Civil War 2? (1 Viewer)

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    Optimus Prime

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    Very sobering article
    ================
    If you know people still in denial about the crisis of American democracy, kindly remove their heads from the sand long enough to receive this message: A startling new finding by one of the nation’s top authorities on foreign civil wars says we are on the cusp of our own.

    Barbara F. Walter, a political science professorat the University of California at San Diego, serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence.

    By law, the task force can’t assess what’s happening within the United States, but Walter, a longtime friend who has spent her career studying conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, applied the predictive techniques herself to this country.

    Her bottom line: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.” She lays out the argument in detail in her must-read book, “How Civil Wars Start,” out in January. “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war,” she writes.

    But, “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely.

    And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”

    Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency — the “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” phases — and only time will tell whether the final phase, “open insurgency,” began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.

    Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. Citing the Center for Systemic Peace’s “Polity” data set — the one the CIA task force has found to be most helpful in predicting instability and violence — Walter writes that the United States is now an “anocracy,” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state.

    U.S. democracy had received the Polity index’s top score of 10, or close to it, for much of its history. But in the five years of the Trump era, it tumbled precipitously into the anocracy zone; by the end of his presidency, the U.S. score had fallen to a 5, making the country a partial democracy for the first time since 1800.

    “We are no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy,” Walter writes. “That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand, and then Canada. We are no longer a peer to nations like Canada, Costa Rica, and Japan, which are all rated a +10 on the Polity index.”…….

    Others have reached similar findings. The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance put the United States on a list of “backsliding democracies” in a report last month.

    “The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself," the report said.

    And a new survey by the academic consortium Bright Line Watch found that 17 percent of those who identify strongly as Republicans support the use of violence to restore Trump to power, and 39 percent favor doing everything possible to prevent Democrats from governing effectively……



     
    90% I doubt that. I can't find 10 people that I know that would support him over DeathSantis
    How many current GOP candidates for Senate or Governor this cycle can you name that didn't actively seek Trump's blessing/endorsement? Off the top of my head I can only think of Chris Sununu in New Hampshire.
     
    How many current GOP candidates for Senate or Governor this cycle can you name that didn't actively seek Trump's blessing/endorsement? Off the top of my head I can only think of Chris Sununu in New Hampshire.
    I honestly don't know. To be honest, I haven't followed any of the midterms.
    With the numbers it is looking like a good bet to get Trump's backing since he is the Grand-MAGA and all.
    I would love for him to stay in that role. Endorse and play king maker but stay out of actually running for office. He won't though, his ego won't allow that, I don't think.
     
    I think I heard that he will announce his candidacy right after the midterms. What will be interesting is if all the “hopefuls” just drop out or do they challenge him?
     
    I think I heard that he will announce his candidacy right after the midterms. What will be interesting is if all the “hopefuls” just drop out or do they challenge him?
    He's waiting to see if things go well for the GOP because, if they do, it will act as an affirmation of his brand of insanity and give him momentum.
     
    I think I heard that he will announce his candidacy right after the midterms. What will be interesting is if all the “hopefuls” just drop out or do they challenge him?
    I don't see DeSantis dropping out, I think he will still run. I see some other 'moderate' running
     
    He's waiting to see if things go well for the GOP because, if they do, it will act as an affirmation of his brand of insanity and give him momentum.
    True. Although, that is just smart politics
     
    I don't see DeSantis dropping out, I think he will still run. I see some other 'moderate' running
    I read someone on Twitter who said DeSantis at one point has said he wouldn’t challenge Trump if Trump runs. I don’t know - I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes back on that. If he even said it, lol.

    I think Liz Cheney will run.
     
    I read someone on Twitter who said DeSantis at one point has said he wouldn’t challenge Trump if Trump runs. I don’t know - I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes back on that. If he even said it, lol.

    I think Liz Cheney will run.

    Trump will have challengers if the DOJ does indict.

    Can states have felony disqualifications for running for president?

    I think it would be hilarious if Republicans ran a draft dodging felon for president. OH LAWD
     
    I read someone on Twitter who said DeSantis at one point has said he wouldn’t challenge Trump if Trump runs. I don’t know - I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes back on that. If he even said it, lol.

    I think Liz Cheney will run.
    I have been thinking and I am not so sure DeSantis will run against Trump. He might just wait grab the next 2 terms after the orange one.

    Do you honestly think she will run as R? She is actively campaigning for Dems, but then again, the DNC bank rolled a lot of MAGA canidates so who know what the DNC has planned for Chenney.
     
    I have been thinking and I am not so sure DeSantis will run against Trump. He might just wait grab the next 2 terms after the orange one.

    Do you honestly think she will run as R? She is actively campaigning for Dems, but then again, the DNC bank rolled a lot of MAGA canidates so who know what the DNC has planned for Chenney.
    I think she will initially run as a Republican. But if that fails to keep Trump from winning the nomination she will run as an Independent. But that‘s just my opinion.
     
    I am not sure off the top of my head but there might be some kind of federal 'sore loser' law (they have these on the state level some places) or other obstacle that discourages people attempting to secure one of the major party nominations and then pivoting as an independent if they lose. I vaguely recall talk of something like that during Sanders' 2016 campaign.

    And, of course Ron DeSantis won't run against Trump. He doesn't want to offend da-da. Plus, he is not even fifty so he has no shortage of time to go out there and bleat all the nonsense MAGA-momos want to hear without Trump raging against him. He can always run against Rick Scott or Marco Rubio for Senate when his term of governor expires. Would serve those two idiots right.
     
    Long and sobering article from three experts
    ===============================
    Americans are increasingly talking about civil war.

    In August, after the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Florida home, Twitter references to “civil war” jumped 3,000%. Trump supporters immediately went online, tweeting threats that a civil war would start if Trump was indicted.

    One account wrote: “Is it Civil-War-O’clock yet?”; another said, “get ready for an uprising”. Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, said there would be “riots in the streets” if Trump was indicted. Trump himself predicted that “terrible things are going to happen” if the temperature wasn’t brought down in the country.

    Perhaps most troubling, Americans on both sides of the political divide increasingly state that violence is justified. In January 2022, 34% of Americans surveyed said that it was sometimes OK to use violence against the government.

    Seven months later, more than 40% said that they believed civil war was at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years. Two years ago, no one was talking about a second American civil war. Today it is common.

    Are America’s fears overblown? The most frequent question I get asked following my book How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them is whether a civil war could happen again in the US. Sceptics argue that America’s government is too powerful for anyone to challenge.

    Others argue that secession will never happen because our country is no longer cleanly divided along geographic lines.

    Still others simply cannot believe that Americans would start killing one another. These beliefs, however, are based on the mistaken idea that a second civil war would look like the first.

    It will not.

    If a second civil war breaks out in the US, it will be a guerrilla war fought by multiple small militias spread around the country. Their targets will be civilians – mainly minority groups, opposition leaders and federal employees.

    Judges will be assassinated, Democrats and moderate Republicans will be jailed on bogus charges, black churches and synagogues bombed, pedestrians picked off by snipers in city streets, and federal agents threatened with death should they enforce federal law.

    The goal will be to reduce the strength of the federal government and those who support it, while also intimidating minority groups and political opponents into submission…….

     
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