When we last met, we discussed the current situation and asked the question, Are we close to open revolt?. And as we noted, the answer was, No. Not yet. And for a number of reasons. One of my commenters, Tonysc notes:
I know we haven’t gotten to this yet but I’m still struggling with comparing what’s happening in the US with other countries that have experienced in countries like Russia and China. In those countries there was generally a widespread and fairly uniform dissatisfaction with the government, with the dissatisfaction being on a generally deep-seated issues around the treatment of the individuals themselves.
In this country the dissatisfaction is… different. The dissatisfaction isn’t widespread across the entire country. There are only a handful of states and, just as importantly, only a handful of regions, really just a few cities, in the few states. Further complicating the situation, at least from the dissatisfied ‘states’ perspective is that the states are generally not contiguous with each other.
While we might be able to check each of the boxes on the R2R Model, I just can’t shake the feeling that those geographically based ideological differences makes the use of the model problematic.
Tony is correct. The United States is a huge country. Although we are seeing spots where there is a demonstrated level of outrage, it is nowhere near as widespread as that among the peasants and workers during the Russian and Cuban Revolutions. However, much like the Russian and Chinese revolutions, geography does impact the ability of one region to provide mutually supporting efforts to the other.
The Russian Revolution was somewhat slowed by the White Russian forces supported by foreign powers. The Chinese Revolution, one might credibly state is not yet complete as according to their own official position, Taiwan isn’t a separate country, merely a breakaway province awaiting assimilation with the mainland. Taiwan is of course openly supported by the United States.
Finally, and most importantly, the outrage in Russia, China and Cuba was actually based on some pretty serious grievances. In all three cases, there was an effective caste system. In Russia and China, there was a dynastic royalty at the top, supported by a corrupt bureaucracy kleptocracy. In the case of Cuba there was a non-dynastic, yet totalitarian ruler with his own supporting cadre of corrupt bureaucrats.
Tying all three of these together, were long term systems that had the very few haves who ran the country and the have nots who formed the vast majority of the population. The haves lived a relative life of luxury, often due to corrupt practices, while the have nots for the most part, were always on the brink of starvation. In the cases of Russia and China, the situation for the peasants was exacerbated by involvement in war amongst the great powers. As in most monarchies of that period, the peasants were the main source of cannon fodder, while the royalty, often ill-trained and inept, provided the officer leadership.
Two significant military failures served as solid nails in what would be the coffin of the Romanov dynasty. First was the Russian navy being decisively beaten in the Battle of the Tsushima Straits in 1905. Second was the Tsar’s involvement in World War I and his inept handling of the military. This stirred up a visceral anger in a peasantry who had not only been forced to fight, but also been forced to die at the hands of inept leaders.
Such visceral anger does not exist today in the United States as it did back then in Tsarist Russia. So, where do we go from here; what’s next? Well gentle reader, I’ll use the standard escape clause of political prognosticators everywhere: That depends.
First, the short term fight. If Donald J. Trump is not re-elected, then likely the Senate will fall under Democrat Socialist control. Even if the Senate were to remain in Republican hands under a Socialist regime, the Republicans, even if they grew a spine, would only be able to partially delay the leftist agenda.
And let’s not mince words. A Biden victory, with or without the Senate, would absolutely usher in a socialist regime. We all know that neither a Biden, or should he stroke out or be removed, Harris administration, would not be run by either of them. The orders would be coming from the folks in the legendary smoke-filled, back rooms, who would be using their puppet President to advance the most egregious attacks on personal liberty, since Roosevelt imprisoned U.S. citizens merely because of their skin color and the fold over their eyes…with a corrupt Supreme Court telling him it was OK.
Once these folks ultimately get their hands on all the levers of power, they will immediately and rapidly move to enact their agenda by putting in place some of what I call enablers. They will first remove the Senate filibuster. From then on, all legislation would require but a simple majority before being sent to the President. Once they have that, then the only obstacle to any plans they might have, would be adverse decisions by the Supreme Court.
No problem. Once they’ve eliminated the filibuster, they will move to increase the number of seats on the Supreme Court. They will ensure they create a number of seats that would give them a clear majority for decades to come. From that position, they will have the ability to re litigate conservative advances and essentially, make the Constitution say what they say it says.
Once they have those levers, they can then move state to state to ensure that there will never again be a Republican President or Senate that can block their wishes. They will damned sure make absolutely certain that a wild card like Donald J. Trump will never, ever again disrupt their cozy little advance towards tyranny. What is sad, is in that particular effort, there will be more than a few so called Republicans, that will help them in that desire. They will continue their long march through the institutions that have been the underpinnings of the American concept.
Once they have reached absolute control, there will be only one hope. We’ve been talking about revolution, revolution by the left. Once these leftists are able to exert all elements of national power across the United States, the only hope is that we will move back to the bottom of the pyramid. However this time we hope, it will be patriotic Americans expressing the discontent. It will be Patriotic Americans who will have to begin the decades long fight to restore our birthright.
We can forestall this. Because we are so close to a tipping point, we cannot afford even one more cycle where Democrats own more than the Presidency and one chamber of Congress. We must elect Donald J. Trump to a convincing victory next month. But that won’t be the end. There is one hell of a lot of work…work that will require much more than 4 years. We’ll discuss that next time.
For your convenience, I’ve added a link to all the articles in this series:
Series: Road To Revolution In These United States
