Are We Doomed? To head off the next insurrection, we'll need to practice envisioning the worst.

[Celerity]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/imagine-death-american-democracy-trump-insurrection/620841/



A year after the insurrection, I’m trying to imagine the death of American democracy. It’s somehow easier to picture the Earth blasted and bleached by global warming, or the human brain overtaken by the tyranny of artificial intelligence, than to foresee the end of our 250-year experiment in self-government. The usual scenarios are unconvincing. The country is not going to split into two hostile sections and fight a war of secession. No dictator will send his secret police to round up dissidents in the dead of night. Analogies like these bring the comfort of at least being familiar. Nothing has aided Donald Trump more than Americans’ failure of imagination. It’s essential to picture an unprecedented future so that what may seem impossible doesn’t become inevitable.

Before January 6, no one—including intelligence professionals—could have conceived of a president provoking his followers to smash up the Capitol. Even the rioters livestreaming in National Statuary Hall seemed stunned by what they were doing. The siege felt like a wild shot that could have been fatal. For a nanosecond, shocked politicians of both parties sang together from the hymnal of democracy. But the unity didn’t last. The past months have made it clear that the near miss was a warning shot. If the end comes, it will come through democracy itself. Here’s one way I imagine it could happen: In 2024, disputed election results in several states lead to tangled proceedings in courtrooms and legislatures.

The Republican Party’s long campaign of undermining faith in elections leaves voters on both sides deeply skeptical of any outcome they don’t like. When the next president is finally chosen by the Supreme Court or Congress, half the country explodes in rage. Protests soon turn violent, and the crowds are met with lethal force by the state, while instigators firebomb government buildings. Neighborhoods organize self-defense groups, and law-enforcement officers take sides or go home. Predominantly red or blue counties turn on political minorities. A family with a biden-harris sign has to abandon home on a rural road and flee to the nearest town. A blue militia sacks Trump National Golf Club Bedminster; a red militia storms Oberlin College. The new president takes power in a state of siege.

Few people would choose this path. It’s the kind of calamity into which fragile societies stumble when their leaders are reckless, selfish, and shortsighted. But some Americans actually long for an armed showdown. In an article for the Claremont Review of Books imagining how the cultural conflict between blue California and red Texas might play out, Michael Anton, a former Trump White House adviser, recently wrote:



snip

[Dan]

1. Last paragraph brings to mind a dumb ass

“…Texas’s more robust embrace of the old values.”

I’m thinking the good old boys of Texas will stand tall and charge like their hero’s of the Civil War, even more like the charges of WWI. Either way, strength and courage does not win against modern technology. Since Texas is outlawing education, one can assume that they will also be riding horses into the next ‘whatever’ war.

I’d take the bet and I’ll take California. They might fight not showing their masculinity, but they will fight smart, and Texas can bury their dead.

[Scrivener7]

3. The logical outcome of toxic masculinity.

[betsuni]

2. "all leaders lie, all voting is rigged, all media are bought, corruption is normal" this is most

successful pretending to come from the left, promoting "both sides" widespread cynicism.

Everyone's corrupt, corruption is "status quo":

"The point that I make over and over again ... is the ideas that I talk about are ideas that the American people want. They don't get it because you got a Congress indebted to wealthy campaign contributors." Everyone one else is corrupt except the pure populist savior.

"Certainly there are some people in the Democratic Party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats." All corrupt coastal elites think about is money, unlike the pure populist savior.

"Democrats have focused too much with a liberal elite that is raising incredible amounts of money from wealthy people but has ignored to a very significant degree, working class, middle class, and low income people in this country."

Rigged elections: "'Some people say' that if maybe the system was not rigged against me, I would have won the nomination ... ." There is always some dark force trying to stop the pure populist savior: "they want to make sure that the progressive agenda is not advanced by anyone. They want us to go back to their failed corporatist approach which has led to a massive level of income and wealthy inequality ... ." They will stop at nothing, throw "the kitchen sink."

Media are bought: "The political, financial and media elite of this country will stop at nothing to defeat us." Teh Establishment will stop at nothing to defeat the pure righteous populist savior.