The other day in an interview, Donald Trump began talking about a plane “almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms” travelling across America to organise anti-police protests. Noting this rather alarming line of thought from the commander-in-chief, the historian Simon Schama pointed out that such “fantasies” can have real world effects.
Trump, Schama claimed, was occupying the same territory as the French peasants did in 1789: in the summer of that year a Great Fear descended, including a terror of “brigands” working for the aristocracy. The brigands did not actually exist but the fear caused the peasants to organise themselves and become the armed guard of the revolution.
Trump’s brigands — the imaginary men in dark clothes — could be hugely useful, for as Schama put it: “In this case they could be the phalanxes of American counter-revolution — or fascism.” Might this be true?
There has been much chatter about what Donald Trump might do if he were to lose in November. Or, more to the point, what might he do if he wins — or seems to be winning — on the night of the election only to lose when postal votes are counted over the days (or weeks) afterwards? Who knows what his supporters might be capable of?
But there is another question, asked less often but certainly looming in the background this autumn. What would the Democrats and their supporters do if they lost?
Not Joe Biden — we know he’d go quietly. But what about the anti-Trump protesters on the streets of Portland, Oregon, of Seattle, of Chicago, of Washington DC itself. The bandana wearers. The stone throwers. The corner store looters.
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SubscribeI follow US events from Brazil and it is unbelievable that you are giving platform to such weird kind of “social theory”. So, yeah, loot everything and then…? This is so stupid that it is difficult to believe that a first world country could really debate such ideas. Seriously. Just stop.
It would seem that there is another virus infecting the US, one that makes clever people insane.
These people are not ‘clever’.
Anyone who can write a book like Vicky Osterweils and expect people to pay $28 for it has to has some kind of twisted talent, I’m sure you would agre?
“For all the complaints about Russian interference and other criminality, they sucked it up in 2016.”
Um, are you joking?
Exactly. They didn’t suck it up at all. Instead, they pursued a paranoid, multi-year Russia collusion conspiracy theory, followed by a demented, unfounded and wicked attempt at impeachment.
They could have spent that time going away, being honest about why they lost, and coming back with a decent candidate such as Tulsi Gabbard, and policies that address the needs of the American people.
But they didn’t do that because they are bought and sold by the military-healthcare-pharma-surveillance-complex, and happy to keep on selling the US to China.
As Jimmy Dore and so many others have said, there is just one party: The War Party, comprised of the traditional Republicans and the vast majority of the Democrats. Trump has upset their evil cartel and they don’t like it. Just recently both Democrats and Republicans voted overwhelmingly against Trump’s plans to bring back 5,000 troops from Afghanistan. The MSM never tells you this.
Thanks to this C-19 nonsense most of the US force in Afghanistan has been worse than useless for the last six months.
A a ‘live firing’ training area, its days are over and Mr Trump is quite correct in leaving the place to its own murderous devices.
I trust he is preparing for the inevitable Great Chinese War, that we are all so much looking forward to?
It’s not trump supporters who have been rioting for months its the nice people on the left in the Democratic Party who are burning down America. 10 minutes on YouTube and you can see a more rounded picture than the media shows you in this country.
Trump will win biggly maybe even a Reagan 49 states win.
Then things get interesting
I don’t think Trump will win 49 states. But all the police unions are coming out for him, and many Democrat sheriffs etc are switching to Trump. Then you have the fact that people are literally scared to say that they will vote for Trump when asked. As such, you can’t believe any of the polls except perhaps Rasmusen. At the moment he looks likely to win by a larger margin than in 2016, but not 49 states.
And yes, as you say, to get the real picture you have to watch various people on YouTube. (If I list them, my post will be removed). Even so, it’s always nice to see people like Justin Webb wake up to some form reality, albeit some months after the rest of us. Really, has there ever been a more useless and deceitful entity than today MSM?
Justin Webb works for the BBC and he therefore can not be trusted.
The bias of the BBC towards trump has blinded them to any reality apart from orange man bad.
Even today there was an article on the BBC news website about republicans leaving to go to the democrats! What about the walk away movement? (Subjected to anti gay insults and physical attacks by BLM) what about blexit? Black democrats leaving the party?
November will follow our election path, put down and insult your country = lose
Slightly optimistic and be positive about your country = win
” Justin Webb works for the BBC and he therefore can not be trusted.”
Now that’s just silly. Instead of a baseless ad hominem, how about identifying actual miss reports in the article.
Ad institutinem, rather. I also share the opinion that the BBC has changed a lot since the times Justin was a North American editor, and not for the better. So much so that I now use the BBC only for the weather forecast, and even that is often wrong.
This is not a silly or unfounded statement. One should not trust a single word the BBC says.
This is the key point, isn’t it. There is hysterical fulmination in the media about whether Trump will instigate riots if he loses. But only one side has shown any propensity for rioting in pursuit of its political ends.
My personal gut instinct is that like in the 1850s this has gone too far, and will have to end in a showdown. One side will survive, and the other will be decimated. The only question remaining, then, is: will you and those you love be the side that survives?
I fear that rioting is inevitable. I hope not. But if Trump wins there will be rioting. If Biden wins, the recent rioters will be emboldened by the ‘peaceful protest’ rhetoric of the Dems over the last few months, notwithstanding Biden’s recent condemnation. So they will continue to riot wih impunity. It is going to be very painful, whatever happens.
Isn’t the whole, Trump won’t accept the result, narrative been pushed by the Democrats, really just evidence that they have no intention of accepting the result?
Yes.
Justin Webb highlights an issue that we should talk about more. At what point do we say the far Left has gone too far? There seems to be a consensus in the West when the far Right pushes the boundaries and the alarm bells sound. Not so with the Left. Perhaps this situation provides the opportunity for such debate preventing the need for the apocalyptic reactions Webb hints at.
A very frightening prospect, but I think it’s worse. I don’t think Biden will go quietly (he has already recruited 600 attorneys to challenge local results which will throw the election and inauguration process into total chaos and could result in neither Trump or Biden becoming president) and there is no way you can say the democrats sucked it up in 2016. The “Stop Trump” campaign stated by Democrats is the seed bed from which a lot of this trouble has grown.
What is really frightening is the implication of the idea that looting and rioting is some how “liberating” and makes things “free”. You only have to look at what happened to the woman in a restaurant who refused to give the salute demanding by the mob or how we have people denouncing themselves like the accused in one of Stalin’s show trials after being tortured until they break mentally to realise that it is a small step to supporting violence against those who don’t conform and an even small step to accepting people who oppose the “mob” will end up dying as a result of that violence.
What is worse is the XR and BLM movements in this country follow the same writers!
What is this talk of Trump inciting violence? The left has been doing that for quite some time now. This Vicky Osterweil first published her idiocy in essay form in The New Inquiry back in 2014 after Ferguson. That to me means she bears significant responsibility for everything happening today.
It’s a simple equation, the longer the Left eats itself, the more likely Trump is to return.
It’s interesting that the journalists on the ground filming for their YouTube channels, Twitter, Facebook etc are saying they are seeing the same faces around the country. People arrested in Kenosha came from around 44 different cities. Andy Ngo used to have booking pictures stating where people had travelled to Portland from but this doesn’t appear on the latest ones no idea why. The out of town protestors does seem to be a developing story.
“Donald Trump’s disinclination to accept defeat is rather well known”- I”m not so sure about that. Perhaps that’s how he talks, because he is pretty much all talk, but he does have a long history of business ‘defeats’, ie. bankruptcies, his casinos, hotels, university, steaks etc.. I think he’s pretty well used to it. I don’t think we have much to fear from him (famous last words).
A lot of the “what Trump would do if he loses…” stuff sounds like projection from the left. It has a lot in common with anti-semitism, which lacks the imagination to do anything but project fantasies based on what they themselves were doing. For example, the medieval blood libels (the ones about sacrificing Christian children) began within a few years of the first crusade’s sadistic rampage through Jewish communities in Europe on its way to liberate the Holy Land.
Following James Lindsay @ConceptualJames gives great insight into the roots of this insanity
I wrote a Guest Post for the excellent blogger Farenheit 211(who has himself been subject to persecution by the forces of woke) on this theme which posters may care to peruse
Farenheit 211 Guest Post
‘Woke’ folk can be deeply unpleasant”
18/5/2020
This is no more than a minor disturbance compared to the antics of the late 60’s.
The National Guard should be easily able to sweep ‘them’ away with a “whiff of grapeshot”.
“Mystal concludes: “I knew a majority of white people would revert to form and regress to their mean, because a majority of white people were always going to value their own comfort over justice for Black people.”
Yet another racist who capitalises “black” while not capitalising “white”. It is disgusting that this passes unchallenged.
On the point of counter-American Revolution, that already happened 150 years ago, when Lincoln fought a war for the right of the Feds to impose arbitrary taxation and spend it on special interest projects. Imperial Washington DC took the role once occupied by Imperial London.
The progression of the last 150 years has been ever greater usurpations of power and disregard of constitutional protections. In short, the Imperial power is way too important to reside in another team’s hands under any circumstances…
Meanwhile I much prefer the Counterpunch essay by Paul Street titled Trump Knows What He Is Doing. An essay which connects all of the dots re what Trump does, with the help of the ultra obnoxious toady William Barr.
The Counterpunch website provides a refreshing alternative to the now everywhere right-wing propaganda machine. Or what Paul Brock described in his 2004 book The Republican Noise Machine which is now stronger than ever
Do you thin the New York Times is part of this “right-wing propaganda machine” you range about?