Originally published at: "The next US civil war is already here" says Stephen Marche of The Guardian | Boing Boing
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Joe and Kyrsten are a couple road blocks that need to be bulldozed away first…
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This.
If the Democrats are wringing their hands about decorum and fairness then they should remember the GOP doesn’t care about either, everything about how they have acted in congress since the beginning of the Obama administration proves this-- endless show votes, blocking or diluting legislation, refusing to allow Supreme Court vacancies to be filled by a Democrat, and gutting voting rights as much as they can.
It’s not like they are ever going to stop, it’s worked for them. At this point “fairness” means fighting the GOP as hard as the GOP fights the rest of us.
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Really, the username says enough.
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No one with the power to do so wants to make 'em howl. It’s a real W.B. Yeats sitution: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
The establishment Dems are still operating as if it’s 1991. The corporate media is still obsessed with “balance” (a different thing from objectivity). Local and state law enforcement is rife with actual fascists. Academic administrators remain mostly silent lest they lose their franchise on what they see as their new mission of issuing job-training credentials. Local school boards are being intimidated or taken over by sado-populist science deniers. Election boards and officials are now heavily partisan. And the judiciary at all levels has been hijacked by the Federalist Society and the Xtianists.
I don’t know what’s going to be the outcome after 2024: a Putin-style one-party regime of sham democracy; a Syrian-style civil war out in Ameristan (with right-wing terrorist attacks in large blue cities and blue states); a Yugoslavia-style violent break-up; or a combination of all of the above. I do know that it’s not going to good for anyone (but especially women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, immigrants, and – as always – Jews) who’s gotten used to the benefits of living in even a highly flawed liberal democracy.*
This piece by Barton Gellman from the January issue of The Atlantic is a solid if equally depressing companion piece to this one.
[* to be clear, this is not a prescription for defeatism but an acknowledgment that we have to fight to preserve what we can and be good allies to targetted groups.]
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Joe Manchin says “no, no, and no” to each of those, and in 2022, he calls the shots in the Senate.
No, it isn’t here yet. And it’s not inevitable either.
I don’t offer ideas, and I don’t support taking up arms, and I don’t believe in a defeatist attitude.
We may organize, demonstrate, and if necessary, die. But (most of us) will not kill. We have defeated fascism in the past withouth killing each other, and we can do it again.
ETA – Robert Evans podcase It Could Happen Here Daily starts with this possibility but talks about the many options available in response. For a podcast that goes into some dark places, it’s surprisingly optimistic and hopeful.
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When people want to become complacent after the results of the 2020 election, I like to remind them that even after 3.5 years of his shambolic presidency, Trump got MORE votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.
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So, as every single English-speaking country is being systematically turned into a fascist dictatorship, what language should be studied for an appropriate bolthole? Asking for a friend.
/s
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Otherwise, we’re all just “good Germans”…
And he STILL lost.
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And we come out victorious how? The Democrats have their heads firmly in the sand. The only way they’d actually do anything about this is if they were completely different, actually progressive people. We can protest all we want, they don’t care. To them, anyone taking the threat seriously is a radical leftist who’s too far out of their comfy bubble of denial to be acknowledged. So again, seriously, what can we actually DO? “Don’t be defeatist” isn’t a plan of action.
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Not all of them. Schumer is finally bringing up the issue of the filibuster prior to MLK day. Stacey Abrams is running for governor here in GA, the Jan. 6th committee is uncovering all sorts of facts that points to possible crimes by Trump on down and the courts and DOJ keep supporting that, progressives in Congress continue to be vocal and push for meaningful reform… Just because the media is trying to spin all of that as a “defeat” doesn’t mean they are correct.
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And let’s not forget one of the best economies in literally decades…
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Remember 4 years of this GQP asshole, I do.
The “both parties are same” crowd don’t like these facts.
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Oh yeah, I do.
They are only slightly worse than the “well, at least it wasn’t Hillary crowd” who apparently rather live under an incompetent wanna-be autocrat than a competent, though probably too centrist woman.
But you know how emotional and unstable wimmins are! /s
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“Both parties are the same” implication not appreciated.
It’s because I remember 4 years of Trump that I feel Democrats need to be doing more to protect voting rights, stack the court and prevent the white nationalist minority from completely ruling our government and police. Yeah, infrastructure is important, but maybe, just maybe, not becoming a dictatorship is more important?
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I did not mention you specifically, you did that. But now I’m wondering…
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Hence the word “implication”. It looks pretty damn clear to me, but if you genuinely brought up that crowd purely by coincidence only a couple replies away from my criticism of the Democrats, I’ll take your word for it.
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Have a nice day.
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