I kinda thought we wouldn’t get a civil war this century. It just doesn’t make sense, the geography isn’t right for it. Red states and blue states are too much interdependent, the parties holding power tend to do so on fairly slim majorities, and the cultural differences are frankly overstated. It’s all the same logic of production, all private ownership backed up and mediated by state constitutions that all look pretty damn similar.
But I guess we’re blundering along into one anyway? Cus everyone across the various leaderships feels urged to act, but none of them want to do the work of thinking it through, so we just get a mess whatever each individual seems to think is the easiest response to hand? This seems bizarre. Like, everyone involved is sleepwalking, they all seem to know they’re sleepwalking, but they expect to just wake up at some point and then its back to business as usual.
Does this post even make any sense? Am I missing something?
It’s not even a red state-blue state divide, it’s an urban/rural divide. City folk and country folk airing grievances at each other, some of them legitimate, but mostly just attributing the failure of neoliberalism to deliver the ideal future they imagined to the other group for having a different set of cultural totems.
Which is why the rhetoric gets more agitated and the stunts more grandiose, but there’s no thinking through the process, as you observe. It’s a very id-driven politics, everyone wants immediate retribution for perceived slights, but it’s all knee jerk, no consideration of the why and how of the situation.
The maddening thing about the urban/rural divide is that over the last ~150 years, the differences between the two have shrunk! By a lot. We all get our food from the grocery store! We all have to drive to get anywhere! We’re all plugged into the same television/internet! And, of course as you point out, WE’RE ALL PLAGUED BY NEOLIBERALISM!
Currently the big divide between rural and urban is racial integration; in lots of cities white people have shrunk from a majority to a plurality, and there’s much greater richess of diversity in cultural influences. On the other hand, lots of rural areas are basically still “whites-only” sunset towns.
That’s why conservatives are obsessed with talking about “sanctuary cities”, “Democrat-run cities”, “urban crime”, “burning down cities”, “city warzone”, it’s just dogwhistles for “we think civil rights was a mistake and segregation never should have ended”.
I don’t know why everyone seems to think it’s ever going to be along a corporate party divide. If civil war breaks out, democrats are probably going to go collaborationist faster than you can say “we’re all in this together”.
Democrats have all the backbone of a pressure cooked chicken, the establishment will not rise up in arms unless Trump overplays his hand so recklessly and violently that a breeze might tip him over. If it starts, it’s gonna be due to some regional economic considerations like energy policy/water autonomy along the Rio Colorado, discontent over land rights and agricultural policy in the Heartland, some shit like that.
huh
I kinda thought we wouldn’t get a civil war this century. It just doesn’t make sense, the geography isn’t right for it. Red states and blue states are too much interdependent, the parties holding power tend to do so on fairly slim majorities, and the cultural differences are frankly overstated. It’s all the same logic of production, all private ownership backed up and mediated by state constitutions that all look pretty damn similar.
But I guess we’re blundering along into one anyway? Cus everyone across the various leaderships feels urged to act, but none of them want to do the work of thinking it through, so we just get a mess whatever each individual seems to think is the easiest response to hand? This seems bizarre. Like, everyone involved is sleepwalking, they all seem to know they’re sleepwalking, but they expect to just wake up at some point and then its back to business as usual.
Does this post even make any sense? Am I missing something?
It’s not even a red state-blue state divide, it’s an urban/rural divide. City folk and country folk airing grievances at each other, some of them legitimate, but mostly just attributing the failure of neoliberalism to deliver the ideal future they imagined to the other group for having a different set of cultural totems.
Which is why the rhetoric gets more agitated and the stunts more grandiose, but there’s no thinking through the process, as you observe. It’s a very id-driven politics, everyone wants immediate retribution for perceived slights, but it’s all knee jerk, no consideration of the why and how of the situation.
The maddening thing about the urban/rural divide is that over the last ~150 years, the differences between the two have shrunk! By a lot. We all get our food from the grocery store! We all have to drive to get anywhere! We’re all plugged into the same television/internet! And, of course as you point out, WE’RE ALL PLAGUED BY NEOLIBERALISM!
aaaaaaghhghghhg
Currently the big divide between rural and urban is racial integration; in lots of cities white people have shrunk from a majority to a plurality, and there’s much greater richess of diversity in cultural influences. On the other hand, lots of rural areas are basically still “whites-only” sunset towns.
That’s why conservatives are obsessed with talking about “sanctuary cities”, “Democrat-run cities”, “urban crime”, “burning down cities”, “city warzone”, it’s just dogwhistles for “we think civil rights was a mistake and segregation never should have ended”.
Yeah… yeah. God but this country never really changes does it? It feels that way sometimes.
There is an urban/rural divide but the red/blue divide is very real.
Rural New England isn’t anything like the rural midwest
I don’t know why everyone seems to think it’s ever going to be along a corporate party divide. If civil war breaks out, democrats are probably going to go collaborationist faster than you can say “we’re all in this together”.
Democrats have all the backbone of a pressure cooked chicken, the establishment will not rise up in arms unless Trump overplays his hand so recklessly and violently that a breeze might tip him over. If it starts, it’s gonna be due to some regional economic considerations like energy policy/water autonomy along the Rio Colorado, discontent over land rights and agricultural policy in the Heartland, some shit like that.