Hey TrapperGus

You read the Wapo Kagan oped yet?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

Thoughts?

My take is no shit sherlock I've been feeling this way for a while but I guess it's good to see it get out there (finally).

"The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves."

Wondering what your take is.

steveschneider wrote:You read the Wapo Kagan oped yet?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

Thoughts?

My take is no shit sherlock I've been feeling this way for a while but I guess it's good to see it get out there (finally).

"The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves."

Wondering what your take is.

The issue with not reading critically is that you can be taken in with the author's POV.

My first thought is that this is absolutely not the greatest constitutional crisis since the War of Revolution (only people who support racism, sometimes unknowingly, call it the Civil War.  Its called the War of Revolution in official documents).  In terms of threats to the constitution I would place the War Powers Act and the Homeland Security Act as greater threats to the constitution.

As for Trump, he is a follower of the mob, not its leader, as shown by the mob booing him when he told it to be vaccinated.

Are the Republicans setting themselves up to have more control over whom is elected President where they can?  Yes they are, and that will be in place regardless of who is running.  What the 2020 election showed the Republican Party is that they are losing voters, and the actions taken are so the Republican Party, not Trump, can try to maintain power.

Trump may or may not be running in 2024, right now the Governor of Florida is more popular among Republicans, and one thing Republicans hate is a looser, which Trump is, and which Republican voters know that he is, no matter how many sour grapes he cultivates.

edit - does the Party really want to have Trump v Biden again, where all the negatives about Trump's term will be amplified and blasted at him 247? Now Trump has a history, just like Clinton did when he ran against her, and it will be totally used against him.

As to the Republican Party building power to go against the will of the people, that is one of the  basic values of the Billionaires who pay the bills for the Party.  If fact it is their guiding principle, that the existing form of the United States Government, and I argue the existence of the United States itself, is an existential threat to their wealth and well being, and thus it must be changed to protect them from the mob.

That history shows they are totally wrong about this doesn't matter to them.  Fear of the mob is their motivation.

Can Trump pull a "Hitler" and use their fear to regain power and then strip the power from them?  As Hitler showed it is possible in a country ruled by popular vote to do so, so it is possible, but not the greatest threat.  

The Billionaires who want to change the constitution in ways to protect their wealth and power forever are the greatest threat, and they have, since Reagan, being in ascendance.  They may miscalculate and Trump may brush them aside if elected again, but it is very unlikely he would, since they goal of gaining power of a country which could no longer be considered true to the creed of The United States, and his are the same, and they are very happy with what he did already.

TrapperGus wrote: (only people who support racism, sometimes unknowingly, call it the Civil War.  Its called the War of Revolution in official documents).  

I've literally never heard anyone call it the War of Revolution. People who want to support racism call it the war of northern aggression.

Cameron wrote:

TrapperGus wrote: (only people who support racism, sometimes unknowingly, call it the Civil War.  Its called the War of Revolution in official documents).  

I've literally never heard anyone call it the War of Revolution. People who want to support racism call it the war of northern aggression.

It is popularly called the "Civil War" now, which is just another example of systemic racism which has been built into the zeitgeist of society.  This was very intentional by apologists for the rebellious states, though you are correct, there also was a movement from the radicals in their ranks to call it "The War of Northern Aggression"

During the time of the rebellion was it was not called the "Civil War".  The documents from that time in the National Archives call it the "War of Rebellion" which is also why the traitors to the United States were called "rebels" or "rebs" for short and not, as some like to call them, "patriots".

Language like this is very important if one wishes to be honest with oneself about history and society.

Bitching about wokeness is played, but...

Cameron wrote:Bitching about wokeness is played, but...

"Wokeness" is just a meme created by racists to disparage those who are pointing out the systemic racisms built into the zeitgeist.  

Another controlling of the language to support systemic racism and other inequalities.

I don't believe the term "woke," itself is a racist creation. They may be the ones who use the term most now, but it was more of a co-opting than a creation.

Cameron wrote:I don't believe the term "woke," itself is a racist creation. They may be the ones who use the term most now, but it was more of a co-opting than a creation.

Actually more than fair. I took your use of it one way, a way you may not have intended, and I did that becasue conservatives do use it in that way. I apologize for that.

Woke (/woʊk/ wohk) is a term, originating in the United States, that originally referred to awareness about racial prejudice and discrimination. It subsequently came to encompass an awareness of other issues of social inequality, for instance, regarding gender and sexual orientation. Since the late 2010s, it has also been used as a general term for left-wing political movements and perspectives emphasising the identity politics of people of colour, LGBT people, and women.

The phrase stay woke had emerged in the United States by the 1930s. Developing within African-American Vernacular English, woke referred to an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans, especially racial prejudice and discrimination. In this form, it appeared in various contexts, for instance, in songs by Lead Belly and Erykah Badu. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, the phrase was popularised by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans.[1] Widely used on Black Twitter, it gained traction as an Internet meme and was increasingly utilised by individuals who were not African American, often to signal their support for BLM; some commentators criticised this as cultural appropriation. Mainly associated with the young millennial generation, the term spread internationally and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.

As use of the term has spread beyond its African-American origins, woke has increasingly been used as a catch-all term to describe left-wing social-justice movements and ideologies. The terms woke capitalism and woke-washing were coined to describe companies who signalled their support for such causes. By 2020, parts of the political center and right wing in several Western countries were using the term woke, often in an ironic way, as an insult for various leftist movements and ideologies perceived as over-zealous or insincere. In turn, some left-wing activists came to consider it an offensive term used to denigrate those campaigning against discrimination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

Cameron wrote:Bitching about wokeness is played, but...

You heard it here folks, according to Cameron bitching about wokeness is played out. Whew finally I can drink some oat milk out in public.

TrapperGus wrote:

steveschneider wrote:You read the Wapo Kagan oped yet?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

Thoughts?

My take is no shit sherlock I've been feeling this way for a while but I guess it's good to see it get out there (finally).

"The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves."

Wondering what your take is.

The issue with not reading critically is that you can be taken in with the author's POV.

My first thought is that this is absolutely not the greatest constitutional crisis since the War of Revolution (only people who support racism, sometimes unknowingly, call it the Civil War.  Its called the War of Revolution in official documents).  In terms of threats to the constitution I would place the War Powers Act and the Homeland Security Act as greater threats to the constitution.

As for Trump, he is a follower of the mob, not its leader, as shown by the mob booing him when he told it to be vaccinated.

Are the Republicans setting themselves up to have more control over whom is elected President where they can?  Yes they are, and that will be in place regardless of who is running.  What the 2020 election showed the Republican Party is that they are losing voters, and the actions taken are so the Republican Party, not Trump, can try to maintain power.

Trump may or may not be running in 2024, right now the Governor of Florida is more popular among Republicans, and one thing Republicans hate is a looser, which Trump is, and which Republican voters know that he is, no matter how many sour grapes he cultivates.

edit - does the Party really want to have Trump v Biden again, where all the negatives about Trump's term will be amplified and blasted at him 247? Now Trump has a history, just like Clinton did when he ran against her, and it will be totally used against him.

As to the Republican Party building power to go against the will of the people, that is one of the  basic values of the Billionaires who pay the bills for the Party.  If fact it is their guiding principle, that the existing form of the United States Government, and I argue the existence of the United States itself, is an existential threat to their wealth and well being, and thus it must be changed to protect them from the mob.

That history shows they are totally wrong about this doesn't matter to them.  Fear of the mob is their motivation.

Can Trump pull a "Hitler" and use their fear to regain power and then strip the power from them?  As Hitler showed it is possible in a country ruled by popular vote to do so, so it is possible, but not the greatest threat.  

The Billionaires who want to change the constitution in ways to protect their wealth and power forever are the greatest threat, and they have, since Reagan, being in ascendance.  They may miscalculate and Trump may brush them aside if elected again, but it is very unlikely he would, since they goal of gaining power of a country which could no longer be considered true to the creed of The United States, and his are the same, and they are very happy with what he did already.

I agree with your last paragraph a lot. Kind of was thinking about all the crazy shit over the decades that kind of just went by. Like for instance the fact that after 9/11 some people wanted to send the statue of liberty back to France should have been a red flag.

I thought there was a lot of value to the article. Just the passage about how people like Raffensberger were able to thwart the plan to steal the election and how next go around there won't be any Raffensbergers. They are all getting fired and ousted setting up the frame work for a shit show in 2024. I think it's something we all need to be aware of, concerned about and working hard to address it. At least we have a good football team to take our minds off this stuff because I'm a glass is half empty guy and to reference the late great Jim Morrison - I think the entire shit house is going to go up in flames.

I totally agree about the risks of what the Republican Party has been doing ever since Reagan, and before.

The article detailed a bunch of what is going on right now, however these guys are playing for bigger game.

A number of States have passed resolutions calling for a Constitutional Convention and the Billionaires have set up an organization to push to make this happen, headed up by Paul Ryan, former Speaker. If that happens we are at a full blown crisis.

When I read the article I was totally surprised by the author lumping George Washington in with other people he seemed to believe were pollical power mad people.

The author showed an incredible lack of historical knowledge when he did that which, for me, raised basic questions about all his detailed judgments which is could not verify independently, and caused me to believe that he was just throwing mud at the wall on most of them.

Hey Steve, so who is going to win the donnybrook?

"They underestimated the extent of his popularity and the strength of his hold on his followers; they underestimated his ability to take control of the Republican Party; and then they underestimated how far he was willing to go to retain power. The fact that he failed to overturn the 2020 election has reassured many that the American system remains secure, though it easily could have gone the other way"

"The other front is outside the bounds of constitutional and democratic competition and into the realm of illegal or extralegal efforts to undermine the electoral process. The two are intimately related, because the Republican Party has used its institutional power in the political sphere to shield Trump and his followers from the consequences of their illegal and extralegal activities in the lead-up to Jan. 6. Thus, Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik, in their roles as party leaders, run interference for the Trump movement in the sphere of legitimate politics, while Republicans in lesser positions cheer on the Jan. 6 perpetrators, turning them into martyrs and heroes, and encouraging illegal acts in the future."

"With his megaphone back, Trump would once again dominate news coverage, as outlets prove unable to resist covering him around the clock if only for financial reasons."

----

Just finished it (thanks for the bump) I largely agreed with the article. I think trouble is coming but to what extent I can't say for sure.

I do have a couple of thoughts the amount of people willing to go to Civil War 2.0 is probably pretty damn small. Enough to do some damage but I can't see a situation where neighbors are shooting at each other and we witness all sorts of asymmetrical warfare across the country.

I think for the most part Americans are very lazy and in poor physical shape and the majority of our country just isn't cut out for combat. I also don't think a lot of people could handle living without modern day amenities. I saw Tom Friedman put it well once you break apart a system it is very difficult to put it back together. I think a lot of people would get into a civil war and quickly miss their days of sitting on their ass withchicken wings, beer and football or their video games.

I agree that not even a significant minority on the right is willing to seriously go to war over all this stuff.

If they can raise a volunteer revolution they are willing to watch it on the TeeVee.

TrapperGus wrote:I agree that not even a significant minority on the right is willing to seriously go to war over all this stuff.

If they can raise a volunteer revolution they are willing to watch it on the TeeVee.

Funny was driving this morning and a big red truck was on my tail and when he got ahead I saw the usual don't tread on me sticker, the ar-15 sticker and some other nonsense. Looked to be in his late 50's or early 60's. Dude was giving off some civil war vibes. I do think there's something to the Biden message about decency and governing for everyone. I think for the most parts that dude that I saw in the truck is a sliver of our country. I have so many relatives that are former conservatives that feel like they are without a party.

steveschneider wrote:

TrapperGus wrote:I agree that not even a significant minority on the right is willing to seriously go to war over all this stuff.

If they can raise a volunteer revolution they are willing to watch it on the TeeVee.

Funny was driving this morning and a big red truck was on my tail and when he got ahead I saw the usual don't tread on me sticker, the ar-15 sticker and some other nonsense. Looked to be in his late 50's or early 60's. Dude was giving off some civil war vibes. I do think there's something to the Biden message about decency and governing for everyone. I think for the most parts that dude that I saw in the truck is a sliver of our country. I have so many relatives that are former conservatives that feel like they are without a party.

Trump broke the country in 2016 with his plan to run as someone who only represents part of the population instead of everyone.

What Biden is doing is the norm.