I've followed this trend since the first journal articles, opinion polls and warnings in books (like Levitsky's How Democracies Die, 2016 or Mounk's The People vs. Democracy, also 2016). We've now crossed more than a few "Rubicons." If we hear more about the dangers than previously as you and some comments suggest, it is important to ask how many citizens, and which ones, take these warnings seriously.
The GOP had already evolved what we now call an "alternate knowledge/alternative facts" industry long before Trump. Even in past decades,it was all but impossible to have a meeting of minds with people weened on the wild west of conservative talk radio which began in the 80s. By the age of Sarah Palin, Birtherism and the Tea Party, and the concurrent bashing of "outsiders" and disadvantaged minorities as enemies (Arabs, Muslims, Mexicans, blacks et al.), the threat of potentially violent unraveling of the US already struck me as very real. At the time, I easily imagined an assassination attempt on Obama serving as the catalyst, so fierce was the backlash against "Barack Hussein Obama" who was being described by many on the Right as, by turns, a terrorist, Muslim/Islamist, Arab extremist, ex-Talabani, socialist, communist, America-hater etc. -- I mean there was just an inordinate degree of hate, fake news and the will among some on the Right to do damage. The race issue reared its head as it had not since the 60s during his second term, and BLM (which has its own problems imo) was born in hostile opposition-- understandably-- to the resurgent racism. All this was combined with the upsurge in open carry gun laws even without permits. This really shows the stupidity and imprudence of our legal and political actors esp. at State levels. The image of nativists protesting "socialist government" at Tea Party rallies with guns in the open was increasingly common in the early 2010s.
Two things stand out in my memory of Trump from these years: 1) He rose to political "relevance" as a Birther who was constantly on TV saying that Obama was not a citizen and thus not a legitimate president (this is too often forgotten now, at a time when Biden is also considered illegitimate by Trump and his followers). 2) He made the disturbing and prescient claim that he could get away with shooting innocent bystanders on 5th Avenue, and still be loved and get elected. In simplest terms, violence and the condemnation of legitimate government as illegitimate were trademarks of Trumpism from the beginning.
In this context, where are we now in terms of gun laws in the post 1/6 Insurrection era, as you write about the potential for some kind of civil war? As statistica reports this is AFTER 1/6:
Texas recently became the 21st state which does not require permits for the open or concealed carry of firearms. The law change went into effect September 1, 2021. Texas was the sixth state to enact so-called constitutional carry laws this year. Utah's new law came into effect in early May. Montana followed on June 1, Iowa and Tennessee on July 1 and Arkansas in late August. Oklahoma, South Dakota and Kentucky had already done away with all carry permit requirements in 2019.For many decades, Vermont was the only state with these types of laws, which is why the practice is sometimes also referred to as “Vermont carry”. In 2011, Wyoming was the first state to enact or re-introduce similar laws.Throughout the U.S., there are nine states requiring permits for open and concealed carry. Another five (plus Washington D.C.) require permits for concealed carry and prohibit the open carry of most guns. 15 states allow the open carry of guns without a permit while requiring one for concealed carry (no states do it the other way around).
While well-heeled academics in think-tanks and universities, and sympathetic journalists continue to warn of democratic backslide, creeping authoritarianism and the potential for some kind of civil war become more and more realistic possibilities. And laws allowing citizens to arm themselves to the teeth in public proliferate.
If armed struggle emerges in earnest, though, I imagine it will look more like the Time of Troubles in Ireland, with bombings like the Oklahoma one of the 90s becoming a preferred method of "resistance" rather than anything resembling conventional warfare. The US Army could quash any resistance other than a slow and steady guerilla insurgency like the ones we keep losing to abroad (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc.). Ethnonationalists and other militant citizen-groups have learned these lessons.
Kathleen Belew -- author of Bring The War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (2018) which we discussed here-- testified before congress on the severity of the threat. Biden had promised to put "teeth" into laws to stop the growth and violence of domestic terrorists, but is completely detached from the issue at this point, blindly going on as if his power is secure. His seeming complacency is spooky when one considers the following:
36% of Americans say that President Joe Biden did not legitimately get enough votes to win the presidency. That 36% includes 23% who falsely say there is solid evidence that Biden did not win, and 13% who say that is their suspicion only.
Many more also say they distrust mainstream media-- and, according to Gallup, 34% now distrust mainstream media entirely-- which is why I take little comfort in the thought that a few more articles about the threat to our democracy are now appearing. Only 7% of Americans have "a great deal" of trust, and 29% a "fair amount of trust" in the media. These are the second lowest figures on record. I don't claim the media deserves anything like "complete trust," but if current trends continue, Americans won't even believe traffic or weather reports soon enough. Where, then, is our common stock of knowledge as citizens to be found? Nowhere. We're way past the point where corrective information and clarion calls are capable of quelling the slo-mo GOP attempt to capture the gov't and make of it something similar to Hungary's authoritarianism or, as the euphemism goes "illiberalism"--Viktor Orban's preferred term. A couple of thoughts in light of all this.
1) This train has been rolling in to the station for years, and nobody did anything in terms of legal and political measures to thwart the trend. Indeed the message of the gun laws I mentioned is ominous in the context of increasing militant opposition to the gov't including domestic terrorism; and in the context of the greater developed world having put an end to letting people walk around with deadly weapons (and murder rates in Japan, Switzerland, and others quickly went way down strict laws were implemented). See for example this and this. We-- the proverbial "leader of the free world"-- lead the developed world in the legal and political encouragement of an increasingly armed citizenry at a most volatile moment.
2) Even more troubling is the now almost-complete breakdown of what sociologists sometimes call the constitution of legitimate knowledge, which I alluded to in terms of trust of media. It goes well beyond media, though. For the better part of the 20th and early 21st C, there was a widespread, bipartisan ambit within which putatively legitimate/credible facts were distinguished from rumor, urban legend, unsourced claims, bald assertions (i.e no evidence) etc. A fact check by a reputable outfit meant something. Government agencies and reputable institutions such as research universities and NGOs (whether left or right of center) were taken to be responsible for supporting the facts they adduced, and sharing the evidence with the public in published documents. Institutions that served as gatekeepers of scientific and medical knowledge were seen as basically trustworthy-- and certainly not as hotbeds of conspiratorial cabals! In the realm of media, AP, Reuters, the PBS News Hour, The NY Times, WaPo, Boston Globe, Network News and even the few actual journalists at Fox like Chris Wallace, Brit Hume and Shepard Smith, were all part of the constitution of legitimate knowledge.
In recent years fringe outlets became increasingly legitimate in the eyes of non-fringe rank and file Republicans, as their official leaders welcomed fringe elements into the highest echelons of power-- as when Steve Bannon was put on the National Security Council in 2017. While Trump denounced most MSM as "fake news" he rose to power giving people like Alex Jones of InfoWars interviews, saying, "Your reputation is amazing. I won't let you down," at the time. He continued to plug InfoWars and other similar sites and their videos on Twitter right through 2020. He wasted no time in testing the bounds of his capacity to contradict media reports without consequence. That was the real point of his claim that his inauguration was the biggest in history despite photographic evidence to the contrary.
Unfortunately most people misread this Orwelian experiment as a silly index of Trump's narcissism and nothing more. It was part of his campaign of discrediting traditional institutions of legitimate knowledge (be it the intel community, science, research universities, judges that stood in his way (e.g. the "Mexican judge" who was actually born in the US, gov't agencies, media outlets etc.). In this regard, one of his most memorable (to me) speech lines delivered when his own credibility and that of of some (like Mike Flynn) on his team was being deeply questioned in media reports, is the line "What you see and hear and read isn't happening."
Negating reports proved to be remarkably effective even in the absence of argument or evidence. He always gave credibility to the "entertainment" (Fox and Friends, Hannity, Tucker) rather than "news" division at Fox, helping to create a situation where the distinction is now obliterated as the last of the journalists abandon the Fox ship. Fox has dropped the BS fig leaf of "fair and balanced" (which rested on the claim that they had "real journalists" like Wallace in addition to their "entertainment" line-up in the evening). The motto "fair and balanced" has been replaced with, the sadly more accurate, "most watched, most trusted." Gone are Shep Smith, Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, and even National Review conservatives who held on until Tucker's behavior became too much for even them-- Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes. Tucker, Hannity, Ingraham no longer say things that the Mike Wallaces of Fox used to contradict. Now Tucker Carlson needn't worry about his crackpot stories being debunked by the "real journalists," since almost none are left. Tucker IS news to millions of Americans in a way that simply was not the case just 4 or 5 years ago. He holds up authoritarian countries like Poland and Hungary as exemplars for the GOP, as when he took his show to Budapest and lavished sychophantic praise on the country's strongman, Viktor Orban in interviews. Republicans who don't know the histories of these countries now believe they are utterly benign and worthy of emulation.
If Civil Wars require contesting claims re: legitimate knowledge, we now have descended into something approaching a formal war of cognitive worlds-- a contest for power and legitimacy that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Dim-witted, gun toting Q and replacement theory devotees are now among our elected representatives, while the more educated power-seekers in the GOP like Josh Hawley try to dumb themselves down to conform to a similar public image. Who thought in 2015 that large segments of the population, and significant numbers of elected politicians would maintain that a moderate like Joe Biden is a communist plant, or that vaccines are weaponized by our own government and masks are part of a conspiracy to "muzzle" our first amendment rights? All this would be consigned to the land of InfoWars and Right Wing radio crazies. Nobody could have imagined that a winning strategy in national election would soon be the claim that you will carry a Glock around on the Hill, as with Boebert, just in case she runs into, perhaps, dangerously evil communist pedophiles in the hallways. But as stats you cite show, mainstream news is trusted less and less relative to Fox and far-right outlets. The government agencies Trump all but eviscerated are not trusted at all. There has been mismanagement and blame to go around, but the absolute nonsense and conspiracy theory around the CDC, Fauci, EPA, FDA, and many others is unprecedented even in the context of an anti-big-gov't GOP. The paranoia and hate now being exhibited regularly is exactly what one might expect on the eve of violent political conflict or subnational strife (perhaps low-level civil war).
In short, it doesn't matter now that there are a few more warning articles coming in WAY too late (I started following and participating in the ringing of alarms in 2015-16 and it went largely unheeded to present even after a coup attempt involving powerful Republicans and their lawyers). At this point no factual reporting or expert testimonies in congress will do much. Not when members of congress openly scoff at all oversight and investigation efforts. Not when ~40% of Americans believe the Big Lie and screen out or deny all charges of complicity on the part of their elected representatives-- several of whom were involved in the coup attempt.
We've reached the point where the battle is for hearts and minds. Those are never won over by factual and logical arguments, because what is now in question is *trust* in the US Government and the established institutions responsible for constituting and disseminating legitimate knowledge. (emphasis added) There used to be a mostly trusted political knowledge ecosystem within which which people of different ideologies could then argue. The majority of facts were not usually seriously questioned rather policy responses TO THE FACTS were. But when elected officials, media outlets, and millions of voters no longer recognize a legitimate meeting ground of political and societal knowledge even to the point of recognizing election outcomes as valid, then we already have (in embryonic form) two "nations" or peoples with shared emotional as well as cognitive investment in symbols, memories, worldview, aspirations and beliefs.
Biden and his admin. seem unconcerned. While he worries about the security of Ukraine, Biden seems unaware that he functions politically at the edge of an abyss. He has neglected to act decisively to fight the domestic terror and punish those who engaged in now-established treasonous plotting to overturn our democracy. That may well prove to be a fatal oversight. Each day that passes makes it less likely that any of this can be checked or thwarted.
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