Comment on Looking for answers

• 1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I understand that’s a problem you guys are facing the US. But what will you achieve with violence? You know what trump will do. This is not going to play out like the movies. I can’t sway what your choice will be, but i fear for everyones lives who participate in a civil war with US government, and russia will swoop in and support as Putins plans have intended.

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  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    This is a long term struggle that will take far longer than the next Trump term. And what can Trump really do? I’m expecting what violence to occur to be more acts like Luigi’s. I’m not expecting some rebel army to form up and lay siege to Congress or to United Healthcare’s corporate headquarters. Instead, the path will be similar to other periods of political violence that were contemporaneous with nonviolent social movements in US history.

    There were people killed in the name of worker’s rights. There were people killed in the name of women’s suffrage. John Brown killed in the name of abolition. Black civil rights had acts of violence done its name, as did the women’s and queers rights movements. Mostly these took the form of random small-scale acts of violence by individuals and small groups.

    We’re not talking about a civil war here. These are isolated acts of stochastic violence. We’re talking one or two individuals occasionally taking out a CEO, assassinating a politician, setting a building on fire, planting a bomb, etc. That’s the kind of violence we’ve had in similar historical settings. We’re not going to have some American ISIS that you can wage a bombing campaign against.

    Remember, America is absolutely awash in firearms. Someone doesn’t need to join a formal terrorist group to commit an act of terror. They can just go buy a perfectly legal AR-15 and commit an act of terrorism with it. Giant acts of mass murder probably require a more organized group, but no one is going to try and commit a 9/11 scale attack in the name of health insurance reform. Giant attacks with huge collateral damage aren’t really the kind of thing that appeals to people who are ultimately motivated by a desire to save lives. Expect more Luigis, not more Bin Ladins.

    There is no organization for the US government to wage war on. Imagine every school shooting being substituted for a shooting against the health insurance or other industry. That’s the kind of scenario that could happen if this anti-corporate violence became widespread. Sure, Trump can lock up a Luigi and throw away the key, but that was going to happen anyway. It’s not like anyone commits one of these attacks thinking they’re just going to be able to go back to their lives afterwards.

    What can Trump really do? Is he going to start arresting people for posting pro-Luigi comments on social media? You going to try to prosecute half the country? There aren’t enough jails to hold everyone. And any such crackdown would only create a bunch of sympathetic figures that would serve to radicalize the populace and swing public opinion even more in the direction of meaningful reform.

    Look at what has already happened. One act of violence, and the national conversation has entirely changed. Each act of violence turns up the national temperature just a little bit, and makes peaceful reform that much more palatable. We’ve already seen several new reform bills introduced into Congress in the wake of the shooting. As things continue to degrade, as health insurance becomes ever crueler, as wealth inequality grows ever higher, the national temperature will continue to slowly rise, one act of random unpredictable and unpreventable violence at a time. Eventually some critical threshold will be reached, and the political center, which desires stability above all else, will be moved to finally embrace meaningful reform. This is the pattern that has happened with every major social movement in American history, and it is likely what we will see eventually in this case.

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    • 1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I understand your points, but if we are to believe trumps demeanor, what’s to stop him going full authoritarian, and throwing political protestors into camps? he seems like he want’s to do it with immigrants, what’s stopping him from doing that? This where i enter the thought of civil war. The average person will be complacent, and trumps supporters will join in as a para-military group. YOU will be labelled a terrorist regardless of pulling a luigi. Its not up to you to make that up, its up to the media and the government.

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      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Sure, that may be possible. But again, that would just serve to radicalize people further. If people are being labeled terrorists and put in camps just for venting on social media, expect the level of violence to multiply a hundred fold. People will avoid posting on social media out of fear, but people will be so enraged that the number of people actually willing to resort to violence will increase a hundred fold. Currently Luigi is the rare exception. Put someone’s brother in a camp for posting a picture of Nintendo’s Luigi, and they may pick up a gun.

        And yet, there still wouldn’t be a civil war. There won’t be armies fighting each other on a field of combat. There won’t be an ISIS to wage war on. There would be multiple Luigis per day, each one acting independently, utterly unpredictable and utterly unpreventable. This would make Trump look completely weak and powerless. And even if everyone was too afraid to say it, most of the population would be supporting the Luigis.

        In a nation with widespread access to highly lethal firearms, the government simply cannot prevent single individuals from going on killing sprees. Sure, if a group of people plan an elaborate plot, that creates an opportunity to intervene. But in a case like Luigi’s, it was planned entirely in one man’s head. There’s nothing the government can do to prevent such random lone gunman attacks.

        And this is why I wouldn’t expect Trump to start arresting people just for social media comments. Ultimately it would multiply violence a hundred fold, and it would make Trump look weak and ineffective. And that’s the last thing someone like Trump wants. I would instead expect pressure to be applied to social media companies to wield the ban hammer more vigorously, but actually arresting people for venting on social media seems very unlikely.

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  • RavingGrob@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    You don’t have to look to movies, to see what violence can achieve. And it’s not violence alone that makes the change.

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    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Exactly. It’s the combination of peaceful movements and violent movements that make change possible.

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