I had a long conversation the other day with “G” (the person addressed in #23). The main point of discussion was the possibility of a second American civil war breaking out in the near future, and what could be done to avert it. G., by the way, is a former history teacher and former Wall Street lawyer, a political centrist.
Cautiously optimistic as I am cautiously pessimistic, he thought that the FBI and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security should concentrate on defeating the domestic terrorists in our midst: White Supremacists, Neo Nazis, and right-wing militias, many of whom participated in last week’s insurrection in the nation’s capitol. Infiltrate them, arrest them whenever possible, but by all means necessary prevent them from translating their violent fantasies into action. Under pressure, pushed further and further to the margins, they will eventually disappear, as did the left-wing bomb-throwers in the 60s — the Weathermen, the Symbionese Liberation Army.
I said that I hoped that would come about. But I wasn’t entirely convinced, nagged by a suspicion that our capacity for civic and moral virtue has become so degraded that reunifying this fractured nation may no longer be possible. Reading or listening to comments from the insurrectionists has been sobering, depressing, alarming. They believe every lie spewed from the mouths of Trump and his enablers, chiefly the lie that the election was stolen, despite the facts that 50 states ratified the results and that 90 judges dismissed the 60 lWhite House lawsuits alleging fraud for lack of any credible evidence. They continue to believe in outlandish conspiracy theories — a Satanic ring of pedophiles, led by prominent Democrats, headquartered in a Washington pizza parlor; the Covid pandemic is a hoax perpetrated by liberals to control American citizens. They are beyond the pale. How far beyond? Consider that one of the insurrectionist leaders was recorded urging his (maskless) followers to hug each other and “create a super-spreader event.” Some did. That’s edging toward mass suicide, like the cultists who obeyed Jim Jone’s call to drink poisoned Kool Aid.
A few politicians and pundits have said that these people are, in effect, victims of propaganda broadcast by social media and right-wing websites. Really? No one forced them to turn to those sources of disinformation, no one forced them to believe the falsehoods and hysterical conspiracy theories. They believe that crap because they want to, perhaps need to, as they need to stoke the inchoate rage simmering in their hearts (for reasons I can’t even guess at). It’s as if they delight in abandoning their reason and judgment. Think of it. They are so discontent, so white-hot furious that they came very close to seizing the Senate and the House of Representatives in the name of overthrowing the results of a free and fair election. A coup! It beats me why they feel as they do. They aren’t the starving masses, they had the means to travel long distances to Washington, to buy meals and rent motel rooms for days. They could afford all those flags and banners and tactical gear.
Just to be clear, I am not speaking about all Trump supporters, but of his most devoted disciples. Five of my friends voted for Trump in 2016, because they agreed with his policies on lower taxes and deregulation, or on securing the border, bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, appointing conservative judges etc. They weren’t caught in the magnetic field of his negative energy. As far as I know, none think that the election was stolen, nor that Biden will be an illegitimate president. But they could be a minority. Polls show that Trump’s fabrications are accepted as truth by 70 percent of the 74 million Americans who cast ballots for him.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that 70 percent of those 50 million will never in a thousand years believe that Biden’s victory was anything but a colossal fraud perpetrated by radical lefties seeking to take over America.That gives us 35 million people for whom violence is justified to “save” the country. I don’t see any way their minds can be changed. They live in an alternate universe, liberated from facts; they don’t speak the same language as the rest of us, they don’t think the same way as we do. Unifying a country with such a huge number of disaffected, alienated, grievance-filled citizens is itself a fantasy.
Which brings me to a proposal I made to G.. It was semi tongue-in-cheek, that is, it was semi-serious: Let’s make the Disunited States a political and geographic reality, and avoid armed civil conflict, by means of a peaceable secession. I submit Texas as a feasible candidate. Talk of secession has been buzzing in the Lone Star state for a decade or more; a petition to leave the union gathered 125,000 signatures several years ago. Texas has a lot going for it as a separate country: 1. History — it was an independent republic from 1836 to 1845. Geography — its 268,600 square miles make it larger than France (248,580 sq.mi.). 3. Economics — Texas has a diverse, vibrant economy, bustling urban centers, and access to world trade through its Gulf coast and the port of Houston. Population — With 29M citizens, its population is less than half of France’s (67M). Suppose, then, that a referendum calling for secession succeeds in Texas, and the U.S. government bids it farewell and God speed; suppose further that the 35M hard core Trumpanistas are persuaded or induced to move there and establish a nation of their own, perhaps with Trump as its President for Life. The sovereign Republic of Texas would then have a population approximating that of France, in a land area 20,000 square miles bigger. Room enough for all!
G. dismissed this idea with a brusque wave of his hand. Impracticable, if not impossible. I could not disagree, What would happen to liberal Austin and San Antonio? But I was — I am — teased by the image of a state where right-wing populists might be able to live happily, giving the rest of us a chance to live happily without them.
Many Americans are in a state of pathological denial because they want to believe the unholy lies told to them in the past– particularly the lies told about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. These people know that they were lied to, and in a big way, but they can’t process it. It’s too much, and the deep understanding that they are being lied to and manipulated is driving them crazy and that’s why they embrace Pizzagate and QAnon and other weirdness. They just can’t face reality and it’s slowly killing them.
I’ll never understand the portion of the population that goes gaga for some politicians, whether it be Trump, Obama, Perot or various others who caught the imagination of so many from time to time. I’ve spent too much time in meetings with local and sometimes state officials – you can never take a long enough shower afterwards. The people attracted to a political career are a petty sleazy bunch. Supposedly Aesop said “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office”.
While these speculations are fun, given the number of companies that have suddenly announced that they are leaving California for Texas, should it actually be spun out into another country you just might see a mad scramble to get those Texas passports while the getting is good.
But on a more serious note, for the people who invaded the capitol as they are identified they should be arrested and prosecuted. Apparently, at least one ex-wife reported her former husband to the police. While I understand there is some talk of 20 year sentences, I suspect there will, in the end, be a lot of plea bargaining.
Nevertheless, almost half the country voted for Trump despite him being nuts. In my view the reason is simple. Much of the country, at least those who are not hedge fund managers, technologists, media types, lawyers or academics, are afraid of the Democrats and what they might do to impoverish them. Per the Census Dept’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which adjusts for housing and other living costs, California has the highest poverty rate in the country. NY is in the top five states for poverty. These used to be places of opportunity for anyone. People, notably blacks, have been leaving many of the the blue states for decades.
An interesting exercise is to look at an electoral college map for 1960 and compare it with 2020. Electoral votes are allocated among states based on population and there has been a marked shift from the NE and upper Midwest to the south and west as the population has migrated. Following the 2020 Census even California is expected to lose at least one electoral vote while Texas may gain two or three.
I don’t know what policies the Democrats will ultimately choose to pursue, and certainly there are a number of Democratic congressmen from fairly conservative places who aren’t going to want to take too many risks to jeopardize their reelection, but there are huge numbers of people who are scared that the Democrats will impoverish them. If you look at Detroit, Chicago or California’s Central Valley (not to mention San Francisco’s tent cities), you can see why they might think so.
It’ll probably be a rocky ride, but you can always count on politicians angering people to the point where they get thrown out. After the 2016 election the Republicans held the presidency, both houses of Congress, and most of the states. The Democrats fell a long way from 2008. Now it’s substantially reversed. That pendulum do swing wildly.
I would say you’re right about a certain category of Trump voter, generally those concerned with policy rather than a cultish worship of personality. A second category would be disgruntled, alienated people who might not engage in violence but are willing to turn a blind eye to it if it furthers their agendas. A third cohort would be the crazies, the people who stormed the capital with, as the FBI now reports, malicious, murderous intent. These live in an alternate reality, where facts and truth don’t matter. Their logic, if it can called logic, is a closed system — The only way Trump could lose would be through a fraudulent election. If multiple inquiries fail to turn up evidence of fraud, that is in itself evidence of a coverup.
Interesting, really. the flaw, it seems to me is: ” . . . (a place where) right wing populists live happy ” These people will NEVER ” live happy ” – no matter WHERE they live.
A good friend gave me a tee-shirt emblazened with a saying from my all-time favorite band : make America GRATEFUL again. (that from the Grateful Dead, of course)
Simple. Not easy, but not complicated.
Hello from UK. To heal the nation a commission should be set up to standardise election procedure and to make it watertight and fraud proof. That way the disenchanted could have their confidence in the electoral system restored. If the democrats just “criminalise” the disaffected, the dissatisfaction will just fester under the surface. Let’s look back at the Treaty of Versailles after WW1, millions of Germans felt humiliated and we all know what that led to.
I don’t think the point is to criminalize or humiliate the disaffected. It is to hold those responsible for what happened on Jan. 6 accountable for their actions, which were criminal. As I write this, there are more troops in Washington D.C. than in Afghanistan. And they’re there to protect our Congress and our new President’s inauguration, not from ISIS or Al Queda or the Taliban but from our fellow citizens — domestic terrorists.
AR 15s.. bump-stocks… expanded capacity magazines.. body armor.. kevlar helmets… and I’m not talking about the cops……What could possibly go wrong in a coubntry that allows lunatics to own these things.. and should we be surprised that they are answering the presidents call ??
“Five of my friends voted for Trump in 2016“—I’m curious if you know how these 5 voted in 2020 after seeing what we all saw for 4 years. If your friends voted for Trump/the current GOP again, and in fact are “white-hot furious,” as you describe it, I guess we’ll see if reconciliation or secession is in our future. G’s dismissal of the latter with a brusque wave of the hand may come to seem a refusal to entertain and plan for a sad eventuality. Hope not.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Call it Trumpexas and deport all the cult members to their promised land. Too bad its not possible.
And it is a cult – a group of people tired of thinking for themselves and putting their faith into an unbalanced but charismatic leader.
Good idea. And take Alabama and South Carolina with ya. Charles Blow is moving to Georgia, and we have The Stacie, along with Ms Bottoms, so Georgia will EVOLVE.
Phillip. Sounds like an outline for a zKurt Vonegut novel. When trump was elected my first comment was, “the anarchists are dancing in the streets,” and so it seems they are. I agree that our government and in fact the society it supposedly represents are fractured and in perhaps a hopeless point of very little chance to save themselves a future of disruption and pain. We will see how it all shakes down. I continue to have hope for a solution of less pain and moderate improvement in the general attitude of the people. I know this sounds like a dream but if we don’t have a dream our future is assured. And so it goes…