These military/intelligence purges are worrying Feels like people are way too complacent and keep-calm-and-carry-on mode
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It’s depressing that the *best* case explanation here is simply buying more time to steal stuff, run grifts for a few weeks longer, etc. The worst case is an unintentional unraveling. It doesn’t have to be intended and cunningly schemed to go badly. Improv under chaos is enough.
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This sort of faith assumes clean fights. The way it would actually work is: he does something sketchy, crowd gathers that one side calls peaceful protests and the other labels terrorism. Cops give way to NG, and then regular military. Ends with tanks on the streets.https://twitter.com/AdamdelCano/status/1326366856257687552 …
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The BLM protests over the summer provided a nice dry run for a whole class of unraveling excuses. Throw in a few false flags and the situation gets much more programmable than people think.
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Note that a peaceful legitimate transfer of power is *already* no longer an option. They’ve already undermined faith in the process with a third of the population, for a lifetime. Legitimacy isn’t an objective feature of a set of institutions but a high-inertia perception.
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We still talk of Florida 2000, and FDR’s shenanigans in the 30s. The living system is not even the nerdy, poorly play-tested tabletop game of 1787. It’s that plus a history of sketchy hacks and patches and service packs. We’re at Windows 95 stage of evolution, headed to Vista.pic.twitter.com/lgZmaNCFdy
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The highest likelihood outcome is still just a bumpy and frayed but otherwise non-crisis transition. Which people will jump to see as validation that the system just “works” and all thus agonizing was needless worry. Exactly the wrong conclusion to draw.
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When near misses increase in frequency gradually, fragility is increasing. The adjacent possible is turning into a dangerous abyss. Just because you walked a tightrope successfully doesn’t mean it’s the same as an ordinary path.
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Also don’t forget: near misses aren’t harmless. They just hurt people and things at the margins. If you’re one of the sanguine, secure ones, you won’t be hurt.
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Murder is impossible because it is illegal The United States cannot unravel or slide into autocracy because the constitution forbids it
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End of conversation
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Yes, but, and I think this is important and evidenced by the last few years: they have no real clue how to operate said levers.
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