Aren't we already in an insurgency? At least a little bit.
Say more! I've been thinking about how this maps onto the US. One thing she didn't address was that the would-be insurgents here control a lot of levers of government, local, state, and federal.
I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a politically motivated mass shooting every week or more.
I thought that was white gang violence. Gonna have to recalibrate. I was wondering if you meant things like the Whitmer kidnapping plot.
That too, but I don't see the repeated mass shootings as functional different from any other political terrorism.
3: ugh. I actually felt the last beam in my mind propping up the delusion that was not quite the case fall down as I read that.
3: ugh. I actually felt the last beam in my mind propping up the delusion that was not quite the case fall down as I read that.
I don't think it's helpful to conflate "insurgency" with "civil war," but maybe that's nitpicking.
And here we see the WaPo is insufficiently intellectually advanced to ban analogies:
The IRA took on the British government. Hamas has taken on the Israeli government.
The US insurgency is not like these cases. I don't really know anything about the evolution of the relationship between Hamas and the government of Lebanon, but I wonder if that's a closer analogy to what is going on in the US.
Regarding Jan. 6, she says:
The biggest emotion was just relief, actually. It was just, Oh my gosh, this is a gift. Because it's bringing it out into the public eye in the most obvious way. And the result has to be that we can't deny or ignore that we have a problem.
Exactly my reaction at the time. I have repented of my foolishness, but she is sticking to her guns (so to speak):
But it was a gift because it brought this cancer that those of us who have been studying it, have been watching it growing, it brought it out into the open.
No. A successful insurgency reaches a stage where it goes broadly public. That transition creates new dangers for the insurgency, but it is properly viewed as an advance, not part of the process of combating it.
if the Republican Party decides it's no longer going to be an ethnic faction that's trying to exclude everybody else, then our risk of civil war will disappear.
Walter seems unable to acknowledge the more likely method of ending the insurgency: Republican political victory.
The interview is interesting. I've been reading about the US Civil War recently, and while that's obviously not how it would play out this time, the parallels in the runup are eerie. Especially the way the South increasingly exploited the less-democratic structural features of the system, like the Senate and the Supreme Court, to push their preferred policy outcomes as it became clearer that they were in the minority.
So much commentary just seems to completely gloss over the way that the Republican party is becoming *more popular* rather than less popular with minorities over the past decade. They're already moving on from being an ethnic faction. They're the part of toxic masculinity much much more than they are the party of whiteness. Yes they support saying racist shit, but that's just a part of their general ethos of saying rude stuff in general.
I think the idea that the Republican party is an "ethnic faction" and specifically white supremacist, for categorization purposes, is not quite right. I've seen people try to explain its growth among minorities with the idea that whiteness is a moving target and new groups can be assimilated into whiteness, and that is true, but to me it looks increasingly like "conservative" or "Republican" has itself become a hybrid ethno-political category, and it can function like either. For sure, the dominant ethnicity is white and the dominant ideology is white supremacist, but conservatism attracts all kinds of people, and the fusion of cultural/ethnic identity and political belief shores up power. (It is also in part a regional identity.)
I don't know of too many other examples of this kind of hybridization elsewhere. It does actually seem like a somewhat U.S.-specific thing (complex history of immigration, cult of "freedom" and self-sufficiency, religious faith seen as voluntary, etc).
13: toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. Lord it's bad.
It is going to look like browshirt gangs beating up anyone who wears colored clothes, short skirts, etc. Random killings of doctors, election workers, etc. that get solved at even lower rates than murders now. Lots of gay bars, community centers, black churches, etc. being occupied or burned down. Police departments completely ignoring civilian orders, escorting away and arresting 'trespassing' democrats from government buildings.
Gangs of brownshirts attacking random people, you say?
12: I wonder what is going to happen when anti-abortion states start trying to enforce their laws against people in other states.
They should call it the Fugitive Uterus Act.
Really make it easier for the students of 200 years from now to write essays about history.
Could be that some states become no-go zones for women.
Re: 13/14 it's both and more. I have been saying for years that the next mutation of white supremacy will be two versions of Eurasian supremacy: one that includes different subsets of browns and one that's more explicitly shadeist and industrial, sticking to northern/East Asian ethnic groups. With various obnoxious subsets. Think Amy Chua and her husband, the Malkins, or the Derbyshires, or Nikki Haley. As half of white guy/Desi lady couple I see these all the time, and it's subtle. There are the couples (like us, I hope) that have some awareness of their overlapping and underlapping privilege and become more aware of American racial dynamics by virtue of their experience, and there are some that focus entirely on perceived overlap in "positive" culture and basically exult in a sense of combined cultural and racial superiority. The worst part is there is every indication of this same dynamic actually being replicated *in Eurasia*, with Russia and Conservative Europeans and Brits driving it.
In 2018 and 2020 it became increasingly clear to me that every non white group in America has its own subculture --- some dominant, some minorities --- that trades in respectability culture/toxic patriarchy/class tropes and really thinks *they're* the ones who are just about to become White. Even Black folks. Candace Miller/Clarence Thomas tyoes. We're familiar with the Stephen Miller subset of Jews and the Rubio/Cruz subset of Cubans. Kimberly Guilfoyle Hispanics. The crazy Hindus with the dance shows for Trump. Michelle Steel Korean Americans. People who in the previous generation might have been like Kamala Harris's terrible dad. You even see them all giving each other side eye at Republican meetings. It's a party of mutual disdain and on-again/off-again temporary acceptance for expedience. None of this negates the underlying bedrock foundation of white Supremacy / Christian nationalism / anti-Semitism / anti - Blackness, because there's no need for logical consistency at any level. But toxic masculinity and toxic femininity and class egotism / respectability are the binding mortar.
22: I finally joined Reddit to look for other pregnant people to talk to and the most depressing thing to me has been *how many* women just have the most terrible partnerships. I don't think I've ever spent so much time hearing so many narratives from inside relationships that to me seem to verge on abusive but are considered merely really bad by most people. After almost every session on reddit I end up wanting to cling to my partner and tell him how much I appreciate him.
Which is to say, the capacity of women to stay in and survive terrible, terrible environments is kind of amazing and simultaneously inspiring and depressing.
In 2018 and 2020 it became increasingly clear to me that every non white group in America has its own subculture --- some dominant, some minorities --- that trades in respectability culture/toxic patriarchy/class tropes and really thinks *they're* the ones who are just about to become White. Even Black folks. Candace Miller/Clarence Thomas tyoes. We're familiar with the Stephen Miller subset of Jews and the Rubio/Cruz subset of Cubans. Kimberly Guilfoyle Hispanics. The crazy Hindus with the dance shows for Trump. Michelle Steel Korean Americans. People who in the previous generation might have been like Kamala Harris's terrible dad. You even see them all giving each other side eye at Republican meetings. It's a party of mutual disdain and on-again/off-again temporary acceptance for expedience. None of this negates the underlying bedrock foundation of white Supremacy / Christian nationalism / anti-Semitism / anti - Blackness, because there's no need for logical consistency at any level. But toxic masculinity and toxic femininity and class egotism / respectability are the binding mortar.
I was thinking about this today, and I have an idea that I want to try. See if this seems plausible.
I recognize the category that you're talking about, but I think that's a minority of conservative PoC (in the same way that outright white nationalists are, I'd argue, a minority of white conservatives).
I think that part of what helps people make peace with the racism within the Republican party is a sense of, "the government can't really do anything about racism." Republicans won't make it worse, Democrats won't make it better; racism is just a fact of life like the weather.
I was remembering an article during the debate leading up to the ACA which said that a lot of voters didn't really think of health care as something the government had any control over. In their minds, not being able to see the doctor was just a fact of life.
I think that's fairly common.
Do you think the government can do anything about racism? I'd say the government's job is to mitigate racism's effects, not to change hearts and minds, except slowly and indirectly as equaler outcomes erode lagging stereotypes.
Re: OP, *guy who has read hundreds of books about preludes to civil wars* gosh the present moment sure does remind me of the prelude to a civil war
Do you think the government can do anything about racism? I'd say the government's job is to mitigate racism's effects, not to change hearts and minds, except slowly and indirectly as equaler outcomes erode lagging stereotypes.
A cop-out answer -- I heard a line on a podcast today, "people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, and underestimate what they can do in ten."
In the short term, I think it's possible to mitigate the effects of racism, in a longer term (as you say) I think that has an impact on the broader culture and acceptable stereotypes.
Is it surprising that lots of people prefer partners who are attractive to those who are nice?
Either way, they're one up on my wife.
I was remembering an article during the debate leading up to the ACA which said that a lot of voters didn't really think of health care as something the government had any control over. In their minds, not being able to see the doctor was just a fact of life.
The capacity of women to stay in and survive terrible, terrible environments is kind of amazing and simultaneously inspiring and depressing.
Advantage: humans can adapt to anything. Disadvantage: humans can adapt to anything.
IAHVTSHB, I think we take the resilience muscles developed for natural disaster, starvation, etc. and flex them on entirely evitable situations.
So, the Trump-endorsed primary challenger to Liz Cheney just called me. It was the only political call I've ever gotten where the person talking was good at talking on the phone.
32: What? The actual candidate called you?
I once got a call from Jon Ossoff. He was pretty good on the phone.
33: No, not her. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
35: So it was a person calling on her behalf? That's still odd given that you're not a Wyoman or a Republican
That's why I mentioned it. I suppose I was demographically profiled. As much as I like to blame Boomers, white guys my age, ethnicity, and religion do a lot of Trump voting. They'd just have to have a profile that has detailed info about me but somehow missed my education, zip code, and FEC donor record.
37: Yes, as a 59-year old married heterosexual white man living in Ohio the odds that I am a Trump voter are really good. But that falls apart quickly if you consider either the neighborhood where I live, or my education, or my religion.
You're one of the good ones, Moby. You too, peep.
I was reading her book on civil wars: pretty chilling reading. To politicalfootball's point, indeed she focuses on
the possibilities if the Dems retain elected power. B/c yeah, the other outcome's too horrible to contemplate,
but also b/c if the GrOPers take power, then we'll either have real Fascism, or a civil war in Blue States against
Federal authority. All horrible, all worst-case stuff.
In that light, her scenario for what might happen in America if the White insurgency continues, is a "best-case
scenario". So, y'know, a wave of assassinations and violence in state capitals, in DC, is a "best case scenario".
Her book is excellent, and juxtaposes what's happening here, with what happened in Yugoslavia and elsewhere.
I didn't read the article in the OP because I don't want to be depressed.
25: yeah, I think that's part of it. I think the libertarianish super class mindset pushes that idea too. And the weird idea that civil rights legislation and enforcement actually makes things worse. But also it's because it helps *those other colored people* and *those other colored people don't deserve it*. Either because they're Black or immigrants or not the right religion or whatnot.
And I mean, there is some lived reality to the fact that systemic antiBlackness causes poverty and poverty causes crime and almost every immigrant Asian family I know, including mine, has had multiple physical and even violent encounters with African-Americans that included disparagement based on our ethnicity and/or religion and/or being perceived as immigrants, and before 9/11 this was the vast majority of our experience of serious violence and crime. I'm too tired to articulate what the inverse of that is, but I bet there are plenty of African Americans , especially in California and NYC, who can say the majority of some kind of really bad interaction they've had has been at the hands of some of kind of Asian immigrants who are similarly operating at the tail end of from conditions, now caused by colonialism and MIC imperialism. Just because both of these classes of phenomena are overwhelmingly ultimately products of white Supremacy and capitalism doesnt change how viscerally upsetting and framework setting they can be.
Speaking of Ohio, are the local Republicans really trying to require teaching both sides of the Holocaust? I'm afraid to google it because of the targeted ads I might get after.
Helpful context for the events in Japan.
46. Yes. Pretty careful and responsible reporting here (March 2022) and here (June 2022).
46. Yes. Pretty careful and responsible reporting here (March 2022) and here (June 2022).
I think I'd still rather let the flat earthers teach geography.
Since nobody from Ohio has invented a heavier than air flying machine or gone to the moon in like 50s, they don't really need to know the shape of the world anymore.
Can you isolate Ace in one room with an air filter and furnace filters over the central air vents until you leave? Or isolate yourself in such a room?
45: this comment is so intelligent and has so many, many layers that really speak to me as a san franciscan - thank you, ile. also, if you want to natter aout pregnancy-babies here, let's do it! obvs it's been years since i had the kid and all three of them are alarmingly grown up, but i don't want you to be abandoned to the wastelands of reddit :-(.
i'll start with the one thing that everyone doesn't tell you when you are pregnant the first time - that babies are really, really, really insanely fun. the sleep deprivation, the ceaseless druggery, the toil of labor and the alarmingness of recovery - everyone is all about that. but let me just stand up for that time you pfuff your baby on their unworldly smooth soft insoles and and it just happens to be the day that baby finally has everything coordinated to actually belly laugh. omg purest cut straight to the dopamine mine in the brain, you will not be able to stoppppppp ....
Oh my gosh, dq, I needed that. Things are really hard right now, *except for*, thank God, my body and my baby seem to be doing everything as well as possible. But everything else is flying off the handle. So thank you. I can't wait to try that.
Wow the video of Uvalde is really something. Cops running away from the shooter and then putzing around while [children screaming redaced]. The cop checking his phone with the punisher lock screen is just a singularity of irony and awfulness.
This might sound harsh but my faith in humanity will not be restored until a good portion of that PD blows their own brains out with their service weapon.
It's amazing how every new revelation makes the police response look worse and worse.
That is...a _very_ widely applicable statement.