On the Edge of?

[paft.livejournal.com]

From Raw Story: As the most divisive presidential election in recent memory nears its conclusion, some armed militia groups are preparing for the possibility of a stolen election on Nov. 8 and civil unrest in the days following a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton.


Three years ago, in the course of a discussion about RW attempts to rehabilitiate Chilean dictator Pinochet, I wrote the following about the potential for increased RW violence in this country:

Over the long term, demographics are working against them. Given the amount of money and power involved, I can easily imagine, some years down the line, voter suppression and gerrymandering not working any more and powerful interests resorting to raw physical force...

We have, for instance, an increasingly militarized police force blurring the lines between military and police action... I'm not positing a coup exactly like what happened in Chile. For one thing, we don't have the equivalent of a larger, more powerful and wealthy country deliberately destabilizing us to soften us up for a military coup.

Sooooo, here we are. We have a candidate from a major political party who has been more than flirting with violence. We have an already heavily armed, increasingly radicalized section of the population indicating that if the election does not go the way they want, they will simply not recognize its outcome and quite possibly attempt to overturn it by force. We also have indications of another country attempting to affect the outcome of our election.

Looks to me like my earlier predictions were not, as some claimed, "hysterical" or "hyperbolic," but possibly a bit too conservative.

A coup in the wake of Hillary Clinton winning the election? Probably not, but I'm just not as positive about that as I used to be. As I said, there's a lot of money at stake, and the Republicans have for years been chipping away at the idea that liberalism (or what they perceive as liberalism) has any place at all in our political process. I am convinced there are powerful RW interests who, if they had to choose between a liberal administration and chucking the whole system, would be willing to chuck the whole system. What was the constant Repubican obstructionism over the past eight years but a denial of the right of a liberal president to govern at all?

Let's be clear about this. The concerns about voter "fraud" are bogus, and the people citing it know it's bogus. They may not yet be willing to admit it, but these people define voting Democratic as "voter fraud."

At the least, I think we are going to face an uptick in right wing terrorism worse than what we saw in the 1990s. As someone who lives in San Francisco, I suspect I would not be as vulnerable to that kind of violence as others. But I have family members living in the deep south and that does worry me.

Comments

[garote]

Ahhhh, San Francisco. Hello from across the Bay, in Oakland!

Views in Oakland are probably a little more messy than in SF. The local bastion of liberal politics is Berkeley, which is small enough to feel heat from more conservative areas like Walnut Creek, Pleasanton, and Fairfield, so there's a kind of tension in Oakland. Plus the poverty that comes from the balkanization of centuries of racism, of course...

I bring this up to point out how quickly perspectives can change, with even a tiny change in location in the US.

From where I stand, the chances of some kind of armed uprising are unbelievably small. Any group that really thinks it's time for a revolution, or coup, or even general violent uprising, is absurdly small. Even the vast majority of the people supposedly at 'ground zero' of this scenario - Trump's rallies - are way too patriotic to take up arms against their own countrymen. At most they'll gather around a bunch of government buildings and wave weapons, and perhaps drum up some kind of "occupy" movement, or a bid to take over some god-forsaken federal land in Oregon or Montana (Utah's too mormon, the Dakotas and Wyoming are too barren) and it will get derided and hen-pecked on all sides until the military comes in, starves it, then sweeps it gently away with a mop.

The interesting thing about politics in this country is, the more deeply you pay attention to the process at the ground-level, the less cynical you tend to become. Many, many people are disengaged and don't even vote, but those who do tend to take it seriously as hell, including those who oversee it. Over and over again, cynics have cried foul, proclaimed that they are gonna go in and make sure nothing "funny" happens, and then when they get there they find a process that is already more paranoid than what they were aspiring to.

Also, it helps to keep in mind that for a very long time, about half of the population has seen their candidate lose to the other guy. Not 80/20, not even 60/40, but close to 50/50. This nation has been sharply divided in politics for generations. This election is absolutely nothing new in that regard.

And, of course, the biggest factor of all: The military. Thank the fucking gods above, the military has maintained a strong stance on being indifferent to party politics. Even if the entire fucking state of Missouri, down to the last farmer with a shotgun, decided to march on the capital and force the president out of office, the military would stop them so incredibly dead in their tracks it wouldn't be funny at all. And that wouldn't be necessary, because if a group of rebels that big coalesced, an equally big group of private citizens - no, actually a much larger group - would take up their own arms and Civil War their asses until everything was on fire. And everyone knows it, so nobody wants to start.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Well, as I said, "A coup in the wake of Hillary Clinton winning the election? Probably not." But also, as I said, I find the possibility less remote than it was three years ago.

Certainly I don't find the possibility of right wing violence in the wake of the election at all "remote." My perspective includes not only San Francisco, but the American south, where that kind of terrorism is practically old hat. My concern is less about a coup than an increase in the kind of militia violence we saw in the '90s, and have been seeing on the increase lately.

[paft.livejournal.com]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/deplorable-suspect-draws-blood-from-poll-worker-by-hiding-box-cutter-blades-in-trump-pence-sign/

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

"We also have indications of another country attempting to affect the outcome of our election."

Welcome to the club. Now you know what it feels like.

[paft.livejournal.com]

I never imagined it would feel good, which is why I have been so critical about US intervention in the affairs of other countries. (Which, by the way helped earn me the completely inaccurate reputation here in the past of being a wild-eyed radical leftist.)

And I have never been so callous as to portray myself eagerly eating popcorn or being amused as I watched it happen to another country.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Fascinating story. But do tell us some more about yourself.

[paft.livejournal.com]

I certainly will if I spot unwarranted and ill-natured assumptions about me in a comment.

Do you have anything actually relevant to say about the op?

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

I certainly will if I spot something worth commenting.

[paft.livejournal.com]

I'll take that as a "no."

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

You can take it as you wish.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Where did you see such assumptions?

[paft.livejournal.com]

If you have a comment to make about the OP, I'd be delighted to talk with you.

Otherwise, no.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I'll take that as "nowhere".

[paft.livejournal.com]

As Dreamville says, you can take it as you wish and will anyway.