns are part of everyday life. Even I, who have owned firearms and spent time on ranges, wouldn’t like my chances in a shooting war with most of my neighbors; and I have significantly more experience with guns than most liberals, who have none. I’m pragmatic about guns, and neither like nor dislike them, but I now wish I’d spent more time practicing with them. Even though abstractly I’ve always considered this to be the true purpose of the Second Amendment, to have society armed in the event of a breakdown of effective governance, I never really believed it was a realistic possibility in my lifetime.
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If it comes to fighting a civil war the whole country has lost anyway.
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While this was planned prior to last week’s shitshow finale, I will be expected to go plinking with my SO next week. I have very little experience with guns, never really wanted to, never felt it was particularly necessary, but the shit appears to be hitting the fan, and it’s time to prepare for the absolute worst.
Weirdest thing is that I always expected the US to fail in my lifetime, just thought it would be in the 2030’s, not like 6 weeks from now.
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I agree. I don’t get tired of pointing out that the left has embraced weakness as a virtue rather than a truth. I don’t think a shooting war or violent resistance is ideal. But I cannot rule it out as a possibility.
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At the risk of painting with a very broad brush, liberals hope for the best, but they generally don’t prepare for the worst, especially straight white liberals who’ve been sheltered by privilege.
I agree. At that point all that’s left is damage control, survival and resistance.
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Abolition is very much a minority position…you’d be surprised how many liberals have guns and how many Republicans would support reasonable registration laws.
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I’m an okay shot, but military training is not just getting to the point of shooting at a target and hitting it, but doing so in a high pressure situation, and getting to the point psychologically that you can shoot and kill another human being. Time at the range doesn’t train you for all that. Even if I had a person in the sights, pulling that trigger’s a whole separate problem and I doubt I could do it.
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Even though I’d never heard it before, I grokked it immediately.
How incredibly fucked up this shit all is.
Liz, FTW again; inserting the voice of reason into the discussion.
Liberals, just like Blacks and Women, are not monolith. I know more people who own fire arms than who don’t; and most of them ain’t conservative.
The mythical ‘smug liberal elite’ I hear spoken of so often might be a different story, but it’s still unwise to stereotype like that.
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You hit the nail on the head with that one. And it’s the biggest single argument against the idea that an armed populace is in itself a threat to goverment. Weapons in themselves are useless. Training and strategy are more important. I’ve been telling anarchists who talk about meeting fascists in the streets: War is boring. It’s supposed to be. You conserve your forces and most military maneuvers are about avoiding unnecessary conflict (i.e. attrition) while attempting to isolate and flank the enemy. Chess is the everyday first approximation of war. You need to constantly be on the offensive and constantly present a threat and watch the lines of force change on the board and make very careful decisions about exchanges. At the endgame, there are lot of pieces by the side of the board.
People think war is about bold cavalry rushes. It’s really about achieving very specific goals, and cavalry rushes are one tool in an endless toolbox of far less exciting ones. Even non-violent resistance is only catharsis without specific goals and the application of multiple tactics.
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I agree. Being able to hit a target in the orderly linear environment of a range with proper ear protection, time to breathe properly and maybe some high-contrast glasses is a world away from hitting a human being that shoots back while trying to dodge your line of fire with who knows what else going on in a 360° (or more if there are tall buildings) engagement environment.
I honestly don’t know how I’d do. I’m out of practice and was only ever a mildly good shot. But I’ve spent decades training with blades and other weapons to the point where I could readily disable someone without panicking. I think I could kill someone if I had to, but I don’t know for certain and I dearly hope I never find out. Regardless, those weapons won’t do me any good in a ranged fight against an adversary with a firearm. I carry my assisted-opening folder knife as a pocket knife tool anyway. If things really get dangerous, I’ll have to evaluate carrying a sap because, although ironically illegal even if I get an open-carry permit, I can actually fight with a sap.
Ditto on both.
Point taken. I guess I actually don’t know how many of my liberal friends and acquaintances own guns because I avoid the subject with them the same way I avoid religion with conservatives I know. I pretty much just expect it to poison the relationship as soon as they find out I’m not anti-gun or that I’m an atheist, respectively. I guess that’s part of the embubblement I myself was lamenting a few days ago. Le sigh
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Long standing reality. I’m not surprise there are still connections.
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