
Armed Militias Are Taking Trump’s Civil War Tweets Seriously - rmbryan
https://www.lawfareblog.com/armed-militias-are-taking-trumps-civil-war-tweets-seriously
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jammygit
I’ve been reading a lot lately about the world war 1 to World War 2 period and
all the civil wars and revolutions. One question I’m trying to figure out is
“why communism?”

I think the answer is simply that those nations wanted a revolution, and
communism was who provided it at the time. In the interwar years, it was also
fascism. In napoleons time, it was democracy. Most of them also involved
nationalism and self governance.

Today, the closest thing I see is right wing protectionism, anti-foreigner
policies, and authoritarianism (not much militarism though). The KKK is back
for example. I don’t think that people especially want that future, but they
are the main game in town for people who want the current order to be shaken
up

There is potential for some nastiness in the next couple of decades if the
trend continues

Edited for clarity

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rmbryan
does anyone feel like they have a plan for responding to these risks? i see
the possibility of nastiness, but the only idea i have is to move away. is
there a more helpful response available?

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jammygit
I think that people’s grievances just need to be addressed, and it’s almost
entirely about increasing poverty (with the rest being a matter of blaming
somebody for it).

Helping people to thrive better with today’s economy would go a long way

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petermcneeley
I think your apparently non controversial answer is spot on. However the idea
that people are getting poorer is a highly contrarian position.

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beatgammit
It doesn't matter if people are getting poorer, it matters if they _think_
they're getting poorer. By most metrics, people are better off now than they
used to be, but what matters is whether they _feel_ like they're better off,
and income inequality is one way people _feel_ they're worse off than before.

However, I don't think that's what's fuelling current sentiments from the
right. I think it's more a feeling of "everyone is against you", stemming from
a distrust of mainstream media (mentioned in the article) and assumptions
about mainstream media heavily influencing politics. Also, the current crop of
Democratic candidates are more socialist (I'm using that term in the current
"Democratic Socialist" vernacular) than ever before.

I think the best solution here is to reform our voting system to eliminate
first past the post. We've been getting more and more extreme politicians, and
implementing something like ranked choice voting _should_ encourage more
moderate candidates, which should in turn encourage more moderate mainstream
media, which I think would ease political tensions. It's probably not a
panacea, but I think it's a move in the right direction.

~~~
petermcneeley
I don't think you made a single statement that was correct. I recommend you
watch some videos by say someone like Mark Blyth.

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slowhand09
[http://freakoutery.com/2018/07/game-theory-on-the-second-
civ...](http://freakoutery.com/2018/07/game-theory-on-the-second-civil-war/)

~~~
Accujack
Meh.

The author of this assumes that his game theory civil war will be made up of
the binary falsehood of political views portrayed in popular media - blues vs.
reds.

In reality, the largest portion of the US citizenry aren't happy about the
government and though they may have views in one direction or another they
recognize the need for the rule of law and are loyal to the country as a
whole, not to the DFL or GOP. Rather than blue vs. red, it would be extremist
nutjobs vs. everyone else. Everyone else would win, hard.

If Trump tries to do something illegal like ignore election results, either
the GOP will pull him down to preserve the present corrupt situation that is
to their advantage, or the majority of the citizens would hang him on the
front lawn of the white house.

American are apathetic to many things, even those things that cause them to go
hungry or lack medical care, but they'll leave work and take up arms to pull
down an obvious tyrant.

~~~
iron0013
Hehe, I think you've given yourself away as coming from Minnesota by referring
to the Democratic party as "DFL". That's Minnesota's special homebrew
Democrats! :)

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HocusLocus
Every time Trump's twitter feed has mentioned civil war since 2013,

[http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/archive/civil%20war/ttff](http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/archive/civil%20war/ttff)

Okay, count=one referring to this country as a whole and it was a retweet.

Right out of the gate they headline it as "Civil War Tweets" plural as if he
harped on the subject. Why? Because it sounded better.

And no, characterizing current events as an attempted coup is not a reference
to a civil war.

And where does declaring something will create a "civil war like fracture"
become a call to (or even reference to) civil war? In a country where people
lack basic literary skills and discard metaphor?

