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William Farrar's avatar

It won't be a civil war, it is a mixed war, a war of the government on the people, aided and abetted by a percentage of the population that is heavily armed, the 2nd Amendment faction, facing them is a faction that has basically disarmed as they are like Stephanie Miller, allergic to guns. There are exceptions of course. But we progressives are outgunned, we face an enemy that has personal arsenals.

This war, this time, the enemy is your brother, your next door neighbor,your pastor, your priest, your rabbi, the used car salesman, your dentist. For some reason dentists and surgeons are among the most virulent of right wingers, along with car dealers, real estate brokers, contractors, farmers.

Gloria J. Maloney's avatar

Trump wants everybody to know he is doing this so that intimidated people will vote as he wants and do his bidding.

A similar bias has been going on for years by elected officials using primary voting records to decide who to help with a problem when they call for help. The voter list and how they vote can be purchased for the county clerk's office. It used to be a thick stack, but now it is on a disc and can be sorted and selected with the data for campaign purposes.

It has been a few years since I purchased a disc, so it may not be the same now. My guess is it's either too expensive or otherwise restricted from the general public now. Does anybody know?

Rxan Smith's avatar

Trump treating blue states as occupied territory is unheard of. When the government itself admits grants were killed b/c the state voted the wrong way, the constitutional equal-protection argument isn’t abstract anymore. Regional punishment is how you turn political disagreement into something much uglier.

Hartmann is right to sound the alarm on this one. I'll be doing a deep dive piece on this, later this afternoon.

Martha MacRae's avatar

Maybe the US is too big and too divided to manage. Perhaps everyone would benefit if it split into two separate countries.

It’s not just politics; there is something fundamentally wrong down in the roots. Part of it is that Citizens United case, and probably part of it is the origin in slavery.

Certainly, tax policy is a disaster - not serving the purpose of redistributing wealth, and there is certainly too much money around to have a civilized society.

What are the Democrats doing - just letting Trump and Congress run wild so they can run on that??

I don’t get it.

Dian Allison's avatar

Exactly what the Gazillionaires want! To keep us all fighting among ourselves, while more and more resources and rights are taken away from us ALL!

Tom Halstead's avatar

There has been some recent suggestion that if/when it becomes possible, Democrats should limit legal pursuit of Repugnican crimes to a few, especially egregious cases. That would be a mistake, as it would effectively signal tacit approval of any un-indicted crimes. Go big or go home, or the rule of law doesn’t hold. (Incidentally, I have been delighted to add the new-to-me word “reichwing” to my vocabulary. It captures volumes in a master stroke of brevity. Thank you).

Roger W Wilde's avatar

PLEASE GIVE THIS ARTICLE TO THE SUPREME COURT CONSERVATIVES (ANARCHISTS) BEGGING THEM TO RESIGN FOR THE VERY EXISTENCE OF OUR REPUBLIC THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE RUN BY THE PEOPLE, NOT THE OLIGARCHS AND THE TRAITORS!!!!

Sir Okie Doke's avatar

He obviously thinks he is both Robin Hood and a small-time (now big-time) crook.

As ersatz Robin:

- He robs from the rich, i.e., Blue [read sane] states.

- He gives to the poor, i.e., red states.

And, as a two-bit hood:

- He gives to the super-rich, too. Why? Easy: For kickbacks for his family.

The Cost to his moronic voters and, ultimately, to Planet Earth?

The price is literally Quite High to elect a President who's a Hitlerian Eugenicist. "Poisoning the Blood." "Vermin." Ad nauseum.

How high exactly? ... Skipping along the Edge of the WWIII Abyss High.

ICYMI [In Case You Missed It] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWwX_fg8Rs

The GOP and their "Chimp on XANAX" leader are trying to rip America's face off.

Gordon Berry's avatar

Think of Trump and his Cabinet as a "Think Tank"...

Filled with goldfish who just dumbly swim around, or better still as piranha fish out to kill!

Rxan Smith's avatar

When a government starts weaponizing federal resources against political opponents, it's absolute corrosion. It doesn't matter whether it's done with a wink or a memo or a press conference either. The Department of Education admission is ugly, and it deserves to be called out without hesitation.

We keep making the mistake of pretending this disease just appeared out of nowhere. This version may be louder, more brazen, and more shameless.

It certainly is.

Fine.

But both parties have spent DECADES perfecting softer versions of the same game. Whether it's Stimulus money, or disaster relief, or Grants, or earmarks. Whether it's green funding or red funding or blue funding. The names change but the incentives remain exactly the same and they completely diverge from the will of the people.

Calling this a "fast track to civil war" - well... that's rhetorical theater.... Independent Media as well as corporate media needs to do their job better than this and show us that the biggest issues that we Face our bipartisan concerns and do we are fools to believe otherwise. If you've picked up the United States history book or looked at the history of any free country during times like this.. what you see is an unspeakable tragedy occurring that Sparks they inevitable. The citizenry uniting ...and the rolling class forced to stop playing the games because they know they're not going to get away with it anymore. No one fears a country that is divided into two factions because they know that as long as one half is in power, the citizens can't challenge them. The Civil War is a fantasy that requires dividing nukes up and fighting with neighbors and accounting on the military to be sidelined.... The real danger is something quieter and far more permanent. The danger is normalizing this spoils system where government is a reward for our loyalty instead of a servant and employee of the public. The citizen is an owner, not a customer, and once it becomes acceptable to pretend that the opposite is true, every Administration will inherit a bigger weapon than the last created

The most radical act in 2026 and 2028 won't be voting harder for our team... it'll be telling our own party, "You don't get my vote by default...you earn it... and we get to set the narrative of your campaign come and hold you accountable to perform what you pledge."

We watched Trump remake an entire party in his own image. If that doesn't scare Democrats into demanding stronger institutions... instead of stronger personalities... they're learning the wrong lesson.

Stop running puppets, manufacturing inevitability, and asking voters to excuse corruption because the other side is worse.

That's the bargain that got us here in the first place.

Structural change isn't free and democracy is something that we need to work on harder in non-election years then we do on voting day. Sometimes it means risking short-term political pain... to prevent long-term institutional decay... If integrity only matters when your opponents are in power, the hues what? It isn't integrity... It isn't a worldview either... It's an identity rooted in branding.

So if Democrats want to be the party that claims to defend democracy, they need to be the party that welcomes scrutiny and rejects favoritism. Demands accountability from our own leaders first, and make the party prove that principles aren't campaign slogans. If neither party is willing to clean up its own house, then neither party deserves to ask the public to trust them with ours.

Indie's avatar

In contrast, the Biden/Dems bills (infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Act) that Republicans voted AGAINST, has spent more money creating jobs in red states. When asked how that happened, President Biden responded, “because that’s where the need was.” THAT is a President for all Americans. How did Trump respond? By cancelling the projects in blue states and putting up signs falsely taking credit for the projects created by Biden. Trump operates like a mob boss. The Trump administration is a corrupt crime family.

Jeffrey Hobbs's avatar

The defunding war against "blue states" is such a blunt instrument, since there are many progressives in conservative states and vice versa. So it won't be long before they start implementing the voter data to fine-tune their political (and racial) discrimination like they fine-tune their gerrymandering.

alis's avatar

Will World War III be the answer to these domestic rifts?

Seems China, Russia, N. Korea, and Pakistan are about to join forces with Iran. Turns out Iran doesn't need a nuke, because all their new allies have some.

Every. Damn. Thing. All of it is going to backfire on TRump and his syndicate. He has screwed the 30% of conservatives in the blue states in the process. Our arms situation is bad. MAGA better save their arsenal for what may be coming, and it won't be a bunch of Democrats. Different story for the Administration and the King with No Clothes, because we are definitely coming for them---in a legal sense. See you in the streets.