The Dark Future of the USA
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We have three retired generals contemplating a scenario where a military coup takes place in the USA.
https://news.yahoo.com/generals-warn-divided-military-possible-142837801.html
We now have a CIA advisor suggest a looming new civil war
And a new word for us
“anocracy” – “somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state”.
Are things in America really that bad?
Originally, I thought January 6 was simply a demagogue who incited a rally crowd into becoming a riotous mob. But we have revelations now such as from Jim Jordan and Meadows that indicates ambitions to create a situation to subvert the inauguration.
Pentagon officials issued detailed new rules Monday prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities.
The new policy lays out in detail the banned activities, which range from advocating terrorism or supporting the overthrow of the government to fundraising or rallying on behalf of an extremist group or “liking” or reposting extremist views on social media.
https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-military-extremism-02c18e646805ede69802644e44aeb37a
2024 – the Second American Civil War?
The Newsweek article does not mention this type of militia, they do not support Donald Trump, Biden, the Republican or the Democratic Party. There is also another group that it does not mention which is the Austin Red Guards, they are Maoists, and they have the support of many Latinos and Asians
The US could be under a rightwing dictatorship by 2030, Thomas Homer-Dixon, founding director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, a Canadian political science professor has warned.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/03/us-rightwing-dictatorship-2030-trump-canada
“By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a rightwing dictatorship.”</em
“We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,”
What is the difference between a right-wing dictatorship and a left-wing dictatorship?
I don’t think we can give much credence to this “political scientist”. He is ignoring the fact that the USA still has many federal features and that this means its central government is comparatively weaker than its European counterparts. A federal government controlled by a dictator would not be able to impose its will on those states such as California, New York and New England which could be expected to oppose a dictatorship. It ain’t going to happen. Yet another scare story.
Supportive I think of your position is Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague, authors of The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and People Who Stopped It, who say Trump was ultimately stopped by “the integrity of hundreds of obscure Americans from every walk of life, state and local officials, judges and election workers. Many of them Republicans and some Trump supporters”.
It is also reflected by the consensus of opinion in a right-wing discussion list I visit.
ALB’s complacent conclusion that ‘it ain’t going to happen’ is belied by his own scenario in which Democratic states oppose a Trump presidency. The federal dictator could impose his will because he would be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, provided that the top brass recognized him as president.
Yes, many elected and appointed officials within the machinery of government have resisted Trump, but Trump and his supporters and funders are working systematically to ensure that next time Trump loyalists will occupy as many key positions as possible. The outcome is uncertain, but a scenario in which resistance grows progressively weaker cannot be e excluded.
I wasn’t necessarily thinking of a Trump dictatorship but of any dictatorship. I listed those states because they were the most politically and industrially developed parts of the USA and a modern capitalist industrial system cannot be run, at least not for long or efficiently, as a political or military dictatorship.
I am prepared to take on a bet with you: that in 2030 (if both Trump and me are still around) the USA won’t be a political dictatorship (ie. no elections, opposition parties banned including us, political opponents in jail, press and media censorship, etc).
How much will you wager that it will be?
I don’t think that a dictatorship or fascism is going to be imposed in the USA, it is a scares propaganda, as they did in Chile with the scare of post fascism made by the left and the social democrats
The USA is a federalized republic and several states are not going to follow that type of measure and one of the largest ones which are California is not going to follow that, and another one in New York state, the state of California in a landslide rejected the pretenses of the right-wingers during the recall, the state of New York is trying to place Trump in jail and they are close to doing that to destroy his political career, he is going to be facing many criminals and civil lawsuits
I think that all that talks about the civil war is just talks, it is not going to happen even though there are thousands of armed peoples, they might be squashed by the military forces of the states and the ruling itself is not going to allow that either, most of those peoples are living in the 1776 and during the time of Abraham Lincoln
As Adam has said an industrial society can not be run by a brutal military dictatorship for a long time and the best examples have been some countries in Latin America like Argentina and Brasil, even more, some have been overthrown by the USA ruling to further develop the industrialization of the country like in the Dominican Republic.
For more than 200 years the USA citizens have been accustomed to electing their own officials and they are not going to accept a dictatorship where every constitutional right would be eliminated including elections
Capitalism can exist under authoritarian regimes, China and Vietnam one-party states, being examples.
Totalitarianism can co-exist with oligarchal dictators, Russia under Putin being one.
Are they military dictatorships?
Of course capitalism can, does and has existed under totalitarian and authoritarian political regimes. But that is it not the point.
The point is whether or not this is best type of political superstructure for capitalism. Is it the best political framework for the operation of capitalist economic system of production for profit? The collapse of the USSR and the relaxation of state economic control in China suggests that it is not.
There are various reasons why “bourgeois democracy” (for want of a better term) is best, such as one-party control allowing the party’s leaders to plunder capitalist profits which a system of ins and outs and “the rule of law” avoid; and modern technology requiring an educated working class and a degree of willing participation not simply dumb acquiescence.
The big test of this theory is admittedly China but the jury is still out on this. China’s GDP has gone up quite fast but this always happens when subsistence farmers producing for their own needs are incorporated into the capitalist economy since GDP measures precisely economic exchanges. But I suggest that it is more likely that China will be less of a dictatorship in 2030 than that the USA will be a dictatorship.
Autocrats rely on the loyalty of their military and sometimes create their own paramilitaries to enforce their rule. The Nazi SA/SS, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, for example
I think we should not mistake Trumpism and the associated right-wing movements and MAGA Republicans as being rational. They are crazies.
There is much more akin to cults and closer to theocracies. How can any reasonable person believe the QAnon or the tele-evangelists fundamentalist creed. Yet we can count those in the millions in the USA, Not yet a majority, gratefully, but in sufficient numbers to be politically significant.
There is no absolute certainty. Will the US shift right-wards, In a few months we will see if the 2022 Mid-Terms reward or punish the Democratic Party.
If they lose more presence in the red states these will persevere with imposing further gerrymandering and voter limitations.
The case is being made as Stephen S says, to shift power away from the federal level to the state and district. Is it a coincidence we find local school boards the centre of controversies on CRT and vaccines? They are emasculating the influence of who they call the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) within the Republican Party such as Cheyney and McCarthy. The “sensible” Republicans are being ousted.
Politics in the USA is becoming polarised and believe me in my visits to right-wing discussion groups, anything mildly liberal is described as leftist and socialist.
Atifa is portrayed as some sort of giant entity and BLM a tool of George Soros. Republican judges laying down unpopular decisions to the right are now pinkos.
Civil war, though? Wars between the various states? Doubtful. The US Military mutinying? Unlikely.
But already Republican regions are seeking secession to join other Red states.
Civil unrest, terrorist acts, riots and mob action with the National Guard being deployed and siding with the “blue lives matter” and not the “black lives matter” will make the difference between dictatorship and democracy a distinction without a difference.
A police state is very possible.
A return to red scare McCarthyism, a possibility.
The end of the separation between state and church, not impossible.Just how many churches have lost their tax exemption status for endorsing political candidates? Zero.
Just add to the mix, climate change, refugee influx, wars abroad yet another plague and we will see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…And now where is the good news…
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