In 2017, I am very pessimistic about America's future, to the point that I think the country should seriously consider a National Divorce.
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The Left and Right don't just want different things. They also have different abilities, goals, resources, and senses of propriety.
Meaning: *contemporary political violence from the Left and from the Right will look very different.*
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I took a detailed look at violence in the 1970s in my earlier tweetstorms about DAYS OF RAGE... (links coming next)
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Now, 2017 isn't going to be the 1970s. Goals, situations, and cultures change. The actors want different things. But we can look for hints.
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Like, what kind of people will do this stuff?
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The mental model we have for domestic terrorism in 2017 is shaped by what scares us: mass shooters and jihad. '70s radicals were different.
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'70s radicals wanted to get away with their crimes. They wanted to avoid detection, didn't want to get arrested, didn't want to die.
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Most '70s bombers had no moral objection to killing people, but they also didn't go to any great lengths to maximize body count.
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That's pretty different from 21st-century mass shooters (who tend suicidal) & jihadists (for whom a high body count is part of the message).
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Some suicidal mass murderers choose political targets, though it's uncommon. Overseas jihadists draft depressives, but it takes organization
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When we're talking about domestic political violence, we're mostly talking about *stuff that is coldbloodedly plotted by serious people.*
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So maybe we can hope that political violence in the US, '70s-style, won't go all-out for massive numbers of deaths? Well... maybe.
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The way I see it, domestic conflict in the United States could operate in basically four stages:
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1) cold Civil War 2) targeted political violence, mostly short of murder 3) political violence with murder as the default 4) Civil War II
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The United States should start seriously talking about National Divorce before we get to stage 3.
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We're in Stage 1 now. Stages 2 and 3 are what we're concerned with: the public getting mobilized. What'd that look like, on Left and Right?
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People tend to think that the Right will be an awesome, horrific force in political violence. The SPLC's donations depend on that idea.
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Righties tell themselves that *of course* they'd win a war against Lefties. Tactical Deathbeast vs. Pajama Boy? No contest.
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Why, Righties have thought about what an effective domestic insurrection would look like. Righties have written books and manifestos!
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It's horseshit.
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The truth: Left is a lot more organized & prepared for violence than Right is, and has the advantage of a mainstream more supportive of it.
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You think that's unfair? Okay, well: *imagine an abortion clinic bombing ring getting presidential clemency.* http://www.cnn.com/US/9909/10/faln.clemency.02/index.html …
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Imagine an abortion clinic bomber *getting a comfortable job at an elite university.* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn …
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Outrageous, right? No way the Right could get away with that. But the Left does! And the press gives them cover.
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(This is the "hypocrisy and media bias" section, by the way.)
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