Part of the Republican, or righteous movement, seem to be getting ready for civil war. They are declaring Democrats evil, and suggesting that Biden will not only attempt to deprive them of weaponry, but try and kill them….
Generating Civil War
Some evidence from an ‘independent’ Trump supporter.
No mention of republicans driving cars into peaceful protesters, or waving automatic weapons at protesters while screaming at them, or threatening to douse them in petrol and set it alight, no mention of Trump encouraging police to be more violent, or egging his audiences to beat up people who come to his rallies and disagree, and then vowing to pay their legal defences for assault… and this is completely ignoring the way people on the right regularly make death threats against people like the parents of children who died at the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, or climate scientists or…. I guess this could have nothing to do with their leaders and media telling them some realities are just unreal plots to hurt the USA.
Guess he must live in a news silo.
Lets shift to a more formal source. Tucker Carlson, who reportedly earns 6 million a year for a show on Fox News, (he is one of the media elite, if anyone is), says of Black Lives Matter protesters:
These are definitely not protesters. They’re not even rioters. They’re the armed militia of the Democratic Party. They’re working to overthrow our system of government. They’re trying to put themselves in power.
That’s all obvious now. It’s genuinely sinister. We’re worried about it. We’ve said that. We mean it.
Tucker Carlson: The angry children toppling statues nationwide are not protesters – and are utterly stupid. Fox News June 25 2020.
Obviously people wanting the power to change the circumstances of their lives is bad. Carlson goes on to explain that as they are not genuine protests (by his own proclamation), they are obviously something much worse.
This is not about George Floyd. It’s not about ‘systemic racism,’ whatever that is. America is not a racist country. You are not a bad person for living here.
Who said anyone was bad for living in the US? Although this statement serves to imply those who object to BLM, or who are nervous about it, are the real Americans. Likewise, if there is no racism in the US (other than from black people), then clearly these protests are not about anything straightforward like people being killed by cops because of their race, it has to be much, much worse. It is, we are told, Democrats engaged in armed rebellion against American order, even if the protesters do not seem to be armed – after all this was not a pro-Republican protest.
Fox News itself reported on Carlson, clarifying the issues:
Democratic politicians don’t fear the mob… Why? Because they don’t need to. They control the mob. The mob operates with their permission. These are their foot soldiers. This is their militia. In unguarded moments, Democrats make it very clear that they know this….
Career bureaucrats in the federal agencies support the Democratic Party. That means they support the mob as well. It’s their militia too
What you’re watching in the streets is an attempt to crush the holdouts,.. Ask yourself who is being targeted for destruction right now? Anyone who’s not on board with their program…
We’ve known for 50 years that much of the poison in our society emanates from the universities. But we’ve done nothing whatsoever to fix that. We’ve continued to fund them…
There has been no meaningful reform of the CIA or the FBI or any of the other terrifyingly powerful agencies that operate independently from our democracy and on the side of the Democratic Party.
Victor Garcia. Tucker Carlson: ‘The mob’ is controlled by Democrats, and ‘this is their militia’, Fox News June 23, 2020
Yes of course, that is why the FBI released the information that they were investigating Clinton’s emails yet again, just before the end of the election campaign. They must have helped Trump through a totally unforeseeable accident. I may be wrong, but I understand him to imply that meaningful reform, means that US institutions must be forced to not, in any way, seem to offend any Republicans.
Carlson is a strong defender of neoliberalism, and of Donald Trump. His programs aim at making his audiences angry. He does not seem interested in people living together, but in people being loyal to the Republicans and their neoliberal policies, and being furious with everyone else.
Opposing Black Lives Matter is part of these tactics. It is reasonable to suppose he does not want people to be curious about what the movement is about, or to develop any sympathies with protesters. The aim is to divide and conquer ordinary people and keep the ruling wealth elites in power. He aims to set up conflicts over relatively unimportant things, while Trump continues his path of eco-destruction and poisoning for corporate profit – and to increase the chance of armed protest, if the ploy fails and the Democrats win an election.
Then there are hashtags like #taketheoath, in which people take the oath of alligence and say God bless our President and lets defend him because we are under attack, etc… Sounds innocent, but the ideas seem to be to pledge loyalty to this particular President as representing the USA, and to imply that people who disagree with him, are not real, loyal, Americans.
Preparation for Civil War is the boosted by the President joining in and saying that the US is under attack by the radical left and the Democrats.
This is from a speech on the 4th July, which is a special day for all people in the USA – a day of unity and pride in the USA.
The PRESIDENT (07:48)… as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.
Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they’re doing this, but some know what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!…. [added from the official Whitehouse transcription]
PRESIDENT: (10:24) … In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us.
Make no mistake. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage….
AUDIENCE: (12:28) Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: (12:51) I am pleased to report that yesterday, federal agents arrested the suspected ringleader of the attack on the statue of Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C. — (applause) — and, in addition, hundreds more have been arrested. (Applause.)
Under the executive order I signed last week — pertaining to the Veterans’ Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act and other laws — people who damage or deface federal statues or monuments will get a minimum of 10 years in prison. (Applause.) And obviously, that includes our beautiful Mount Rushmore. (Applause.)
(13:54) The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities that are run by liberal Democrats in every case is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions. Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition. This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore. They defiled the memory of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. ….
(25:39) No movement that seeks to dismantle these treasured American legacies can possibly have a love of America at its heart. Can’t happen. No person who remains quiet at the destruction of this resplendent heritage can possibly lead us to a better future. The radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice, but in truth, it would demolish both justice and society. It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place of a repression, domination, and exclusion. They want to silence us, but we will not be silenced.
Crowd: (26:43): USA! USA! USA! USA!….
Crowd: (26:43)
We love you!Crowd: (26:43)
We love you President Trump.Donald Trump: (27:11)
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much…..The PRESIDENT: They would tear down the beliefs, culture and identity, that have made America the most vibrant and tolerant society in the history of the earth. My fellow Americans, it is time to speak up loudly and strongly and powerfully and defend the integrity of our country.
Crowd: (33:36): USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!….
The PRESIDENT: we will not be tyrannized, we will not be demeaned, and we will not be intimidated by bad, evil people. It will not happen.
Crowd: (35:12): USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-transcript-at-mount-rushmore-4th-of-july-event
To me this sounds like the President is engaged in a campaign speech, not a national day speech, and is trying to portray people who disagree with him as being enemies of the USA, enemies who are evil – not just opposed to him, but evil. It seems he is setting up a basis for conflict and suppression. It also sounds like he has a dedicated group in the audiences attempting to whip up support and a sense of enthusiasm for his position.
We know Trump had peaceful protesters cleared with tear gas for a photo opportunity outside a Church. Trump’s first defence secretary, retired United States Marine Corps General James Mattis, described these actions as an “abuse of executive authority” and suggested that Trump should be held to account for making “a mockery of our constitution”.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside…
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.”
“The Full Statement from Jim Mattis”, NPR, June 4 2020
Current Defence secretary, Mark Esper, angered Trump by opposing the use of the 1807 Insurrection Act to deploy troops on US streets to stop the Black Lives Matter protests.
With the riots, we can also see videos of cops attacking peaceful people, cops arresting and beating journalists, or selecting black journalists to arrest, videos of cops pulling people out of cars, who could not have been in the protests and beating them, presumably because they were black. We can see the pictures of cops pushing an old guy over, and walking past him despite blood pouring out of his ears, and we can hear the President slander the man as an extreme radical.
We can see all of this, but in the right wing media, and the President’s speech, we merely hear that the USA is under attack by leftists, and that people who bravely oppose the mob are being sacked (not good if true). No reflection at all on the problems people are trying to point to, no reflections on the violence of the State, or the suppression of protest. Just the evil of these protesters. And yes, that does not mean that some protesters might not have got out of hand, but the point is that the official Right line is not to recognise any validity at all to the protests. These protesters are bad and not-Americans, unlike those armed protesters who burst into some Democratic State legislatures.
BLM people are being demonised by the Right, for political purposes. Indeed, that is what we should expect, as it helps build up the anger of their base, and build polarisation. But the polarisation already exists because Black Live don’t appear to matter.
The point of all generating all this hysteria about an evil left, is that if you are Republican and the life of Republicans is threatened, then you can do anything in retaliation. You can suppress votes. You can lie. You can probably encourage some preemptive strikes to help intensify the tension, and lead to some actual violence against people. If a group was wanting a civil war then giving the people who want violence the sense that they are a persecuted minority, is a good way to go.
Background
For some while now Republicans and their media have been cultivating the idea that they and their supporters are the only real Americans, that they are people who should rule, and that people who oppose them are traitors, degenerate and deserve to be defeated in any way possible.
Trump’s whole strategy of life is to rip off others, smear others, abuse others and create conflict. His main drive is to find people to blame and abuse, and to praise himself. I’ve never seen any sign whatsoever of him trying to reach out to all Americans, and bring the nation to work together in peace. He always tries to splinter people. Civil war is the end point of what he wants, and how he behaves.
As ex-marine general Mattis says:
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.
“The Full Statement from Jim Mattis”, NPR, June 4 2020
While people may want President Trump to be a competent innocent, or a person fighting bravely against the Deep State, there is no evidence of it anywhere.
What we see from him is the neoliberal war for power in its final stages. The ultimate sacrifice of people to the gods of money. Trump is the Right’s perfect demagogue and apparently without any principle other than gaining victory. He delivers almost exactly what this Dark Right want. He is one of the real wealth elite that rules the US for its own interests.
Conclusion
There is every indication that Trump was prepared to help the Republicans claim the last election was stolen if he lost, and he seems to be doing the same again. This inability to take loss fundamentally means civil war, and the memes and speeches, we began with, are preparations for it.
If it was just Trump trying to ramp up civil war if he looses, I would worry, but the subjective evidence suggests that the Party as well as the usual neoliberal forces are also in favour of civil war in response to loss – and that is very worrying. However, they may change their minds. I guess part of their problem is that Trump has been so incompetent that he has almost given media respectability to the left again, and to mild attempts to reign in corporate supremacy in the Green New Deal.
From an environmentalists point of view the Green New Deal is not enough action and too late, but from the neoliberal wealth elite’s point of view it could foreshadow a beginning of the end for ecological destruction, and provoke some kind of more equitable distribution of wealth and power. It could restart what they saw, in the 1970s, as the Crisis of Democracy; that is the participation of ordinary people in government.
If it takes civil war to stop that, they may well feel war is justified.
