One party hidebound by rules and norms and decorum its opponents are not expected to abide by steadily degrades the rule of law and the popular legitimacy of politics and government -- which is exactly what fascists want.
The fascists will exempt themselves from whatever laws they don't like and establish fiefdoms where their control cannot be contested either internally by elections or by an outside federal authority. They cannibalize the country until they control everything.
The goal is not secession; although the Neo-Confederates of the American fascist movement knee-jerk rely on such language when justifying their authoritarian power grabs.
Secession is counterproductive. They want to control the entire nation. Whenever they're out of power at the federal level, they will undermine its authority to stop them.
But once they're in charge, by hook or by crook, federal law becomes supreme again under a dictator backed up by the captured courts and states.
What the fascists learned from the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights movement is direct conflict is counterproductive. They're not popular.
But it's much easier to take over the government from the inside by corruption, cheating, control of mass media, and unlimited money.
The GOP have installed operatives whenever and everywhere they can for the past 60 years and once they captured the SCOTUS, they could virtually rule by fiat. Now they can act more openly.
If you don't take these people seriously, you're going to wake up one day and your blue state won't protect you.
You won't even have the resources to resist because the fascists will control the federal government. Lawsuits won't work. Elections won't matter. The cops and the troops and the money will all be on the other side.
And I'm afraid as long as most (white) Americans can continue with business as usual, they won't care.
The whole thing probably breaks down eventually. Fascist regimes don't tend to be stable, and the foot soldiers of the movement are trigger-happy freaks so there might be a war first.
But it's pure negligence -- if not complicity -- to let things go that far just so people can avoid an uncomfortable political confrontation in the shot term.
Sadly, that's all the Democratic Party currently has on offer.
This is the thing about walking out non confrontation indefinitely and defining associative identity around 'We can find a non confrontational end around to this' - Something has to give in the whole Theory of Politics that has this as a central feature of the theory when nobody has faith in a bulwark existing and certainly doesn't believe the self styled one actually is.
It's quite the pickle to constantly worry about blowback to the extent of giving away the entire game and succeeding through capitulation outright.
@gwynnion after the last 40 years of "how could this have happened again", the only answer possible is that the Democratic Party is fully and deliberately complicit.
@accretionist anyone who thinks that sitting back and hoping the democrats don't fuck it up is likewise not helping at all; the party needs to fear its base or else it will continue to have no spine.
@accretionist the party has been working since Clinton to manifest Trump, and finally all their hard work reaching across the aisle paid off. Blaming voters for turning away from their do-nothingness while the world burns is a profane twisting of the truth and culpability.
@accretionist the [Hillary] Clinton campaign literally pushed for Trump to be the candidate, because they thought it would be the laziest "you can't vote for the other guy" ever. If you removed your head from your ass for just one second, you'd be less full of shit.
@accretionist failure to stop it, for the last 40 years, is indistinguishable from malicious complicity. But it doesn't matter whether or not they were malicious, or whether or not they actually wanted to enable the most recent fascist wave. What matters is that they didn't care enough to try to stop it when they could have, and that is not the fault of people who they think should vote for them but don't.
This is not cynicism. This is hope it's not too late to change the party.
@accretionist intent is irrelevant, all that matters is impact, and the Democratic Party has positioned itself as the only other option, which means it is responsible for where we are. That's all that matters.
If they can own it up to it and change, we have a chance. If they, like you, insist that critique is treason, we're all fucked.
@accretionist I've not lost sight of the threat and enemy of fascism; I'm saying that without change, the Democratic Party is unfit to do anything about fascism, and without critique, it will not change.
Trump is not a Boss Fight; he's a symptom of structural failure, and without addressing the underlying issues, it'll be one trump after another, forever, until it's totally destroyed and causing far more damage than it should have. Don't be a fucking childish and partisan simp.
@accretionist try having a window of perspective that exceeds six months, and consider that someone may find the selection lacking.
That person, me, will not vote for Trump. But they also won't vote for Biden, or work the phones, or do anything else, because the Democratic Party pisses on them. Would Trump be worse? Maybe, but this is not an acute phenomenon. It's the result of literal decades of obstructing progress, and if you can't see that, there's no point.
I'm continually amazed at how short-sighted and stupid "blue no matter what" people are. "All that matters is defeating Trump, so that all the terrible things Republicans want to do are done by a Democrat" is not a winning strategy.
Like, look in the goddamn mirror and try asking how we got here, Jesus fucking Christ. Like, look at this fuckery from just five years ago:
@accretionist "the system is unchangeable, therefore criticizing the party is treason" is not the compelling argument it sounds like in your mind.
Supporting the dems means wanting them to be viable, which means pointing out that the last 40 years have been an avoidable shit-show that they are complicit in, so they should fucking stop.
So long as they make sure Republicans are always nipping at our heels, breathing down our necks and grabbing us by the crotch, we'll stay so desperate for the Democrats' help we won't dare to challenge them.
And if that controlled opposition spins OUT of control, oh well. The war profiteers love turning whole nations into smoking war-torn playgrounds of plunder.
@gwynnion
No one ever mentions that these vile phony religious organizations and fascist "think tanks" have so much money to overturn democracy because THEY PAY NO TAXES! We must overturn the entire tax-exempt system. It is horribly corrupted and extremely unfair to regular citizens. Tax the f*ck out of these grifters. What will it take to do this? Just a new law for the IRS?
@gwynnion “Secession is counterproductive. They want to control the entire nation.” An excellent point.
Also, secession is undoable, no only is there no “there” to secede to (ie: states are varying shades of purple; all of ‘em), even if they managed to sift that out, the fash would lose the economic power because it sure ain’t with “their” people.
Also fascism requires you to have people to crush, its not any "fun" without that (spits)
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