12-21-2020, 03:40 PM
(12-21-2020, 12:09 PM)David Horn Wrote:(12-21-2020, 11:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'm trying to figure out some combination of random acts of belligerence which would combine to something dangerous. An insurrection seems most likely to come from the reds, who have been fed the rigged election myth. Martial law in response to a red insurrection seems unlikely. It could happen, but if you demand people to react to nothing? It seems that patience seems the most likely conspiracy among the blues.
The Great War began because one young man shot an archduke: one act followed by a cascade. What would do the same here is a great question, but we'll only know if it actually happens. FWIW, I see a lot of petty protests, with calls to invalidate the Biden Presidency. If enough happen often enough, it might be an issue that emboldens the GOP politicos, and then it's off to the races.
I am reminded in Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower, relating the decade or two preceding the Great War, that that time looked good only after the monstrosity of Communism appeared in Russia and the interwar chaos. It is easy to love the culture of the time, when Impressionism was still new and active in painting, when great novels and poetry were being written, when great music was composed, and when wondrous technology enchanted the world. She reminds us that things were great for the elites, but certainly not for the working classes; numerous nationalities were marginalized to the extent that they had to assimilate into the values of Berlin, Vienna, or Saint Petersburg... or either emigrate or be treated as suspect despite their values. Halcyon times do not implode in such an apocalypse as the (then-called) "Great" War even if there is impressive Art Deco architecture, Sibelius and Puccini are composing, and Impressionist art is sold about as cheaply as "velvet Elvis" paintings today.
It will be up to the Biden Administration to make much that has gone wrong right. I expect Congressional Republicans to do everything possible to thwart such, for they have nothing now other than mass resentment to attract anyone other than the sorts who think that the "right" America is the one that rewards rich and powerful people alone for being rich and powerful. (Worth noting: many of the rich and powerful distrust such an agenda because mirror-image Marxism leads to Marxist or quasi-Marxist values among the proletariat. Capitalism that works for people other than capitalists is a good idea).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.