We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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Not going to spend a lot of pixels detailing the threats to democracy that lie ahead. You're not here reading this if you don't already know. What keeps me up at night - and sure, after 10pm counts - is the Cassandra paradox. Knowing what's coming isn't enough to stop it. People won't believe you until the point is moot. As other have argued - Donny is going to run for the nomination in 2024, and everything we see right now says he will win that. He will go for the rematch, and declare himself victor no matter what the actual results are. Any hints of principle or honor on the right have eroded beyond the point of structural failure - if they find a legal pretext to exploit, they will reinstate him. Once that happens, we can expect the worst.

IANAL, but I look at the code for counting electoral votes and I'm worried. I can see Republicans in every state submitting alternate slates of electors just because they can, hoping that Congress will overturn any results they don't like. If we lose either the House or Senate in 2022, we're in dire straits. And I don't mean we get our money for nothing and our chicks for free. Nope, refrigerators and color TVs.

Expecting the worst from the GOP, it feels like our primary defense - as voters - is to ensure that they don't regain Congress in 2022. You know and I know that the gun control agenda isn't going to help the Dems on that front, so maybe we can leave that one out of the discussion, despite how painfully on point it is for the group? That aside - how are we going to do this? Assume that Merrick Garland has idealistic and naive thumbs exploring colonoscopy options, and none of the participants in the insurrection see justice before 2025. Assume that nobody is talking about armed uprisings and we're certainly not an illegal self-organizing militia. How do we legally and peacefully ensure the survival of American democracy in the face of a rising tide of reactionary authoritarianism?

We're not all going to be on the same page. We're not all going to agree on strategy. That's okay. Spitballing ideas and brainstorming is where we are right now. Pragmatic me wants to hear ideas. Preferably ideas that don't involve combat in the streets, because have you seen the condition of the American roadway?

I hear crickets. :sob:

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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Traditionally it has been by voting and through the courts. I'm not sure that will work anymore.

But there are historical examples of how the Republic can be upheld but none that are not fraught with pain and suffering.

Remember, many citizens of all of the nations that were under autocratic rule from the early 1930s right through until the mid 1940s were generally doing fairly well and approved of their governments. The frightening part is that businesses and corporations flourished and no companies were ever really sanctioned. In none of those cases did the citizenry uphold democracy.
To be vintage it must be older than me!
The next gun I buy will be the next to last gun I ever buy. PROMISE!
jim

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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I am more optimistic. I don't think he will get the nom. Moreover, while it's true the R's will try to upend the next election no matter what, everyone has eyes on them. I do not expect good things from hard core red states. But I do expect the D's to hold the Senate. House is tough because of the census.

Now, the blue states have the money. If the D's keep the House, they can help the red states understand that they'll go hungry without the blue states. Hunger is a fine persuader, especially when they know they're doing it to themselves.

I don't think there will be a quote unquote civil war. They're all talk. They have to try to trick folks into doing their bidding because they are weak, but loud.

We live in interesting times.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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Biden should declare Marshall Law, install a 6PM to 6AM curfew; arrest and send turd and all congress supporting same to Gitmo to be held for treason and inciting insurrection. Give a quick trial and Saddamed. Screw the consequence - otherwise this nation is lost - results the same no matter which way it goes - it's over if the right regains congress - one or both- and turd president. Currently turd could lose by 25 million votes and still win.
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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Of interest from the archives.
As the violent mob incited by President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, some West Wing staffers panicked that they were possibly becoming participants in a coup to overthrow the government. “What do I do? Resign?” one nervous White House staffer asked a friend on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after news broke that a woman had been shot and killed inside the Capitol. The West Wing staffer told the friend that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was urging White House officials not to speak to Trump or enable his coup attempt in any way, so they could reduce the chance they could be prosecuted for treason under the Sedition Act. “They’re being told to stay away from Trump,” the friend said. The White House declined to comment.

Cipollone’s purported concern that Trump was committing treason—a federal crime—illustrates the chaos and fear of Wednesday’s unprecedented events.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01 ... mping-ship

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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CDFingers wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 7:47 am I am more optimistic. I don't think he will get the nom. Moreover, while it's true the R's will try to upend the next election no matter what, everyone has eyes on them. I do not expect good things from hard core red states. But I do expect the D's to hold the Senate. House is tough because of the census.

Now, the blue states have the money. If the D's keep the House, they can help the red states understand that they'll go hungry without the blue states. Hunger is a fine persuader, especially when they know they're doing it to themselves.

I don't think there will be a quote unquote civil war. They're all talk. They have to try to trick folks into doing their bidding because they are weak, but loud.

We live in interesting times.

CDFingers
I worry way more with trump the traitor getting the nomination and maybe win the election than I do just any GOP candidate winning. Some, like McCarthy, abbot and desantis are dangerous but trump is a special kind of stupid and dangerous.
I think the Dems will support anybody, in spite of the MSM 'divisions' you hear about now('progressives vs moderates in the Dem party). Where in the GOP...there is a large segment that despise trump..and altho they won't vote Dem, but they won't vote for trump either.

"Civil war is coming'..'I can get 20,000 shock troops'-bannon. That's just online BS, that revs up the shrinking trumpista base but really doesn't mean anything..but the trumpista base aren't known to be very smart, like trump himself.

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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I don't think Trump can win the Rep nominee anymore. While plenty still pucker up to kiss the golden asshole and many more think he's some perversion of a messiah, 1) he's fucking old and unhealthy, 2) likely to be nailed for his financials to a degree that at least demonstrates he's a fraud, and 3) he's just not as popular as he was. Dems and many Republicans will vote for anyone to keep that chaos out of the Whitehouse.

I'm more afraid of the ongoing quagmire that is the federal government.

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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FrontSight wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:17 am Don't panic, we're only 9 months into this administration. We have 3 more years, and as we have seen, a LOT can happen in just one year. Don't panic, keep on keeping on.

The sane part of America is MUCH bigger than the crazies.
Thats what I keep telling myself when I start thinking worst case scenario. Only 60% of eligible voters vote in the presidential election. And I think ALL eligible trumpers are at 100%.

Still don't hurt to organize. Be prepared - Left hand shake.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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FrontSight wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:17 am Don't panic, we're only 9 months into this administration. We have 3 more years, and as we have seen, a LOT can happen in just one year. Don't panic, keep on keeping on.

The sane part of America is MUCH bigger than the crazies.
I can only hope there is a real Silent Majority out there that will rise up and prevent take over by the Rightwing Crazies. The Rightwing Crazies are the children or grandchildren of those that protested against the Civil Rights movements of the 1950s and 60s. They feel threatened when somebody else gets something they didn't get. They are the ones that never admit the situation they are living in is because of their own faults and not accepting responsibility for their actions. It is easy for them to cast the blame on others and they are just following the greatest blame-caster of recent times, The Orange Turd, Donald J Trump.

The GOP started this shift in the 1960s with the inclusion of the Dixiecrats into the GOP and the Koch Bros Daddy with the support of the John Birch Society. We can see it continuing to go downhill to the rightwing with Nixon's Southern Strategy. It has continued to swing further right and downhill to this day. Thus allowing the past election of TOT and his followers. Since then it has become more open and disturbing.

It is unfortunate that we keep referring back to Germany and the rise of the Nazi party, but the history is showing we have a good chance of following in those footsteps. Not only do we have the Rightwing Crazies supporting a Not My Fault populist view but we also see the support of the GOP by Big Business. This also mirrors the Germany of the early 1930s when the industrial and big business of Germany meet with Hitler and he promised that the next election would be the last, the unions would be broken and the owners would once again be the Masters in their House once again. They then sent lots of money to the Nazis allowing them to wing the election and put Hitler in power. How much corporate and wealth money is going to the GOP compared to the Dems?

We are in for along rough road ahead.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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It's a new century, so I don't think it is so easy to apply suppositions from the last one. I think social media is having a way larger effect now than anything last century. With today's detached populace watching social media, it's not hard to imagine a Running Man type of thing, pay per view. Not to be too goody-two shoes about it, I'd pay to see the orange spirochete grilled by a dozen women lawyers.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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I see Trump as more of a Mussolini figure than a Hitler figure. I don't see Trump as a genocidal maniac, but I do see him as an out of control narcissist who wants the entire nation to exist for him; like Mussolini.
But like Mussolini, at the end of the day he's all words, and zero competence. As the leader of a nation you have to do things, and you have to do them at least mildly competent. Trump is completely incompetent and 2/3 of the voters know that now.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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Not the source I was looking for but it will work.
Brinton breaks down the revolution into three entities: the symptoms, the fever itself, which is the manipulation of revolution, and the break of the fever, when things more or less return to normal. Symptoms can take several different forms: economic problems, inefficiency of the government, the rise of the self-proclaimed revolutionaries, and the overthrow of the old regime, followed by the breakup of the revolutionaries' coalition.

In the early stages of the revolution itself, Brinton sees the moderates seize power, but then the extremists take that power away from them. Then the fever breaks, Thermidor occurs and the revolution is over. In Brinton's view there is nothing much that can be done about revolutionaries, the fever has to burn out on its own. In his book, Crane Brinton uses the American Revolution as one of his examples. One assumes that he vies the American Revolution as a real Revolution, though the author states that it does not fit perfectly his conceptual schemes.

Brinton sees the American Revolution as a territorial-nationalist one, in which the aim of the revolutionaries was not to overturn the existing "social and economic system, but rather to set the English North American colonies up as an independent nation-state"
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/essays/before ... lution.php

I'm with CDF and lurker, I don't see the signs. We're divided politically but so is Canada and most of Europe and many other countries around the world. We don't have instability in the federal or state governments, we don't have revolutionaries of the right or the left taking over local or state governments or police forces abandoning their jobs. The economy hasn't crashed though inflation has started and a recession could be around the corner.

We're divided and each side sees compromise as abandoning their principles. They vilify the other side, easier for followers to understand,' we're the good guys they're the bad guys'.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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Guns are good things to have and not need.

The real challenge is the climate. As soon as folks start making money from the changeover to renewables and most of the covidiots are dead or too embarrassed to show their faces, we'll see a calmer populace as we see the legislation advanced to promote the general welfare as opposed to promoting the welfare of the guys with the hands on the frog boiling machines.

Might not happen this week. Baseball playoffs.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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highdesert wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:49 am ...The economy hasn't crashed though inflation has started and a recession could be around the corner.
So t here's a scenario they could put in play.

Don't vote for the next rise in debt limit and let the economy crash. That sets up chaos for all those other things to happen. Fortunately I think only Trump, Bobert, and MTG are crazy enough to do that; and they're not in positions to do that.

Still, most Americans are not oppressed, not hungry, and not looking for any change. That's the biggest thing we have going for us. The sane people are quite happy to keep the system that is supporting us.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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FrontSight wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:46 am I see Trump as more of a Mussolini figure than a Hitler figure. I don't see Trump as a genocidal maniac, but I do see him as an out of control narcissist who wants the entire nation to exist for him; like Mussolini.
But like Mussolini, at the end of the day he's all words, and zero competence. As the leader of a nation you have to do things, and you have to do them at least mildly competent. Trump is completely incompetent and 2/3 of the voters know that now.
I can agree. What i can see that is scary, is the handlers that can manipulate TOT and his followers.. What is not good is those wanting to make sure the elections go their way. In Hood County southwest of Fort Worth, the Election Administrator in charge of counting the ballot and insuring the elections are fair and honest was forced out by a group of Trump MAGAers and replaced by a Trump supporting elected County Clerk. Do that in enough places and we will have big problems. BTW Hood county voted heavy for TOT in the last Election.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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The Trump experiment taught them everything they need to know. They can now identify the firewalls that saved the republic and target them directly. Next time around, someone like Rasenberger won't be in a position to save the day in a state like GA. Next time around, election workers won't be allowed to carry out their duties in a state like Arizona. Wherever the GOP controls state legislatures, Republicans will win.

From now on, every time Republicans lose, they will scream fraud. There won't be any cooler heads who put the country first. There won't be any moderate Republicans who refuse to echo the lies. They will all, one by one, insist that all elections are rigged by Democrats and that nothing short of a complete system overhaul will do.

Take a look a the California recall election. They are flat out insisting it was rigged. People listen. People believe it. The strategy is no longer about winning elections. It's about getting enough people to believe that everything is rigged so they can "save" democracy by dismantling it.

We've already seen what the MAGA crowd is willing to do. Their strategy isn't about winning. It's about breaking and dismantling. Next time around, they will be a lot more effective.
Whatever I said above, just pretend I included the obligatory “both sides,” especially if I said something mean about Trump (don’t want to hurt any feelings).

www.schayden.com

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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wooglin wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:21 pm According to Heather Cox Richardson on Facebook "the New York Times and the Washington Post today (yesterday) ran op-eds from Republicans or former Republicans urging members of their party who still value democracy to vote Democratic until the authoritarian faction that has taken over their party is bled out of it." So there's that.
The most important thing about that is that its coming from Republicans. Republicans who have a lot to lose by saying such things. These are true patriots to democracy (whether I agree with their politics or not). I sincerely believe America is doomed without a functional Republican party. We need that balance, but only within the boundaries of democracy, and our constitution.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: We see the warning signs. How do we uphold the republic?

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It is far easier to make sure that government does not work than to make government work.

And the former is the goal and path that is being successfully followed.

Control the voting and vote counting at the local levels.

Ration essential services such as USPS.

Sow distrust in news reporting.

Plant seeds of discontent.

Control the courts.

Beat the drium loudly.
To be vintage it must be older than me!
The next gun I buy will be the next to last gun I ever buy. PROMISE!
jim

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