The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'American flag flying over farmers.'
Sarah Palin recently said that the Donald Trump prosecutions will lead to civil war. She's quoted in The Guardian as saying:
"Those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice, I want to ask them what the heck, do you want us to be in civil war? Because that's what's going to happen,” Palin [said]. "We’re not going to keep putting up with this."
Despite Trump's popularity, I very much doubt his prosecution will lead to a civil war. But it may lead to a resurgence of alt right terrorism. My red friends on Facebook have been posting more memes encouraging people to start a second American Revolutionary War. Although their rhetoric is probably all bluster, this group is armed to the teeth, so their threats of going to war have to be taken at least a little seriously.
Many on the left are taking the threat of civil conflict seriously. But they frame it differently than reds like Palin do. Here's a quote from a Guardian piece published last year on the subject:
Activist white supremacists in positions of authority are the real threat to American order and security. "If you look at how authoritarian regimes come into power, they tacitly authorize a group of political thugs to use violence against their political enemies," [former FBI agent Michael] German says. "That ends up with a lot of street violence, and the general public gets upset about the street violence and says, 'Government, you have to do something about this street violence,' and the government says, 'Oh my hands are tied, give me a broad enabling power and I will go after these thugs.' And of course once that broad power is granted, it isn't used to target the thugs. They either become a part of the official security apparatus or an auxiliary force."
Expulsion of Moderates
From everything I've read about history, beyond the crime wave that German highlights, there is a critical turning point that tends to mark the beginning of violent revolutions. This is a culling of moderates within the force attempting to seize total control. The first people the extremists attack are their more moderate allies.
In our situation, both parties have been accelerating sharply towards extremism. The neoliberals used covid and war to bring everyone into line with their radical totalitarian agenda. On the other side, voices like Palin and Trump have taken to writing off their moderates as RINOs. What we haven't yet seen from either side is a more theatrical expulsion of moderates from their ranks. If this does happen, it will clearly indicate the imminent escalation of civil conflict.
To be honest, I'm much more concerned about the ongoing humanitarian disaster that is our economy than I am about a civil war between increasingly irrelevant political parties. Covid was a massive cash grab for the people at the top at the expense of everybody else. It was if we were all playing musical chairs and the music stopped, leaving many without chairs to sit in. I'm more worried about what these people will do than I am about the political situation.
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.