Do you see the U.S. being headed for a second civil war?

[BigElCat]

Originally Posted by nailer

I had to Wiki Angus, but I did know of AC/DC and could sing along with Highway to Hell if need be. Well, I know enough of the lyrics and can mumble sing what I don't.

Sorry. It automatically pops into my mind when someone breaks down the social structure into tiered classes...

"Well I'm upper, upper class high society.

God's gift to ballroom notoriety"

And it degenerates into coarse jesting after this.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPlqLHcphyw No need to listen to whole song.

[Ike Bana]

Low-income American families are generally identified as having an income of under $50,000 per year. It's about 40% of US families. And 20% of families have an income of under $25,000. These are family of four numbers. The family of four poverty level is income under $26,500.

The percentage of low income families has been growing since 2007. Middle class families are becoming low-income families.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by BigElCat

Sorry. It automatically pops into my mind when someone breaks down the social structure into tiered classes...

"Well I'm upper, upper class high society.

God's gift to ballroom notoriety"

And it degenerates into coarse jesting after this.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPlqLHcphyw No need to listen to whole song.

Nothing to be sorry about.

[donquixote99]

Regarding political violence, this, in the current Atlantic Daily Newsletter, is a spot-on appreciation of where we're at now I think:

Civil war is among the many terms we now use too easily. The American Civil War was a bloodbath driven by the inevitable confrontation between the Union and the organized forces of sedition and slavery. But at least the Civil War, as I said Friday on Morning Joe during a panel on political violence in America, was about something. Compared with the bizarre ideas and half-baked wackiness that now infest American political life, the arguments between the North and the South look like a deep treatise on government.

The United States now faces a different kind of violence, from people who believe in nothing—or at least, in nothing real. We do not risk the creation of organized armies and militias in Virginia or Louisiana or Alabama marching on federal institutions. Instead, all of us face random threats and unpredictable dangers from people among us who spend too much time watching television and plunging down internet rabbit holes. These people, acting individually or in small groups, will be led not by rebel generals but by narcissistic wannabe heroes, and they will be egged on by cowards and instigators who will inflame them from the safety of a television or radio studio—or from behind the shield of elected office. Occasionally, they will congeal into a mob, as they did on January 6, 2021.

There is no single principle that unites these Americans in their violence against their fellow citizens. They will tell you that they are for “liberty” and “freedom,” but these are merely code words for personal grudges, racial and class resentments, and a generalized paranoia that dark forces are manipulating their lives....

What makes this situation worse is that there is no remedy for it. When people are driven by fantasies, by resentment, by an internalized sense of inferiority, there is no redemption in anything. Winning elections, burning effigies, even shooting at other citizens does not soothe their anger but instead deepens the spiritual and moral void that haunts them.

Donald Trump is central to this fraying of public sanity, because he has done one thing for such people that no one else could do: He has made their lives interesting. He has made them feel important. He has taken their itching frustrations about the unfairness of life and created a morality play around them, and cast himself as the central character. Trump, to his supporters, is the avenging angel who is going to lay waste to the “elites,” the smarty-pantses and do-gooders, the godless and the smug, the satisfied and the comfortable.

I spoke with one of the original Never Trumpers over the weekend, a man who has lost friends and family because of his opposition to Trump, and he told me that one of the most unsettling things to him is that these same pro-Trump family and friends now say that they believe that Trump broke the law—but that they don’t care. They see Trump and his crusade—their crusade against evil, the drama that gives their lives meaning—as more important than the law.

I have heard similar sentiments among people I know.

Some of these people are ready to snap and to resort to violence. A Navy veteran in Ohio was killed in a standoff last week after he attacked the Cincinnati FBI office; a man in Pennsylvania was arrested and charged today for threatening to “slaughter” federal agents, whom he called “police state scum.” But that doesn’t stop charlatans and con artists from throwing matches at the fuses every day, because those hucksters, too, have decided that living a normal life and working a straight job is for saps. They will gladly risk the occasional explosion here and there if it means living the good life off of donations and purchases from their marks.

When enough Americans decide that a cult of personality matters more than a commitment to democracy, we risk becoming a lawless autocracy. This is why we must continue to demand that Trump and his enablers face the consequences of their actions: To cave in the face of threats means the end of democracy. And it would not, in any event, mollify those among our fellow citizens who have chosen to discard the Constitution so that they can keep mainlining jolts of drama from morning ’til night.

We are going to be living in this era of political violence for the foreseeable future. All any of us can do is continue, among our friends and family and neighbors, to say and defend what is right in the face of lies and delusions.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newslett...lantic%20Daily

[finnbow]

There is not going to be a civil war, but there is definitely going to be an increase in stochastic terrorism as conservatives continue to rile up their base with violent rhetoric and talk of Second Amendment solutions.

https://presswatchers.org/2022/08/th...tic-terrorism/

[RickeyM]

Originally Posted by finnbow

There is not going to be a civil war, but there is definitely going to be an increase in stochastic terrorism as conservatives continue to rile up their base with violent rhetoric and talk of Second Amendment solutions.

https://presswatchers.org/2022/08/th...tic-terrorism/

Conservatives rile up their base, their base feeling justifies commits violent acts and gets punished for it and conservatives use that to rile up their base and so on and so on. More and more I'm coming to believe some outside force is driving the country to a dark place. As they say in the detective shows, who has something to gain from the crime?

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by RickeyM

Conservatives rile up their base, their base feeling justifies commits violent acts and gets punished for it and conservatives use that to rile up their base and so on and so on. More and more I'm coming to believe some outside force is driving the country to a dark place. As they say in the detective shows, who has something to gain from the crime?

It is quite clear that Trump and his minions are threatening increased violence if DOJ does not stop investigating him.