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Yves here. I do not want to sound uncharacteristically Pollyannaish. The Trump Administration is full of ideologues who are very much out of touch with what is happening in America, particularly among the many communities that voted for Trump and now feel betrayed, such as farmers, small businessmen now whacked by tariffs and supply chain problems, vets worried about whether their ability to get care (I know one personally who is freaked out about possible tariff impacts on the supply of drugs essential to him). Sy Hersh has just reported that Trump’s cognitive decline has reached the level where he can no longer read the room, and that may apply to his team generally. The damage to the economy from tariffs (as in inflationary effects) is only starting to take hold now. Growth is concentrated in AI and is flagging in the rest of the economy. Most important, Trump’s base is fracturing over his continued support for Israel, the widespread belief that Israel’s fingerprints are on the Charlie Kirk murder, as well as unhappiness over the Epstein cover-up.
Another general issue is that the Trump team is good at breaking things (witness DOGE) but not at actual operations (witness the “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program and its denialism about our ability to supply Ukraine). And another key part of the denialism picture is the way the Hegseth/Trump performances in front of the generals and flag officers they summoned to Quantico backfired. John Helmer described how the Russian press saw the exercise as troublingly similar to when Hitler demanded that his military swear a loyalty oath. The many detailed, negative reactions from military-aligned YouTube channels (and not the usual suspects that I follow) suggests that Trump would find it hard to get a sufficient number of service members who would be willing to go into cities and fire on civilians if told to do so.
Another factor that works against Trump now is the lack of trust in orthodox media. Any anomalies give rise to a lack of consensus often derided as conspiracy theory. That could also impede an effort to rally citizens against “the enemy within” as Hegseth tried to do. Look at how anti-immigration policies polled at ~60% before the election. ICE raids and deportations have resulted in the current majority disapproval.
However, this team, if nothing else, is possessed by hubris. So they could well try a much bigger power grab backed by force. Even if it fails, the damage could still be vast in human and institutional terms.
By Tom Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies
I want to consider this quote from The Onion’s Ben Collins:
Pretty clear Stephen Miller, [Kristi] Noem, [Pete] Hegseth and Trump are trying to provoke a Civil War at this point. What’s interesting is they want to do it now, because even though they’re unpopular, they seem to believe this is the most popular they’ll be ever again.
Is it true? It’s certain that Miller, at least, wants a war. Unless Carl Biejer is right, Miller’s language shows that. For example (emphasis mine):
[This is] Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life. (There are more local law enforcement officers in Oregon than there are guns and badges in the FBI nationwide). This is an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers, and the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself.
“Legal insurrection … an organized terrorist attack on the federal government”. There are laws against that. Another example, Miller to Hannity:
The Democrat party … is an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gangbangers, and illegal alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat party is not a political party. It is a domestic, extremist organization.
Noem and Hegseth agree (see here and here) and seem to be willing, as commanders of government forces, to fight by his side. Trump also agrees:
[T]hey’re throwing bricks at full force into the window and into the car. It looks like it’s a war zone. And I said, never let that happen again. From now on if that ever happens, and I say it here, you get out of that car and you can do whatever the hell you want to do …
Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room [the Pentagon’s generals] because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.
Trump says he wants to use U.S. cities as “training grounds for our military National Guard.” The context, superficially, is the “immigration invasion,” but ending the imagined “far left,” the permanent enemy and proxy for all opposition, is really the goal.
So the war seems to be starting. We have rhetoric, boots on the ground, and like our pre-War South (or the Israeli government), there seems no provocation they won’t escalate from. Lincoln said of the South, their purpose is “rule or ruin.” Is that true today of Miller and people like him? Would Trump go along? Perhaps; he has so far.
Why Do It Now?
Let’s go back to Ben Collins above (emphasis mine): “they want to do it now, because even though they’re unpopular, they seem to believe this is the most popular they’ll be ever again”.
I think that’s wrong. A more correct statement would be “because this is the most power they’ve ever had before.”
The American Hard Right has never, ever been stronger. The feast is before them, all laid. They have the presidency. They have Trump, a master intimidator, and so they have Congress (look up “men fit to be slaves”). They have Roberts and most of his Court. They have power of the purse at last, and crime without price. They act like kings. They have a timid pretend opposition, so tied to their money and privilege they’re afraid to offend (by which I mean piss off their donors).
And the people, the last obstacle? They’re outraged, true, but they don’t rush to the streets in a way that disrupts the state. Shades of our non-reaction to Bush v. Gore — if we let it occur, we own it.
Revolt in Lebanon
Consider Lebanon. In 2019 the people rose up against new taxes, but the revolt morphed quickly to protest against everything — corruption, greed, self-dealing immunity, a sealed-off ruling class — the whole ugly pie. Their rally cry captured that. كلن يعني كلن — “all means all.” Every one of them goes.
Protesters outside of Riad Al Solh Square in Beirut on 19 October 2019 (Wikipedia)
The revolution partly succeeded. It certainly put elites on their heels (“all means all”) and caused many good changes. (Revolutions can’t fully succeed. Failure is built in, thanks to the nature of the state. The only real revolt is statelessness, but that’s a topic for later.)
Revolt in the U.S.
In contrast, the U.S. is different. People see masked police, thugs on the streets, and what? Strong letters, silence or protests, and then life goes on. (“The game just started. Come watch.”) Words and no deeds that matter, a repeat of the 2000 theft — sadly compliant, or worse, just apathetic.
This is not to excoriate. It’s to describe. I’m pointing out Trump’s position — he has all the power. No one stands up with force that prevents; the battlefield’s his. In the minds of the Millers of the world — and there are many — the time to strike may be now, when their side is most strong.
Do or Do Not?
This could fizzle, of course. The courts might stop the incursions; the mayors could win; the war against protest may not metastasize past Israel and immigrants. Trump could back down. If he does, that’s a victory of sorts, though we’ll never really go back. Like after 9/11, the nation’s been changed.
But what if the forces of right-wing revolt want more? What if they want it all, now that “all” seems available, and now that the Palantir-9/11 security state seems built just for this? After all, Palantir’s Thiel and others like him are clearly no fans of democracy, not by a lot. The state won’t stand with rebellion against the state.
So how would people like Miller win final victory? They have their own army — ICE — deployed in the cities. So far the targets — those they attack and arrest — are mostly immigrant-appearing, plus random objectors. The war needs to be spread.
Enter “antifa” and NSPM-7, Trump’s security declaration that outlaws (he says) “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” That’s a hell of an enemies list; it’s most non-voters, Democrats, and many of his own.
What’s needed next? A spark. Will it come because they attack, or because they’re attacked? Or will something “unusual” happen? Whichever, they need escalation. Not now perhaps, but not too long from now. The time for Bush-Cheney, if they wanted, to declare martial law was early, when passions were high and no one was firmly grounded. They went to Iraq instead.
We’re not firmly grounded now and there’s no next Iraq. That war is here, not abroad. Will they launch it? That’s up to them.
65 comments
Comments are closed.
Miles Taylor
@MilesTaylorUSA
·
Oct 7
I co-wrote Trump’s first anti-terrorism plan in 2017-18. He’s not trying to stop “left-wing” terrorism. He is staging it.
His troop deployments are a false flag — meant to provoke a response in order to justify harsh crackdowns.
This is now very obvious.
Yeah, “left wing” and many political terms are empty of meaning now. The term “left wing terrorism” is a fantasy.
Back in the 20th century, the political left was about abolishing the bourgeois capitalist state, worker take-over of the economy, and even abolishing elements of private property etc.
Now the term “left” has been turned on its head: it is now anti-labor, pro-oligarchy, authoritarian, warmongering pro-genocide, pro partisan status quo. They (like the so-called right) use emotional religious/cultural/lifestyle issues to distract and divide the plebs. It has worked very well so far.
Indeed. antifa are cops.
Winter
@WinterPolitics1
·
12h
The Oregon national guard general says if the Oregon National guard were to be deployed they would be instructed under his leadership to protect the protesters not ICE. https://x.com/i/status/1975734228416692369
I dunno what its all about but i’ll gander a guess…
Everything this rotten apple of a Presidency is doing, seems hell bent on wrecking the almighty buck and so far-so good.
It’s only lost 20% of it’s pre January 20th value in 8 months, and if they keep it up for the next 40 months, it’ll be worth bupkis.
Who benefits from a dying Dollar in his constituency?
All of the sudden most foods grown in the USA are for export only-as Americans can’t afford to pay what a foreigner will.
Instant food shortage there-not dissimilar to what went down in China during the Great Leap Forward, where ample food supplies in China were exported to Africa.
Lawlessness comes with the territory, and even though my place is bought and paid for-sometimes I wonder if the muzzle of an assault rifle pointed at me as I awoke could be more persuasive in lieu of a deed, in performing a shotgun mortgage.
Through thick & thin and all that.
Reminds me of the Irish Potato Famine, which helped to build the USA.
Don’t the Silicon Crypto-bros want to “abolish” the Dollar and replace it with their various Crypto “currencies”? So they can have their own private-issue Crypto-bro currencies which they can default-force everyone to use once the Dollar has either been abolished or at least Yeltsinized like the old ruble was in Russia?
I have read that’s what the Silicon Crypto-bros want to achieve under cover of all this. Have I been misinformed?
So this is sounding more like Revolution R 2.0 than the Second Civil War. People against the central authority rather than brother against brother. “They” will call it a civil war cuz those are always bad and never call it a revolution because those hint at real change.
So, who would this civil war be against? Liberals? The Democratic Party? The PMC? Don’t make me laugh! They are all on the same side.
Magas clearly don’t think so. Neither does Miller. Neither does Vance. Neither does Trump.
Now . . . what does Stephen Miller think of the “real Left”? Like people here who proudly call themselves The Left? Here’s what he said about you in Washington, DC. ” They are stupid White hippies. They are all 90 years old. They need to go home and take a nap.”
So most of the Real Left readers here can relax and take comfort. You are not the droids that Miller is looking for.
Trump could establish a new national political police. Transfer some staff from ICE, DHS and other federal agencies and hire the rest. Recruitment drives to hire from police forces and elsewhere, profiling to find the conformists, obedient to authority, who yearn for domination and violence, and who are open to instruction on who’s to blame for their and society’s ills.
As Neuberger explains, there’s nothing extrinsic stopping them from creating the biggest Gestapo in history. The law and constitution would be no constraint. Only intrinsic factors seem to be in our favor, as Yves mentioned. Trump lacks vision, strategy and focus. And it doesn’t look like anyone around him can influence him consistently for long enough to get much constructive work done. Mostly we see competition among his staff to brown nose him as publicly as possible.
I keep hearing people say that Jimmy Vance is smart. Idk. Maybe people say it because he looks start against that background. But he’s ambitious. Is he up for replacing Trump with himself so he can properly reorganize the federal government for hard-right authoritarian rule?
Judging by the ICE recruitment ads I hear on the radio, recruiting police is already under way.
I read a post on bluesky two days ago where a woman was in line at a Walmart behind two men who were recent ICE recruits who were talking to each other. One was ex- military but the other was a recently released prisoner who said he got early release in exchange for working for ICE. So they are allowing professional criminals to work for ICE now according to this post. I’ll see if I can link to the source when I get home to my computer. It was very convincing & entirely believable.
Did the post come with a salt shaker? Seems far fetched.
Not very far fetched. Remember, California uses prisoners to fight fires (for $1 a day in fact). Why not prisoners to fight in the streets?
Paging Mr. Thiel Mr vampire thiel . You have a question at the front desk!
The thorough corruption and dysfunction of our institutions, both private and public is becoming more and more obvious as time goes by. Since the wealthy and powerful are seldom, if ever, held to account, the current regime know that they can act with immunity. We have had many years of precedents: the perps of the largest financial crimes in history were effectively rewarded for their crimes. Mass murderers like Tony Blair/Bush Jr. and the gang were never held to account. Nixon/Kissinger never held to account… but this is domestic now. Many have warned that the slow collapse of the rule of law, increasing concentration of wealth/power, and lack of democracy will result in the accelerated decline of the US empire – and we see that in front of us now.
Then of course we have the likelihood of nuclear confrontations on the rise: one could say that the risk of a major nuclear war is higher now than at any time since 1945. The MiniTrue MassMediaMonopoly ignores that, everything is great. The genocide is just part of normal foreign policy etc.
On the “bright” side: We can be “comforted” by the cognitive limitations of the emperor and court sycophants, the dwindling support amongst the plebs, and that the oligarchy will lose if the economy collapses, or nuclear war erupts. But that contradicts my earlier point: that would assume a level of rational thinking and lack of corruption on the part of our three branches of gov and institutions of power.
The tragic entertainment continues…
Agree. As we have witnessed the political, economic and moral corruption of Western ‘democracies’, most of us have either resigned to being useful consumers or retreated to profound cynicism. Death by a 1000 cuts will do this, but I will admit to be surprised by the accelerating decline in recent years, including our absolute complicity in the ongoing extermination of Gaza’s population, as well as the reckless warmongering in Ukraine. We’ve had the evil guys running the show for ages, but now they are both evil and stupid, which is terrifying.
Why would a civil war even be necessary ?
Trump/Miller/Vought have already extended executive power in line with Project 25 targets.
SCOTUS have already reinforced executive supremacy over judicial restraints.
The legislature is supine.
The military leadership appear to have been suckered/coshed, with external targets such as in Venezuelan coastal waters, or elsewhere, attacked with impunity on direct White House command – though primarily for the non-military reason of confirming the total control of the 47 executive regime over professional military establishment restraints – to bypass following constitutional principles.
There is no need for a civil war to establish the US tyranny and absolute despotism. It is already there, just ticking its last few boxes.
The logical reason for creating bogus internal crises in the strongest blue urban areas is not civil war but to reinforce Trump’s mantle of power, and his ego.
Who needs a new Sturmabteilung when you have plenty of ICE goons already performing the same role ?
However, the current adventurism is calculated to force a reaction that will then justify invoking the Insurrection Act; make martial law the permanent everyday authority on US streets; and suspend or permanently cancel democratic elections.
Why would the 47 regime NOT do this ?
There are already very few practical restraints.
They seem to be more than 80% of the way there.
Martial law by Thurs 27 Nov 2025, or by Christmas ?
And ….. that’s your dictatorship embedded for the forseeable future.
Whether or not the US is then transmuted into a white christian nationalist state, or some other right wing ideology dominates, will be down to internal power battles within the current regime’s elite.
This has been a very well worked out coup, a 21stC rerun of the civil war which precludes the need for 700,000 American deaths in pitched battles, though a hot war mightn’t be too bad if it kickstarted military oriented manufacturing and profiteering for their oligarch clique.
I agree. There are people who believe we are as a nation on the verge of civil war, but those people just need to unplug from their social media accounts for a while.
The crazy people in DC are much more likely to be prepping for the seizure of power and the deployment of force to quell any revolt over their seizure. I don’t know when it will happen but I am not confident there will be an election in November of 2026.
A few weeks ago I by chance watched the 1993 movie Swing Kids. While it was fiction, it’s backdrop was about youth opposition to Hitler and the Hitler Youth program and most of the kids were into club dancing to swing music of the day. I was taken aback at how familiar the storyline felt to what we’re living today.
This. We are on the verge of mid-term elections and the political system operatives can only operate when people are divided into the “Team Blue” and “Team Red” camps.
The fundamental economic situation for masses of people is not going to be improved, thus they have manufacture violence to respond to. Culture war BS by another brand.
Also, there are a load of other wars on deck that the establishment would rather not see protested or draw deep reflection and attention.
And these also serve as attempts to consolidate power and profit.
Where does this whole Christian Nationalost bogeyman come from? This is a plutocratic not a theocratic bunch. Christian is a word to scare urban and college town liberals because capitalism is not to be criticized. Paula White and Robert Jeffress aren’t going to be making any decisions of importance. Stephen Miller, last I knew, was not washed in the blood of the Lamb. Larry Ellison and Bari Weiss are perhaps nationalists but certainly not Christian ones. I don’t think any analyst who uses the snarl term Christian Nationalisy is properly focused on the nature of the threats coming from Trumplandia–by which I mean DC, New York and the Bay and not suburban Dallas or rural Kansas.
Thank you–the truth at last. The Christian Nationalists are all busy putting up Halloween decorations when they aren’t, as Yves says, turning on Trump. Here’s suggesting the only danger coming out of the Trump admin is his imminent and abject failure and the harm he is doing with his off the cuff policies. I say let’s hear a lot more about that cognitive decline.
> Who needs a new Sturmabteilung when you have plenty of ICE goons already performing the same role ?
They don’t. For now it’s not a big deployment although it’s been able to meet resistance with sufficient force. But there’s hundreds of millions of us, many of us armed and patriotic about our freedoms and constitution. If they are to quell a real resistance with force they’ll need to scale up. Idk if they will need to but the scale of the ICE force at present in the field is, not to diminish the real suffering of those actually affected, theatrical.
So there’s the big question. What are we willing to fight for and suffer the consequences? I’m not ready to fight for the political opposition in this country or an aghast “movement” on social media (e.g. resistance pussy hats, BLM or me too). And there’s another problem, we’ve rehearsed doing this wrong so often it seems we couldn’t organize the fight.
What to organize. Let’s plan a future date for general strike. All stay at home on January 5th 2026.
If a strike lasts only one day, what can it really accomplish? It would focus the minds of our enemies, yes. People will have felt the power of working together, yes. But will they be motivated to go for the Long haul, because that’s what would be necessary. I don’t see it, but I guess you have to start somewhere.
The role of ICE goons is exactly the same as the brownshirts.
They are there to disrupt settled existence.
This is achieved by targeting and then increasingly persecute the identified “others”; raise fears and anxieties of future intimidation in other non compliant groups; and reinforce the personal power and status of the controlling leadership. It’s playbook stuff.
There really is no material difference when an official ‘police’ force with extensive powers and the ability to act with impunity are under personal authoritarian control.
Remember that the SA were established over a decade before 1933.
The USA is barely a year or so into this transition into absolute authoritarian power, with personal thugs having this type of role, notwithstanding the 2020 trial run.
But you’re getting there.
Hegseth’s 2025 National Defense Strategy reads like a blueprint for a civil war, but one with global implications.
It’s becoming clearer that the shift to prioritizing defense of the “homeland” at the heart of the 2025 NDS was not the sign of a shift towards peace and domestic reconstruction.
The 2025 NDS is not just about adjustments to imperial foreign policy priorities. Or perhaps a better way to say it is this: Strategic sequencing now includes a war on the homefront.
“Defense of the homeland” has to be understood in active terms as military pacification. Along with defeating Iran and creating regime change in Venezuela, military pacification of the US is a precondition in the sequence that ends in a confrontation with China — a confrontation that the fascist colonial oligarchy hopes will be made easier by the much anticipated domination of the AI sector.
The point is cruelty.
The Civil War had the issue of Slavery to divide the nation.
What issue does the nation have now to divide us at that level? I hardly think Americans will go to war over immigrants, although that is a staging tactic by the Rich to stoke nativist anger.
I like what the above commenter said about this being the start of the American 🇺🇸 Revolution 2.0.
We got the internet now and we are all talking to each other so hopefully we go after the Rentiers who control our state and put it back into the hands of the public.
Im reminded of the “HOLDDDDD” scene in Braveheart…
In the “Why Do It Now” category, add that you have to consider the right-wing and its many sympathizers are the most heavily armed segment of the population. The pathetic excuse for a left wing in the US is really a bunch of mushy “centrists” who are mostly over the hill and out of shape, unable to wield any weapon other than a lame “HATE IS BAD” (etc.) sign at an unfocused demonstration that no one pays attention to. But the right-wing can’t govern for the public good, it can only loot the public treasury and drive all the services people count on from government into the dirt. Eventually some of those armed right-wing sympathizers are going to start feeling big pain and pointing their guns the opposite way. You don’t have to be right-wing to be a populist, as Thomas Frank has pointed out in several books, and a populist turning the armed populace against the rich looters who are screwing them over could get very dangerous. So the theory would be, do it now, while veterans and gun owners are on your side, while the alleged opposition party is by design unable to oppose anything effectively and is mostly so useless it doesn’t even try. The tough part will be coordinating the timing of the war against the American people with all the foreign wars that the neocons also want to start.
I have to disagree that Trump has all the power. His administration has a lot more power than it should have, that’s for sure, but I sincerely doubt that Trump is calling all the shots, or any of them. Trump won due to a cult of personality and intense dissatisfaction with the status quo among the electorate. No Trump, no takeover, which is possibly why he is still alive. Those who would genuinely like to take over need a front man. Does anyone think the public is going to turn out in support of the likes of Stephen Miller??!!!?? While he does have a tendency for improv, Trump, like all presidents since at least Reagan (the man never stopped acting), just reads the lines he’s been given.
I didn’t know much about Miller so just looked him up. Brief summary is he is not some long time political apparatchik who at least knows the ins and outs of the process through his own experience – instead he seems to be merely a partisan hack who specializes in being an ultra-Zionist, like so many others who weaseled their way into the current Trump administration.
Given the players involved here, I would argue that if there is a violent uprising in the US, it will not be for the benefit of any kind of USonian nationalism – it will be provoked to make sure the US continues to protect the Zionist project.
Yezzzir! When it’s time to relax…. we’ve got the feaaar. If you’ve got the time,
one fear stands near…. It’s MILLER TIME!
i think that the Nous, here at NC, has a pretty good collective outline for whats happening…as well as what is possible(for Them)…and what may be the eventual silverlining(for us’n’s)…
but i have a thing to add.
during the Cheney/Bush2 regime, i was at first pretty spooked by all the gestapo/stasi bs they were doing.
when they went into iraq, i launched my 7(ish) year study of the american Right…online lurking(incl local), wide reading of the background material(pro and con), and delving into various polling(esp the socioecon academic types, plus Pew).
all the while being embedded for all my life, as it were, in that hostile tribe.
out here, as opposed to back home, a lot of them liked me…so i could discreetly probe their minds, etc.
and the biggest takeaway was as follows: the true believer lunatics are not only a rather tiny minority…but they’re also aging…and unliked by their more polite and jesus adjacent neighbors…and it is only the constant yelling about the brown people, the terrists, and this mythical communist threat that keeps them engaged with the Right, at all.
as for the types that would actually take up arms against their fellow americans…an even tinier minority…and even more unliked by the churchgoing, would-be a-political small-c conservatives.
the only time there was an exception to this…in 40+ years of polling and surveys, etc…was after 9-11.
to a much more minor extent, during the panic-phase of covid.
perhaps trump/miller could recruit the tren de agua, or whatever to be their shock troops…because i seriously doubt there are enough bad cops, bad soldiers, and bad ordinary folks to recruit to such a scheme.
this is looking to me…from way out here…like the original fonzie meaning of jumping the shark>absurdity undoes belief.
and it takes belief(plus fear and loathing) to make a civil war, or whatever.
95% of the righties i talked to or stalked over the last 25 years were folks who…once away from the herd…wanted to make a good living and raise their kids, etc.
what i do see coming from all this is a clown rodeo Burning Times…via overestimating how much support they have from all sectors.
this will kill a buncha folks, and destroy whats left of our rotten institutions…maybe even including money.
then it will be a Hobbsean State of Nature, for a long while.
and very, very local…at least after the helicopter and ATC fuel runs out.
top of my list, had i any $: solar pump for the well, and a giant seed order to replenish the seed vault.
“dont try to feed the world…feed your neighbor”.
Would solar power be better for a well-pump than the good old fashioned windmill which used to be used all over the Great Plains?
Are you saving enough seeds to be able to partway fill the seed vault from self-grown seed?
I wish our politicians of whatever stripe had the good sense to read what you’ve just written, amfortas. The vast majority of folks just want to live their lives without politics interfering. I think that’s true internationally as well as in the USA. People like the neocons have to look long and hard around the globe to find fanatics to fight in their forever wars: Azov battalions; what the Russians call takfiris; IDF. The once-long list of motivations sufficiently powerful to incite to kill–religion, nationalism, ideology–is shrinking because people have wised up after centuries of being tricked into becoming cannon fodder. The bad news is that what’s replaced all of those things is a nihilism that motivates to kill without reason or goal, but at least it’s much harder to find people on a large scale who willing to kill for a religion, a nation-state or an ideology.
I’m not so sure if we’ll have time for a civil war before the whole world goes up in smoke. (half serious comment).
One key problem is that, in all aspects of politics, Trump puts too much emphasis on looking tough and pwning the opponents, regardless of laws and consequences. The only thing that holds him back towards the great powers (Russia, China, perhaps even India up to a point) is that he sees the consequences of stepping too far off the cliff–note that I’m being artful with the wording: he still wants to look tough enough to indulge in weird musings over Tomahawks and such. If you step off, far or otherwise, you fall off.
Having said that, though, I suppose Trump is not alone in this, though: we see plenty other politicians, both in US and abroad, who eagerly engage in nutty stuff just for the sake of pwning their enemies, both foreign and domestic.
I’m not so sure if it is “Trump” that’s uniquely egging us ever closer to a “civil war,” however we might define it (we’ll never get the Civil War of 1861 back–too little social cohesion and subnational political institutions to pull that off.) Dems have been doing it plenty enough. “Respectable” Republicans, like W, have been doing it plenty enough. But it is no doubt true that Trump is much more of a touchstone for conflict than others and he enjoys being one.
To be honest, I’m still convinced that, in a perverse way, Trump is the better choice to be in White House than others: others, by going “slowly,” are far more likely to normalize the push towards civil strife. Trump, with his unvarnished and crass approach, draws attention to the problems. But this is countered by the danger that Trump’s enemies, both Democrat and Republican, and, likely, in the future, neither of the foregoing, will justify their reckless antics by claiming that “it’s OK because we are not Trump” even as go just as nuts in the open.
hk:
“Having said that, though, I suppose Trump is not alone in this, though: we see plenty other politicians, both in US and abroad, who eagerly engage in nutty stuff just for the sake of pwning their enemies, both foreign and domestic.”
Indeed. Let’s see. Where are we with Hillary “Logorrhea” Clinton? Deplorables? Fifth-columnists? Man-spreaders? Or her recent insistence that her Columbia U students were stupid?
And hmmm: If she claims to want to be a perfesser, why isn’t she out there on the barricades leading the fight for free speech?
I think that the underlying cause is not being mentioned: the culture of impunity. One can argue that the Civil War in the US of A was to end the impunity of what Lincoln and others called the Slave Power.
I’d argue that it is time to insist on equitable enforcement of the laws, which is going to cause a meltdown among RedMaga and BlueMaga: Time to put away Nancy Pelosi and friends for insider trading. Time to put Bill & Hill under house arrest. Eric Adams (why is he still around?). Any number of business warrior-heroes. Comey. Trump. Blinken. Victoria Nuland. This Stephen Miller Thug. Mike Johnson in some Facility for the Chaste. Clean house.
And there will have to be trials for the many chunky white boys now engaged in unlawful detention of fellow citizens. Enough impunity for cops and cop-oids.
As the saying goes, Let justice be done even if the heavens should fall.
I think that one must be careful about this (constant) invocation of civil war. There are two reasons: (1) One must be wary of evoking what one keeps pretending not to want. I, for one, see little evidence of an impending civil war. And (2) just who does a civil war benefit? I’m reminded of George Will, who constantly was evoking the good old days of capitalism, as if he would have been a robber baron. George Will would have been working in a sausage factory and would fallen into a vat rendering lard. (Kristi Noem would end up as a camp-follower and puppy euthanizer.)
The one thing to keep in mind is that the talent pool is shallow indeed. We have just been through the Biden administration with its deeply shallow Antony Blinken, Kamala “I’m Speaking” Harris, Neera Tanden, and Two-Functioning-Synapses Joe.
The mediocrities of the Trump administration are much in evidence. Kash “Kitsch Masala” Patel. Kristi Noem, an angry bag of cosmetic injections. Marco Rubio, or Whatever. Speaker and Chief Prelate Mike Johnson. Convert-of-convenience J.D. Vance.
Just as not one person in the Biden lineup knew how to conduct diplomacy, create a strategy, or employ tactics in furtherance of an end, so the Trump people are a bunch of bureaucratic infighters and greed heads. And not much else.
And I won’t mention delta male Pete Hegseth, a bunch of tattoos trying to become a full-grown man.
When one thinks of civil wars, one must think of generals and officer corps — the U.S. civil war divided the officer corps, and much of the talent was in the South. You had Franco and a number of important military officers in Spain. You had some remarkable upstart soldiers and officers — and genuinely charismatic politicians — on the Loyalist side. A bunch fundamentalists of the Second Amendment, the tragic amendment, does not make a guerrilla army — see what Chairman Mao did. Check out Ho Chi Minh and confederates.
What the U.S. is headed for is a kind of police state, something like the DDR but more violent. The way to blunt the Trump administration’s maneuvers is through actions that raise the stakes. As people here in Italy are saying, the general strikes and the series of major demonstrations still going on have reawakened the Italians. Some kind of changed politics necessarily will follow.
To quote “Waiting for Lefty”: Strike. Strike Strike.
PS: And I am not trying to downplay the threat of ICE, DOGE, and “Homeland” Security (nomen omen). But the solution is not to wait for permission to act as citizens from The View.
That’s a good read DJG, and better than what I was attempting to say above. We’re headed for an even more repressive police state than we already have, and I do believe many of our political decisions these days are made for the benefit of the Zionist entity. Israel is cooked if it loses US support, so we can’t have people like Charlie Kirk going around waffling, now can we?
lyman alpha blob: I was going to respond to your comment above, because you make the important point that nobody is going to vote for Stephen Miller (or Kash Patel, or Robert Kennedy Jr) as the figurehead of a totalitarian state.
Let me see, Kash Patel or Pete Buttigieg? J.D. Vance or Elissa Slotkin? Hmmm. Looks like I will be voting Green again.
Your diagnosis is on the mark: “an even more repressive police state than we already have”
I will remind everyone, though, if you were to say “an even more repressive police state than we already have” to a U.S. black person, the answer is going to be: “Oh? You just noticed?”
Buying into this civil war schtick means buying into the Liberals/Democrats are the Left schtick — and I don’t. Careful, civil war alarmists, your Neo-Liberalism is showing. If anything, this is a schism within the leadership.
Could Trump’s military actions in major cities be a prelude to invoking martial law and suspending habeas corpus? If so, what would stop him from suspending the next congressional election? Or continuing in office beyond his term?
MikeFromMN:
Habeas corpus? Where have you been?
Obama already got rid of that pesky old right.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/obama-and-indefinite-detention-us-citizens/
Yes, presidents do what they want whether constitutional or not. As Nixon said: “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
Oh my God, that would be terrible! You wouldn’t be able to vote for Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris or Hunter Biden!!!
“When bad men combine, the good must associate. else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” (Edmund Burke)
This Steve Miller is betting against the good grouping together.
I don’t expect there to be a midterm election or even 2028 elections. Even if these elections happen, we cannot vote for change.
The entire western world is collapsing. Nothing will stop it. Wars won’t stop it and could very well be nuclear. The money printing machines won’t stop it.
Metastasized corruption has destroyed the entire system and make course corrections impossible.
The bottom 1/2 of the US can barely survive now, and it’s only going to get much worse. I remember the riots in the 60’s. I think we will see much worse soon…and it will be widespread.
There are no happy endings coming for the U.S.
Food riots? Water riots? No-summer-air-conditioning riots? No winter-heating riots?
I don’t think people realize how hard it is on the bottom now.
Things are drastically different now.
I was a single parent. I was able to rent an apartment for 440$, while making something like 10.00 $ an hour. My insurance cost was about 200$ a month.
I bought a house in 1997 for 105,000.$ Absolutely homey but below most people’s expectations.
I’m told that its worth 260,000$ now. People pay rent now much greater than my mortgage and taxes ever were…
My last employer (of 18.5 years) paid all my health insurance, paid for my gas and car, kicked in on my 401k and paid for my phone. Employers now, simply do not want to pay a fair wage even to productive employes…even in profitable businesses. Its drastically different now.
Sure, I was bright and very hard working, but things are different now.
The bottom 50percent is basically falling out of our economy. I don’t know what people think is going to happen. People will live in their cars? Society will hold together? I’m concerned.
That’s a lot of people …. who won’t be making it…Inflation is not going to stop. There is only downsides coming…
I didn’t mean riots in an inflammatory way…
What are people going to do?
If a non-USian may intervene, there are a couple of points of principle worth bearing in mind.
One is that a civil war is by definition a war for control of civis, the State. This most usually takes the form of armed groups (of which the existing government is often one, but does not have to be) either fighting to take over and control the State, or to secede from it. I think it’s logically impossible for a State to start a civil war, although the behaviour of a State or government is often used by dissident groups as an excuse to launch a civil war themselves. So the question is whether there is, or could reasonably be, an armed and organised group intending to take power in Washington away from Trump and co, or alternatively declaring part of the country independent.
If the answer to that is no, then the situation may come to resemble one common in parts of Africa (which in recent years I have come to think the US increasingly resembles) where the government has general, but not total control of the country, including the major cities, but where there are frequent outbreaks of violence beyond its control, especially in remote areas.
As regards the legal points, remember that “martial law” means government of a country or a region by the military, when the civilian administration has broken down. Typically, this is for a temporary period after the end of a war, as was the case in Germany in 1945. It would mean Trump handing over control of all or part of the country to the military, who would be responsible for administration, justice, law enforcement, even schools and hospitals. But normal law still applies and the military don’t have any special powers that the state doesn’t usually have.
I think people tend to confuse martial law with wartime emergency legislation, and I don’t know enough about such legislation in the US, or about the US Constitution, to judge what that might be. But I doubt whether any modern state, including the US, actually has the resources these days to implement the kind of arrangements that were foreseen in the Cold War. Such arrangements could never last for very long anyway, because they essentially bring everyday life to a halt. It is, of course, possible to introduce some kind of State of Emergency legislation reducing rights or giving extra powers to the government, but in every example I know, that would first have to be voted by the Parliament of the country: it can’t just be proclaimed.
Finally, remember that in all western countries the police legally have only the same powers of self-defence as ordinary citizens, with the proviso in most cases that they can also intervene to protect the lives of others. Likewise, the military are obliged only to obey a “military order,” which is one that is (1) in accordance with normal domestic criminal law (2) in accordance with military law (so a soldier cannot be ordered to desert) and (3) not repugnant to military custom, or some such formula. (The example is ordering a soldier to walk the commander’s dog.) Otherwise obedience to orders is mandatory. It doesn’t matter whether the military agree politically with the orders or not: here we are talking about individual criminal responsibility.
Two cases to account for:
> that would first have to be voted by the Parliament of the country
At this time Congress is not in session. We’ve had secret laws for secret powers for many administrations, and Trump began with a hostile takeover of his party.
The second case is Canada shutting off bank accounts. At least here in the U.S., it functionally unpersons someone. There’s no stated right to a bank account, most are corporate controlled, and all the money in checking accounts is the banks, not the persons. If the person doesn’t like the deal being changed, they can take the bank to court. But most lawyers want to be paid.
Usage of terminology seems to be pretty loose in the US; 6 Jan was originally called by liberal Democrats a coup attempt by Trump, after all, when it bore none of the hallmarks of a coup as far as I know.
Yes, it’s all about the “look” and the “impression”. Most news is about framing the debate and using good PR people and Madison Ave. techniques. “Civil War” is a catchy phrase, ergo, we are deluged in it.
Don’t know if true but Ted Rall claims that ICE will be the bigger than the largest military on earth
by the end of 2026.
Jamarl Thomas on You’s Tube
about 23:00 min
Ted Rall | “A Deeper Pit Of Hell” : The Democratic Party Faces Extinction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwrN_F0VrOk
“So the war seems to be starting.”
“And the people…”
“What’s needed next? A spark.”
“The war is here.”
In my opinion the liberal progressive left, on an emotional level (that involves their accelerating anger and hatred of what they erroneously see as some kind of monolith Right) imagine a war in which they somehow gloriously defeat their “fascist” enemy. On a more practical level, the extensive professional backgrounds of many these same liberals indicates, to me, that they may not be the independently-minded and freedom loving heroes they imagine themselves as but are, instead, individuals who are, largely, keep-their-head-down cowards, with expertise in conformity and risk aversion and in desperate need of others to actually fight their battles (like the shooter of Charlie Kirk).
A key variable for the near future is whether the populist portions of the MAGA right can maintain their internal discipline despite endless provocations. It seems true that they do have most of the guns and that they know how to use them–if necessary.
Yep, it’s definitely the liberal left who are promoting war narratives. /S
Miller’s Speech at Kirk’s funeral:
Hello Turning Point. Hello Patriots. Hello to our fearless President, Donald J. Trump. And hello to millions of Americans all across this land who are gathered in sadness and sorrow to mourn Charlie Kirk, but also to dedicate ourselves to finishing his mission and achieving victory in his name.
The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.
When I see Erica and her strength and her courage, I am reminded of a famous expression. The storm whispers to the warrior that you cannot withstand my strength. And the warrior whispers back, “I am the storm.” Erica is the storm. We are the storm and our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion.
Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Montichello. Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry. Erica stands on the shoulders of thousands of years of warriors, of women who raised up families, raised up cities, raised up industry, raised up civilization, who pulled us out of the caves and the darkness into the light.
The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. They cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us. Because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble.
And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us—what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.
We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity. You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk. You have made him immortal. You have immortalized Charlie Kirk. And now millions will carry on his legacy.
And we will devote the rest of our lives to finishing the causes for which Charlie gave his last measure of devotion. You cannot defeat us. You cannot slow us. You cannot stop us. You cannot deter us.
We will carry Charlie and Erica in our heart every single day and fight that much harder because of what you did to us. You have no idea the dragon you have awakened. You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic.
Because our children are strong and our grandchildren will be strong and our children’s children’s children will be strong. And what will you leave behind? Nothing. Nothing.
To our enemies: you have nothing to give. You have nothing to offer. You have nothing to share but bitterness. We have beauty. We have light. We have goodness. We have determination. We have vision. We have strength.
We built the world that we inhabit now, generation by generation. And we will defend this world. We will defend goodness. We will defend light. We will defend virtue. You cannot terrify us. You cannot frighten us. You cannot threaten us. Because we are on the side of goodness. We are on the side of God.
And to my friend Charlie, to my brother Charlie, I know you are looking at us right now. I know you’re watching Erica right now. I know you’re watching your children right now. And I promise you, my friend, I promise you, my brother, we will prove worthy of your sacrifice. We will prove worthy of your time on earth.
We will make you proud. We will finish the job. We will defeat the forces of darkness and evil. And we will stand every day for what is true, what is beautiful, what is good. And we will achieve victory for our children, for our families, for our civilization, and for every patriot who stands with us.
God bless you. God bless Turning Point. God bless Erica. God bless the Kirk family. God bless our heroes. And God bless the United States of America.
Thank you
Why would the angels weep when Charlie Kirk joined them in Heaven? Surel ythey would be glad to have him amongst them.
From the very start, these are the droolings of a fool or a devout Satanist with a reallt embarrassingly crap speech writer.
As Nat Wilson Turner shared in another thread it’s also plagiarised from two Goebbels speeches.
Wow… hadn’t read the full blown address.
Miller really has scoured his past speech inventory.
It would really be worrying if Miller actually believed this bloviation, and it wasn’t simply regular output from the Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda.
Some of Trump’s comments have alarmed me to the point of considering a firepower upgrade. The pew pew machine is of a very limited utility in emergency circumstances but well…
Gotta have something.
Robert Reich seems to me to be correct in warning that the Trump Regime is intending to provoke enough disorder to make invoking the Insurrection Act vaguely plausible. I think he’s right. Political repression and “postponement” of elections is the goal.
“THIS is the future. You got to LIVE it, or LIVE WITH it.” The Firesign Theatre did not explicitly mention the third option, which we all face as individuals, and in the various ways we aggregate ourselves, “And at a time TBD, get out of the way.”
Todd Rundgren’s song “Just One Victory” (1973) – an anthemic call to live one’s values – said, “We may be about to fall, but we go on fighting.” His collaboration with Rivers Cuomo “Down With The Ship” (2020) – a cheerful reggae tune – said “It’s all for one, and one for all, we’re going down with the ship.”
The most likely scenario lies in entrapping and/or deepening and thereby overstretching the US in military actions in Palestine, Iran, Venezuala, Ukraine, the South China Sea, and the breaking of the US’ power overseas. I can’t imagine that the US military would follow Trump’s orders to use nuclear weapons in support of Trump’s wars against states led by moderate and rational leaders.
Nor can I imagine that the war Trump, in full Nazi mode, is fighting against an invisible enemy which is somehow embodied in people and places Trump finds disagreeable, and the military, law enforcement officials and the supporters Trump has betrayed, politically and economically in favour of Israeli and the oligarchic rule of the US accepting this puerile but existential nonsense much longer.
Trump’s power may be broken overseas not in battle, but in the refusal of the colonels and other officers who do not want want their country to experience a serious hiding to nothing and its future breakup into a series of mini-republics and principalities with only the threat of nuclear weapons to defend (and destroy) the remnants of the American state. I’m also pretty sure that most Americans will feel the same way and defend their towns, cities and states from an overbearing, preening, criminal President clear suffering from the rapid progression of dementia and the federal and state officials and corporations who support him in his madness, and recover and re-shape their democracy for a better future for Amercans, their children and grandchildren, and the rest of a multipolar world.
There is wisdom in the Second Amendment and I think the Founding Fathers knew this day would come and they provided the neans whereby Americans could defend thir democracy against cruel an despotic rule by people who love their country’s power more than they love its people and their right to liberty.
I remember a kind of unrealistic optimism Rush Limbaugh had, and often I think it’s a state of mind the 1% these days revert to (from infancy?). Limbaugh claimed even if humans tried to destroy life on earth, they couldn’t. Well, IMO to do in all the mammals is almost as bad [I know, to be anthropomorphic about it]. Limbaugh thought of himself as floating on an endless river of gravy that was as much a given as virtual particles are in space. In other words, according to this thinking the master class doesn’t have to do the work or perform the operation of being careful about resources [and we are supposed to fantasize we don’t have to be either??]. It strikes me that this outlook has become the glaring chief characteristic of billionaires in this particular era [same deal with millionaires in the roaring 20s but not quite as bad?]. All kinds of others will do the operations. Will pick up the pieces as they always have and always will. Due to luck Trump’s scamming has attached to him an appearance of great wealth, whereas he considers his own life charmed to an extent that real wealth and great wealth will never be far from him. As billionaire wealth today creates too many kings with unparalleled amounts of dough, so in an unparalleled fashion do they conceive the river of gravy, of resources, and of servants-who-will-pick-up-the-pieces…givens in their experience that guarantee they need do no real operations. There are the miracle buffers all around permeating everything (in a way like that “grease” Bill Black once mentioned come to think of it). Even if now Trump can’t “read a room,” if he did read what others deeply expected of him in the past, he obviously didn’t consider what they expected back then something connected to his destiny.
He thought he could lick deep state, but with his age he has bitten off a lot this time. Unlike in his first term what they now want reaches up to the sky [all new ICBMs actually]. One can only hope and pray what the empire/MICIMATT now demands part of the deep state will realize Trump is right to reject.