November 3rd and Beyond

[Gloominary]

Just like dems had moral panics over sexual harassment and police brutality, republicans will have moral panics of their own.

[Gloominary]

___

[MagsJ]

Democracy isn't a given, they come and go.
If civil war does break out, followed by a partial socioeconomic collapse, it's possible both dems and republicans may lose.
A 3rd man, perhaps a military man may appear on the scene.
Ideologically he may be somewhere on the far right, or far left, or he may not be ideological at all, a pragmatist, someone who's willing to do anything and everything it takes to secure power for himself and stabilize the country, someone unrestricted, not confined by ideology, nor the constitution and rule of law.

A second civil war.. despite having a capable military?

For their time, Athens and Rome had both democracy and a capable military yet many civil wars.
Same with France, Spain, Germany and Italy.

I'm not talking about Antifa, BLM, 3%ers, Oath Keepers or some other paramilitary staging a coup, at least not all by themselves.
Militaries can fracture.
If there's a contested election, which there may very well be, especially if it's a tight race, if each side accuses the other of fraud, voter suppression, if the supreme court has to intervene and still the losing party isn't willing to concede, if some states attempt to secede, which according to John Podesta they may do, it'll be interesting to see what the military does.
Will they go along with whoever the supreme court says won, or will they go with who they say lost, or will it splinter, some military leaders siding with dems, others republicans leading to civil war.

America has had contested elections and recounts before, but ultimately they were able to resolve things constitutionally, democratically, peacefully through the process, but this time, it really looks as tho neither side may be willing to back down no matter what, kind of like a boxing match where both boxers accuse each other of illegal blows, the referee sides with one of them, the other accuses the referee of corruption, attacks both the referee and the other fighter, then everyone jumps in the ring and a massive brawl breaks out.

If civil war does occur, the military may neatly fracture along party lines, some siding with dems, the rest with republicans.
On the other hand, there's the possibility it or factions within it side with neither.
They may side with another existing party, like say the Libertarian party, or the Party for Socialism and Liberation (Marxist-Leninists), or the American Solidarity party (Christian democrats), or a party yet to arrive on the scene, or with no party at all.
This faction of the military who sides with a third party or no party at all, may overcome the other factions and select their own president, or dictator for life.
Of course if something like this happens it won't unfold overnight, it'll take years of political and socioeconomic unravelling, but a contested election, where the government isn't able to resolve things, where both politicians and the people lose confidence in the process, could be the beginning of such an unraveling.

Ultimately we've had peaceful transitions because everyone, the vast majority of the people and politicians trusted the process, but if about half the people and/or politicians think the other half are completely batshit or duplicitous and evil, then the process breaks down and the country along with it.
It only works because enough of us believe it does.
Democracy is a much more fragile thing than many people realize.
I mean if we elected Mussolini or Hitler, would you go along with them?
Well that's the problem see, a very large % of people and politicians believe Trump is Mussolini, Hitler or Putin's pawn, not just him, but they think he's maneuvering his minions into key positions of power to undermine the process.
Likewise many on the right are beginning to think the dems always were or have recently been taken over by Marxist-Leninists, because of everything that's happened in the last year especially, the p(l)andemic, the Antifa-BLM looting/riots, the tearing down of monuments, big tech censorship of conservative voices, the kind of hateful rhetoric coming out of the mainstream media the democratic leadership appears to be perfectly fine with, many even encouraging it, but the right is pretty shaken up by it, they are scared and angry.
Half a decade ago we weren't here, America hasn't had this much doubt in itself and its other half in a very long time.
You can't have a high functioning democracy, if a democracy at all in this sort of climate.

You paint a very gloomy picture there, Gloom.. though America cannot continue another decade or century of constantly being on the edge of a civil war, so something does have to happen to curb that/resolves things.

The power struggle between the parties is obviously the cause, and the want to govern for life a’la Putin adding to the mix.

[Silhouette]

F) Trump wins both the electoral and popular vote by a landslide but Biden refuses to concede claiming mail in voter fraud and suppression until the Supreme Court announces Trump’s victory in mid December.

Not too far off, if you just swap the names.

Thank fuck that orange narcissist is finally out. Not that I have faith in Biden - America's a dumpster fire either way. I'm just glad I won't have to constantly see his stupid face in the news for the latest stupid thing he's embarrassed himself for saying/doing and getting encouraged for. 4 years of facepalming and weary sighing/eye-rolling takes its toll on the soul and the forehead - I'm so relieved on a personal level that I won't have to put up with it for 4 more.

Best of luck to reps and dems alike for the future - I genuinely wish they could find a way to sort out the mess they have to work with and hope they can move on to find less atrocious people to figurehead the struggle.

[promethean75]

enter the champion... prince biden appears... to battle for freedom, from chains of long years. The spell has been broken, the dark lands are bright. The wraith of the orange man soars away through the night......

[Gloominary]

We forget the military, and the people are ultimately in control, not the politicians.
It's amazing for nearly 250 years, by and large the military, and the people have listened to the politicians.
If the politicians can't get their shit together, there's a possibility a military leader could takeover, round em up and kill em all.
This has happened countless times before, most notably with Julius Caesar in Rome and Napoleon Bonaparte in France.
Both were republics, not monarchies, before they fell to dictatorship, Rome a very old one, France a very young one.
The people could also rise up and try to put some of their own in there by force.
Such scenarios mayn't be far off, specially if the courts side with Trump over Biden or shortly after taking office, Biden does something radical, like lock the country down, force everyone to wear masks and take vaxxes.

[Gloominary]

Here's a curveball:
If Trump, Giuliani and co are right, and dems did rig the election, if this rigging goes all the way to the top, if the leaders of the democratic party gave the order and organized the rigging, we could see many democratic leaders go to jail.
Imagine what that would do to an already divided country?

[Gloominary]

I think we are dealing with, in Trump, a black sheep of the family, but still a family member. Cousin Eddy should definitely not be the Chairman of the Board, oh fuck he is, we distance ourselves from this buffoon, but they'll all be hanging out again reguarly at functions as the Clintons and he did for decades and even during their family spat. The family consensus did not want his version of non-democracy dystopia, but he's still family. You really think they couldn't have taken him out if they'd wanted to? Jeez he never wore a mask during Corona and wandered into groups. Like they couldn't have given him a hyped up mutated corona, please........

I think if you assassinated Donald, you'd have to assassinate the whole family and their closest allies.
The Trump family likely has mob connections and hitmen of their own on standby in case one of them dies in suspicious circumstances, as well as private detectives and intelligence agencies to uncover who hired the assassin.
They could take out a large % of their elite buddies if they wanted to.

[Gloominary]

Recently some conservatives like DT, Maxime Bernier, Nigel Farage, Jair Bolsonaro, Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini have taken a more libertarian (with the exception of protectionism) and national populist turn, while some liberals have taken a more authoritarian and globalist one.
A decade or two ago, the left was more fiscally authoritarian (social welfare), but socially libertarian, while the right was more fiscally libertarian, but socially authoritarian (censorship, wars on drugs and terror).
Both were mixed on the globalization issue, the left were more 'buy local think global' (fiscally national socially global), the right 'buy global think local' (fiscally global socially national), if you will.
Now the left is really pushing for censorship, so called 'anti-racism', 'anti-sexism', climate and Covid control.
Interestingly a decade or two ago the left and right got along a lot better, probably because they were both more centrist, but now they're becoming more extreme, the left fiscally and socially authoritarian and globalist, the right fiscally and socially libertarian and nationalist.
It hasn't always been this way, there have been times throughout history when the left was fiscally and socially libertarian and the right fiscally and socially authoritarian.

Extremes of course lead to violence.
Comprehension and compromise are easier when we at least more or less speak the same political and socioeconomic language.
Increasingly left and right are living on different planets.
If they continue going down this path, which seems likely, the left may turn to communism or a kind of liberal fascism.
This is not to say there's no danger of the right turning to conservative fascism or Nazism, but at this point in time, I'm just not seeing it right now.

Of course I don't have a crystal ball, but we're already seeing a resurgence of more libertarianism and national populism in some places or in some ways, and the resurgence of liberal fascism in others, but with more emphasis on identity politics and technocracy than economics than hitherto.
Perhaps they will be followed by a resurgence of conservative fascism in others.
There may be another hot or cold world war, and if civilization survives, the victors will largely determine the world's destiny in the coming decades.

Putting ideology aside, we're also seeing rising tensions between, not only China and the US, but China and its neighbors: India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
China hasn't had a communist economy for decades, they have a mix of capitalism, corporatism and socialism in that order with Confucianism.
For the last several centuries, the west, whether it was the Spanish and Portuguese, the French and Brits, or the Russians and Americans, has dominated the world with secularism and tech.
The Brits and Americans, with their emphasis on liberal democracy and globalization, took turns dominating the world for the last couple of centuries, markedly shaping its character.
But there's no guarantee Britain and America, or the west as a whole will continue to dominate.
It's possible the mantle will get passed to the east at some point.
Increasingly a more aggressive China is having a greater impact on geopolitics.
If China were to become the sole superpower at some point, the world would look very differently than it does today, I'm sure it'd be a dystopian nightmare.
No one knows for sure what the outcome of all this and much more will be, but I think if one thing is certain, like it was 75 years ago, humanity is approaching a crossroads.

[Gloominary]

Every half a century to two centuries or so, the world order shifts.
Sometimes it's because new frontiers open up.
Other times it's because what was working or appeared to no longer does.
Ideologies, superpowers and systems rise and fall.

For the last 75 years we had a consensus, by and large it was liberal democracy and globalism.
It was America and Americanism.
Left and right were roughly in agreement.
That consensus is breaking down.

For decades, liberalism meant fiscally more authoritarian (social welfare) and nationalist (buy local), and socially more libertarian and globalist (think global), conservatism meant fiscally more libertarian and globalist (buy global), and socially more authoritarian (censorship, wars on drugs and terror) and nationalist (think local).
Now liberalism means fiscally, and socially more authoritarian and globalist, and conservatism means fiscally and socially more libertarian and nationalist.
To put it another way, both liberalism and conservatism are less ideologically mixed and more extreme.
Additionally the corporate war machine is moving from the center-right to the left.
Wall street is throwing more money at dems than reps.

While there may be a resurgence of conservative fascism and Nazism, so far I don't see any, I'm seeing national libertarians on the right do battle with liberal fascists and communists on the left, politically and on the streets for control of the west, as the west does battle with the east, fiscally and perhaps militarily soon.
Whoever wins, if anyone, in America, and the EU, and Brazil, because the same, or a very similar battle is waging there too, not so much in Canada and Australia yet, could get to (re)shape world affairs as they see fit.
So far America has dominated the west, and the west the world, but the EU, Brazil, Russia and China could overtake it, if America's downward spiral continues to accelerate.

Allover the world, especially in the west, religion, theocracy and traditional values have waned, so it's no surprise conservative fascism and Nazism no longer have much, if any pull.
However a softer, more liberal democratic ethnonationalism is taking hold in parts of central Europe, like Hungary and Poland.
By contrast, (corporate) science, technocracy and progressive values are all the rage.
Authoritarianism is taking a much more progressive, (pseudo)scientific and technocratic turn.

[Gloominary]

After 55 years of mass (il)legal immigration, It's no surprise identity politics often surpasses economics in importance.
And we're moving from multiculturalism to anti-racism.
Multiculturalism is the idea that all races and cultures are basically equal.
While multiculturalism is progressive in a sense, in another it's anti-progressive, because feminism, for example, becomes equal to Islamism.
Anti-racism takes it a step further.
Under anti-racism, white people, and their culture, including liberal democratic values, are at best unduly privileged and at worst, bad.
In one way multiculturalism, and antiracism are entities unto themselves, altho they usually get lumped in with progressivism, in some ways they're competing with progressivism for supremacy.
Another example, some multiculturalists and anti-racists are anti-science.
They reject western culture altogether, they merely wish to exploit its wealth and resources.
Multiculturalism and anti-racism are basically racial and cultural suicide.
If the west wants to survive, it must either reembrace nationalism, or at the very least a globalism more aligned with its values, not opposed to them.

[Gloominary]

Communists and social democrats, the traditional left, and multiculturalists and antiracists, the new left, may seem like allies, they may seem like different components of the same philosophy, but they're actually quite different.
For the communist and social democrat, Islamism for example is evil, but for the multiculturalist and antiracist, Islamism may be alright, even good.
One day the traditional left may go to war with the new left.

[Gloominary]

This new era reminds me most of the interwar period + the Spanish flu (altho this virus, unlike H1N1, doesn't exist), particularly the 1930s.
There's a depression and rising tensions between left and right.
These aren't the flower children of the 1960s.
The 1960s were relatively free and prosperous, the 2020s aren't.

[Gloominary]

So where do we go from here?
While I don't side with the national libertarians on everything, overall I think they're headed in a better direction than the global authoritarians.
The left I grew up with, the left that just wanted better education, healthcare and wages, cleaner air, food and water, more peace and freedom is dying.
I never sided with the old left on everything, but the new left has gone mad with climatephobia, germaphobia, identity politics and scandal.
As far as the most recent incarnations of the left and right go, I support the right more.
The new right needs to, not destroy, but reign the new left in, so it never again, or at least not for a long time, oversteps its bounds.

As for Trump vs the global authoritarians, I think America, and the rest of the west is headed for intra, and maybe even international war either way.
If Trump retains power, due to compounding political and socioeconomic crises (contested election + fiscal depression + lockdowns + riots + terrorism = martial law) or the left's election fraud, the left will never accept it.
Likewise, the right ultimately won't accept this new world, where humans, bewitched and bamboozled by identity cults, are injected, branded and herded to and fro like cattle, at least not without a fight.

[WendyDarling]

So where do we go from here?
While I don't side with the national libertarians on everything, overall I think they're headed in a better direction than the global authoritarians.
The left I grew up with, the left that just wanted better education, healthcare and wages, cleaner air, food and water, more peace and freedom is dying.
I never sided with the old left on everything, but the new left has gone mad with climatephobia, germaphobia, identity politics and scandal.
As far as the most recent incarnations of the left and right go, I support the right more.
The new right needs to, not destroy, but reign the new left in, so it never again, or at least not for a long time, oversteps its bounds.

As for Trump vs the global authoritarians, I think America, and the rest of the west is headed for intra, and maybe even international war either way.
If Trump retains power, due to compounding political and socioeconomic crises (contested election + fiscal depression + lockdowns + riots + terrorism = martial law) or the left's election fraud, the left will never accept it.
Likewise, the right ultimately won't accept this new world, where humans, bewitched and bamboozled by identity cults, are injected, branded and herded to and fro like cattle, at least not without a fight.

Fight? Tell me more of this fight you speak of.