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That's not how it will go.
There's still varieties of rebellion available. Some of those require more patience, some less. They vary in the likely degree of horror involved, and the slow ways tend to be the least horrible.
The goal for Reds ought to be an explicit, effective rejection of federal authority, and the dismantling of Progressive institutions. You don't need to trespass on the White House lawn to do that. Abott is working on it with his actions on the border. The avant-garde of the gun culture is working on it by coordinating contempt for federal firearms law. Ordinary people are doing it when they stop trusting the media and academia, when they cultivate a memory of actual history and deep skepticism of the dominant narrative. All of this establishes a trajectory toward the present system suffering a crisis of legitimacy, which at least potentially might allow something better without huge piles of skulls.
On the other hand, mass bloodshed still has a non-trivial chance of occurring. The largest barriers preventing it are probably the innate virtue of Americans, the lack of desire to seriously hurt members of the outgroup, the memes available for how to inflict harm, and the technology available to lower the barrier of entry to enacting those memes. Of these factors, the innate virtue and lack of desire seem clearly in decline, and the technology is rapidly advancing. What we have is an overhang, a large and growing mass of potential social energy, held in place primarily by memetic inertia. That inertia will not hold forever, and when it gives, a lot of people will probably experience abrupt and significant changes of material circumstance.
People dissatisfied with the current system tend to want to strive to alter it. Many of them fear a stable victory by their enemies, perceive implacable hostility from across the tribal divide, and feel the urge to fight. They feel that if something is not done, horrors will result. It seems to me that they have things almost exactly backward. The problem facing us is not how to prevent a stable dominance by our enemies, but rather how to prevent the destruction of all stability for the foreseeable future.
What you are living through, right now, is the Belle Epoque. It is not going to last forever, so you should enjoy it while you can.
I know, I mostly agree with you, and I'm just having fun.
Though I do find the conversation fascinating, and I can see either side of it. You're obviously right Leroy Jenkinsing is not the way, I find your preferred way of delegitimizing the establishment very appealing, but I also have my fears about people being complacent, or talking the talk, but throwing their chips in with the powers that be, when push comes to shove. I'd probably feel better about it, if I saw a more coherent structure opposing the establishment. The American red tribe may be one, but I'm too far away to judge whether or not that is the case.
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Reds have an answer to that. It's to keep retreating; the best way to ensure there is stability is to ensure there is no conflict, and the best way of doing that in the presence of a hostile force is to do whatever the hostile force wants.
I don't think this is the answer Reds actually have, given the examples I provided of Reds taking concrete action at both the institutional and grassroots level to undermine the existing system. But what is it to you in any case? If Reds succeed you will be unhappy, because things change in ways you won't like. If Reds fail, you will be unhappy because things change in ways you don't like. You don't want things to change, but you are unwilling to accept the way things are now, and you don't seem to have much liked the way they were before either.
Reds will do what they do, the crisis will arrive when it arrives, and you will maintain that there's no hope right up till the moment you transition to complaining that it's all a disaster.
If the Reds were to do something, most likely what they would do is leave in place all the things I don't like that the Blues did, while doing things I don't like of their own. This is not what they claim to want, but it is probably what would happen. I would like some of the things the Reds claim to want (e.g. gun rights), but either they cannot or will not deliver them. But since the if the Reds do nothing, the Blues will continue to do more things I don't like and likely like less than the things the Reds would do, the Blues are still worse.
Will I be wrong?
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