The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-19-2020, 09:38 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-19-2020, 12:30 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-18-2020, 06:47 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-18-2020, 02:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: But the neighborhood vigilantes which Classic claims membership with and the rural militias are not yet engaged.  Plan quietly, sure.  Let rumors spread might be less wise.  They might actually do as suggested.

Some of the idiots at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville conceive of themselves as members of citizen militias.  Some are local to me. In fact, entire groups of them showed up in our state capital to defend the statues on Monument Row, looking a lot like small arms infantry.  Don't discount these guys as Cosplay (some are, but only some).  When they show up, they are armed, locked and only need to chamber a round to start the festivities.

It only takes one idiot to start things.

I wonder who the idiot was that fired the shot that triggered the American Revolutionary War or the idiot/idiots was or were who fired the cannon that triggered the Civil American War.

In the first case, it was a Brit who killed Crispus Attucks, the runaway slave who died at Bunker Hill, or Christopher Seider, an 11 year old boy who died there as well.  I can't identify the idiot who fired first and triggered the ACW, though the real culprit was a politician, not a militiaman.  In today's world, it could be anyone from any where and with any reason, no matter how bizarre.

I don't know.  In many ways it is not the guy who fired the first shot who is the culprit.  The spiral of violence that leads the bulk of both sides to believe that compromise is impossible, there is no other way, that violence is the only way for the new values to triumph or the old to survive.  Why was it important that the Americans in Concord had a few cannon?  Why did the fort that had been there for quite a while take on significance?  The spirals were already on the brink.

Right now the Boogaloo Bois and the police are going at it, but people care much more about COVID and Black Lives Matter.  I do not see the fights in the cities as accelerating.  I see a whole bunch of people waiting on the election in November, counting on protest, non violence and legislation to solve the pertinent problems.

If Trump were to win the election or gather enough troops to pretend to stay in power, we would have to look at how Biden will respond.  If Trump manages to cast doubt on the election, he throws it to the new congress to select electors.  At worst they would invalidate the election, thereby enabling Pelosi as president, who would likely appoint Biden Vice President then resign.  

I see it more likely that the election will be more decisive, and Trump will turn to blackmail.  Either you let him keep some shadow of his elite status or he will use his lame duck period to quite overtly ruin the country and it's standing in the world.  This would possibly result in the Republican senators renouncing him and the world's fastest impeachment.  You can't stand with someone obviously hurting the country and hope to survive.  There is a question whether Pence will promise to be a good boy or whether he gets hit too.

We'll see what happens.  While the posters on this site really get into the conflict, a lot of people don't.  They don't start thinking seriously about the issue until after the conventions climax and September rolls around.  We'll see how much of the Republican base clings to Trump.  He is visibly showing opposition to American values that will likely turn more and more people off.  The more time goes by, the more desperate he gets, the more repulsive his actions and words become, the less support he gets.  It looks to me to be heading one way, but I may be tainted with the common 4T fanatic trait, to see triumph inevitably going to my own world view, to see what has happened in prior 4Ts repeat, the old values to totally collapse.