There’s an emerging blue-state nightmare: Inspired by President Donald Trump’s call to round up immigrants who are in the country illegally, red-state governors might start sending their National Guard troops into blue states without those leaders’ permission.
A necessary action is often times an unwanted one. We have already crossed the point where non-violent solutions were useful, they are little more than half measures. Perhaps we might get lucky, but as Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus once said " Hope for peace prepare for war"
Edit: unwanted not unwarranted fucken auto correct
I’m fine with preparations. If it comes to war then we must try to win. But we don’t need to make that outcome more likely. I think the right has a huge advantage in war because of their inherent militarism and because legally Trump is the commander in chief and the military is very likely to side with him. It’s not to our advantage to fight them militarily.
But I think there are still other paths available to us. You are wrong that nonviolent solutions are not useful. They can and have been used successfully in situations far more dire than the situation in the US today. There is a widespread lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of civil resistance in our culture today and we need to educate ourselves about these tactics that have worked to bring down dictatorships in the past.
The fascists are pushing on every single guardrail and getting away with it. Violent resistance now draws a line in the sand and turns the public against them. Like you, nobody wants a war, but it’s easier to fight back now than it is after they’ve put loyalists in every position and completely reshaped the entire state apparatus into their fascist authoritarian goal.
A military coup today to cut the heads off the snake would save you many hundreds of thousands of lives if a world war is required to destroy Trump’s fascist regime.
A few deaths now might stop a future invasion of former allies. Retaking control now would keep the nuclear arsenal away from these psychos
There’s a lot to unpack here. Your assessment of the situation is right—this is extremely dangerous and it cannot be allowed to stand. But that means our political strategy is more important than ever. People seem to think that because this is dangerous and we’re angry we just need to go for the most extreme reaction possible but this does not logically follow if it’s not effective in achieving our goals.
First you need to understand that this is happening because a plurality of Americans want it to. So it’s not at all clear to me that violent actions will turn anyone against them. Maybe if the acts are small and well targeted and there is a huge, violent overreaction, but remember that their control over the media means it will be painted in the worst possible light. I personally think this only increases the danger and is more likely to turn fence-sitters and even some supporters against us than to join the cause.
A military coup is a particularly bad solution. Firstly because it has exactly zero chance of happening—our military leaders are not going to take Trump out because he’s trying to perform an internal coup. They just won’t. And even if they did, there is a danger they don’t relinquish power. And even if they did that it still normalizes the military as the highest power that can simply depose any president they don’t like. It’s hard to imagine a more destructive action to American democracy even if it did remove Trump from office.
The best actions at this time are raising awareness of what’s happening and building and organizing public support and resistance. People are scared and discouraged right now. We need actions that change this energy and unite people. Like it or not, political violence is divisive in US culture and it won’t achieve this. Once our movement is widely supported and powerful we can take on Trump directly but we need to build that up first.
In the meantime, courts, bureaucrats and politicians need to do everything they can to raise the alarm, slow things down, and impose political costs on them to make their takeover more difficult. This can buy us time to muster the public support we need to win.
I hope you’re right, because what you’re describing is how things are headed. An entrenched fascist government will be a lot harder to remove with or without force, however.
Sadly in either case we’re looking at a decade or more to undo the damage that’s already been done, if it’s even reversible.
Whatever happens I’m certain now that American hegemony is collapsing in my lifetime, and hopefully that ends up being a good thing.
It’s at least possible it may be a good thing but without a broader liberation movement to fill the power vacuum, it’s more likely it will simply be filled by another imperialistic nation or coalition. I don’t see much sign of such a movement so I’m not very optimistic.
Nah fuck war I don’t want that and neither do you. We gotta figure out how to win without that.
A necessary action is often times an unwanted one. We have already crossed the point where non-violent solutions were useful, they are little more than half measures. Perhaps we might get lucky, but as Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus once said " Hope for peace prepare for war"
Edit: unwanted not unwarranted fucken auto correct
I’m fine with preparations. If it comes to war then we must try to win. But we don’t need to make that outcome more likely. I think the right has a huge advantage in war because of their inherent militarism and because legally Trump is the commander in chief and the military is very likely to side with him. It’s not to our advantage to fight them militarily.
But I think there are still other paths available to us. You are wrong that nonviolent solutions are not useful. They can and have been used successfully in situations far more dire than the situation in the US today. There is a widespread lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of civil resistance in our culture today and we need to educate ourselves about these tactics that have worked to bring down dictatorships in the past.
I highly recommend this book for a deeper dive on this topic: https://commonslibrary.org/civil-resistance-what-everyone-needs-to-know/
Swift and early violence could prevent a bigger problem later on
How exactly?
The fascists are pushing on every single guardrail and getting away with it. Violent resistance now draws a line in the sand and turns the public against them. Like you, nobody wants a war, but it’s easier to fight back now than it is after they’ve put loyalists in every position and completely reshaped the entire state apparatus into their fascist authoritarian goal.
A military coup today to cut the heads off the snake would save you many hundreds of thousands of lives if a world war is required to destroy Trump’s fascist regime.
A few deaths now might stop a future invasion of former allies. Retaking control now would keep the nuclear arsenal away from these psychos
There’s a lot to unpack here. Your assessment of the situation is right—this is extremely dangerous and it cannot be allowed to stand. But that means our political strategy is more important than ever. People seem to think that because this is dangerous and we’re angry we just need to go for the most extreme reaction possible but this does not logically follow if it’s not effective in achieving our goals.
First you need to understand that this is happening because a plurality of Americans want it to. So it’s not at all clear to me that violent actions will turn anyone against them. Maybe if the acts are small and well targeted and there is a huge, violent overreaction, but remember that their control over the media means it will be painted in the worst possible light. I personally think this only increases the danger and is more likely to turn fence-sitters and even some supporters against us than to join the cause.
A military coup is a particularly bad solution. Firstly because it has exactly zero chance of happening—our military leaders are not going to take Trump out because he’s trying to perform an internal coup. They just won’t. And even if they did, there is a danger they don’t relinquish power. And even if they did that it still normalizes the military as the highest power that can simply depose any president they don’t like. It’s hard to imagine a more destructive action to American democracy even if it did remove Trump from office.
The best actions at this time are raising awareness of what’s happening and building and organizing public support and resistance. People are scared and discouraged right now. We need actions that change this energy and unite people. Like it or not, political violence is divisive in US culture and it won’t achieve this. Once our movement is widely supported and powerful we can take on Trump directly but we need to build that up first.
In the meantime, courts, bureaucrats and politicians need to do everything they can to raise the alarm, slow things down, and impose political costs on them to make their takeover more difficult. This can buy us time to muster the public support we need to win.
I hope you’re right, because what you’re describing is how things are headed. An entrenched fascist government will be a lot harder to remove with or without force, however.
Sadly in either case we’re looking at a decade or more to undo the damage that’s already been done, if it’s even reversible.
Whatever happens I’m certain now that American hegemony is collapsing in my lifetime, and hopefully that ends up being a good thing.
It’s at least possible it may be a good thing but without a broader liberation movement to fill the power vacuum, it’s more likely it will simply be filled by another imperialistic nation or coalition. I don’t see much sign of such a movement so I’m not very optimistic.