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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……



     
    On 6 January 2025, US democracy stands at a crossroads. Congress must certify the results of an election that the loser refuses to concede. The Capitol is besieged by a wave of protesters who believe the election was stolen. Some of them are armed and determined to seize power for their leader.

    Similar groups have amassed at state capitols around the country. And a portion of the DC National Guardsmen – as well as a portion of the US military, including a handful of high-ranking officials – are on their side.

    This is a fictional scenario, played out in a “war game” simulation with real government and military officials in a mock situation room.

    But according to a new documentary capturing the role-playing exercise, such a crisis of authority – and the fracturing of the military along partisan lines – is a very real possibility in the politically polarized US, one that we should prepare for.

    “It’s not a theoretical proposition,” said Jesse Moss (Boys State, Girls State), a co-director of War Game, now playing in US theaters. “Even a very small sliver of the US active duty military that chooses to side with, say, a defeated candidate in a national election, could destabilize our country and put our democracy in jeopardy.”

    War Game, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, observes the six-hour event held at a Washington DC hotel room in January 2023. The simulation, developed by the Vet Voice Foundation, is one of several role-playing exercises developed in response to the events of January 6, to help military and government officials prepare for another worst-case scenario.

    How will the US government react if it happens again? And what if the president can’t count on the support of the military? Nearly one in five January defendants had a military background.

    In May 2021, 124 retired general and admirals signed an open letter propagating the lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

    As Benjamin Radd, a game producer who viscerally recalls living through the breakdown of institutional authority in 1979 Iran, puts it: “Think about the unthinkable.”………


     
    A new candidate for sheriff in Texas has pledged to support the state's secession from the union.

    In Bexar County, Sheriff Javier Salazar is facing competition from Nathan Buchanan. The challenger, a peace officer who has described himself as a business owner, has signed the Texas First Pledge.

    "He firmly believes that power belongs to the people, not the government, a conviction that resonates with the sentiments of Article 1 Section 2 of the Texas Constitution," Buchanan's profile on Take Texas Back reads. "This belief underpins every decision he makes and every policy he advocates."

    The Texas First pledge calls to put the interests of Texans before any nation, state or political entity and work toward the secession of the state as an independent nation if the majority of people vote for that.

    Newsweek reached out to Buchanan for comment via email.

    If Buchanan defeats Salazar to become the next Bexar County sheriff, he would support letting Texans vote for secession, according to Texas Nationalist Movement President Daniel Miller.

    "Texans are tired of politicians like Sheriff Salazar promising to protect our Southern border while endorsing candidates who continue to leave our southern border open to whoever wants to come through," Miller said in a statement. "Texas First candidates will put the needs of Texans ahead of political power and greed."

    Miller also said Buchanan wants to fix the border crisis and is "not someone who is buddying up with out-of-touch feds who continue to ignore the needs of our state."

    Newsweek reached out to Salazar for comment via email.

    The Texas Nationalist Movement, which is pushing for the state to leave the United States, said it has nearly 621,000 active supporters and is the third-largest political organization in Texas after the Republican and Democratic parties. But political scientists question whether the state has the legal authority to secede.

    "I do not think that leaving the union is feasible, for Texas or any other state," Paul Beck, a professor emeritus of political science at The Ohio State University, told Newsweek. "For one thing, U.S. military bases would close in the departing state. And there would have to be other transfers of facilities and money out of the exiting state. It is a rhetorical position, not a real issue."

    However, Miller previously said that support for Texas' secession would surge if Vice President Kamala Harris becomes president next year.

    "If Harris wins, expect TEXIT support to surge," he said. "Texans are fed up with Washington's interference, and Harris' policies will likely continue this trend, fueling the desire for independence................

     
    A new candidate for sheriff in Texas has pledged to support the state's secession from the union.

    In Bexar County, Sheriff Javier Salazar is facing competition from Nathan Buchanan. The challenger, a peace officer who has described himself as a business owner, has signed the Texas First Pledge.

    "He firmly believes that power belongs to the people, not the government, a conviction that resonates with the sentiments of Article 1 Section 2 of the Texas Constitution," Buchanan's profile on Take Texas Back reads. "This belief underpins every decision he makes and every policy he advocates."

    The Texas First pledge calls to put the interests of Texans before any nation, state or political entity and work toward the secession of the state as an independent nation if the majority of people vote for that.

    Newsweek reached out to Buchanan for comment via email.

    If Buchanan defeats Salazar to become the next Bexar County sheriff, he would support letting Texans vote for secession, according to Texas Nationalist Movement President Daniel Miller.

    "Texans are tired of politicians like Sheriff Salazar promising to protect our Southern border while endorsing candidates who continue to leave our southern border open to whoever wants to come through," Miller said in a statement. "Texas First candidates will put the needs of Texans ahead of political power and greed."

    Miller also said Buchanan wants to fix the border crisis and is "not someone who is buddying up with out-of-touch feds who continue to ignore the needs of our state."

    Newsweek reached out to Salazar for comment via email.

    The Texas Nationalist Movement, which is pushing for the state to leave the United States, said it has nearly 621,000 active supporters and is the third-largest political organization in Texas after the Republican and Democratic parties. But political scientists question whether the state has the legal authority to secede.

    "I do not think that leaving the union is feasible, for Texas or any other state," Paul Beck, a professor emeritus of political science at The Ohio State University, told Newsweek. "For one thing, U.S. military bases would close in the departing state. And there would have to be other transfers of facilities and money out of the exiting state. It is a rhetorical position, not a real issue."

    However, Miller previously said that support for Texas' secession would surge if Vice President Kamala Harris becomes president next year.

    "If Harris wins, expect TEXIT support to surge," he said. "Texans are fed up with Washington's interference, and Harris' policies will likely continue this trend, fueling the desire for independence................


    He has no chance of winning. Javier Salazar is a good sheriff and he's well liked here in Bexar County.

    Also, as sheriff in Bexar County, he has no role in border enforcement much less in the legislative process of withdrawing from the union. The guy sounds like he's just a radical dumb arse.
     
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    Homegrown is a documentary about three American patriots who love their country, revere Donald Trump and balk at the result of the 2020 presidential election. Director Michael Premo spent months trailing his subjects – Chris, Thad and Randy – in the run-up to the attack on the Capitol building of 6 January 2021, and his illuminating, gripping film looks back at a dark period of recent US history. Implicitly, though, it also warns of further unrest.

    “I think January 6th was just the warm-up,” Premo says. “This November, we’re going to see an even more frantic and desperate attempt to attack every level of the electoral system.”

    He is not optimistic about the US’s current direction of travel. The country, he argues, is effectively on the brink of civil war……..

    Links with the past are certainly clear in Homegrown, which spotlights a right-wing insurrectionist movement that had flourished on the fringes for decades before finding a new energy and focus under the Maga banner of Trump.

    Premo, a New York-based film-maker, began researching the documentary in 2018, eventually homing in on his three main protesters. One, Chris Quaglin, is a New Jersey electrician who divides his time between preparing a nursery for his soon-to-be-born son and stocking his “man-cave” with firearms in readiness for war.

    He says: “An AR-15 and enough people is enough to take our country back.”

    This, Premo argues, remains a distinct possibility. “Most prominent thinkers still dismiss the idea of civil war, because their reference is an event that occurred in 1860 under a very specific set of circumstances. But that’s discounting the way that modern political violence manifests itself, and particularly the way that sectarian violence plays out around the world. If this was happening in another country, say in Africa or Asia, I think American journalists would already be referring to the situation as a cold civil war. That’s how it feels to me.”……….


     
    Homegrown is a documentary about three American patriots who love their country, revere Donald Trump and balk at the result of the 2020 presidential election. Director Michael Premo spent months trailing his subjects – Chris, Thad and Randy – in the run-up to the attack on the Capitol building of 6 January 2021, and his illuminating, gripping film looks back at a dark period of recent US history. Implicitly, though, it also warns of further unrest.

    “I think January 6th was just the warm-up,” Premo says. “This November, we’re going to see an even more frantic and desperate attempt to attack every level of the electoral system.”

    He is not optimistic about the US’s current direction of travel. The country, he argues, is effectively on the brink of civil war……..

    Links with the past are certainly clear in Homegrown, which spotlights a right-wing insurrectionist movement that had flourished on the fringes for decades before finding a new energy and focus under the Maga banner of Trump.

    Premo, a New York-based film-maker, began researching the documentary in 2018, eventually homing in on his three main protesters. One, Chris Quaglin, is a New Jersey electrician who divides his time between preparing a nursery for his soon-to-be-born son and stocking his “man-cave” with firearms in readiness for war.

    He says: “An AR-15 and enough people is enough to take our country back.”

    This, Premo argues, remains a distinct possibility. “Most prominent thinkers still dismiss the idea of civil war, because their reference is an event that occurred in 1860 under a very specific set of circumstances. But that’s discounting the way that modern political violence manifests itself, and particularly the way that sectarian violence plays out around the world. If this was happening in another country, say in Africa or Asia, I think American journalists would already be referring to the situation as a cold civil war. That’s how it feels to me.”……….


    “Take our country back” is simply code for white supremacy and misogyny.
     
    When Stephen Marche began writing a book that imagined a future civil war in the United States of America, he repeatedly found himself having to throw out large chunks of text because the very things he conjured on the page suddenly started happening in real life: sheriffs across the country refusing to obey federal law; white power groups getting their hands on nuclear material. Marche soon realised that the civil war he was predicting had, in a way, already begun.

    There is something in the air, in the streets, and even on our screens in the form of Alex Garland’s recent film Civil War, which imagines a dystopian future – the American presidency has become a dictatorship and rebels descend on the White House.

    And, with a new poll in The Times showing that now more than a quarter of Amercian adults believe that civil war could break out after this year’s presidential election it feels like Garland’s imagined future could be closer than we think.

    Marche says that when the first civil war happened in the 1860s, very few people in America saw it coming – even when the first battle began, at Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina.

    There is a quote near the beginning of his book, The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future, from a retired army colonel who says that a new American civil war would not be like the first one, with armies manoeuvring on the battlefield.

    “I think it would very much be a free-for-all,” he said, “neighbour on neighbour, based on beliefs and skin colours and religion. And it would be horrific.”

    Marche, who is Canadian and lives with his wife and children in Toronto, says that if you look at the US today, it’s really not too hard to imagine. “There are more guns than people.

    One out of every 11 presidents has been assassinated.” (In his book, Marche writes that it’s not surprising the US Secret Service spends a million dollars a day on keeping the president alive.)

    He details the unrest around the Black Lives Matter movement, anti-government extremist “boogaloo boys” arming themselves to the teeth, and small communities in the Pacific northwest sealing themselves off in communes, claiming they don’t recognise the law.

    He describes states like Texas fighting the federal government over laws governing America’s southwestern border, and so-called “lone wolf” terrorists like Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015………..



     
    Talk online of the coming USA Civil War…
    Part of me will not be surprised, but it dawned on me that you’d have to be an idiot not to understand the effect of a Civil War would have on our economy, quality of life, standard of living. Therefore, I believe there’s a much greater chance of pushing the peaceful coup, trying to fool millions of citizens, and lying as the norm to move people to your side. This is happening right now. And if it does or doesn’t work, violence can still happen 🤔
     
    Talk online of the coming USA Civil War…
    Part of me will not be surprised, but it dawned on me that you’d have to be an idiot not to understand the effect of a Civil War would have on our economy, quality of life, standard of living. Therefore, I believe there’s a much greater chance of pushing the peaceful coup, trying to fool millions of citizens, and lying as the norm to move people to your side. This is happening right now. And if it does or doesn’t work, violence can still happen 🤔
    Yeah, the Civil War idiots are without clue.

    Of course, the peaceful coup could be worse in the long run.
     

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