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Originally Posted by New Era
This is consistent with the language being tossed around on Parler. There are a cadre of conservatives that want to start "cleansing" the country of Democrats, liberals, college professors, and anyone sympathetic to their cause. This is some of the scariest #### I've seen since moving to the states and really gives me pause about the decision. I can't believe people have got to the point of suggesting mass murder on a national level. The empire is crumbling.
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Sadly, I think this sort of thing is inevitable, and not restricted to just the right wing (or left wing) loonies.
There's an opinion piece in the Washington Post today with the title "If the losing party won't accept defeat, democracy is dead." I would argue that the next link in that sound chain of reasoning is "If democracy is dead, war has begun."
As others have already pointed out, a civil war based on clean geographical boundaries is impossible. The alternative, therefore, is a narrower form of guerilla warfare, including acts of domestic terrorism and assassinations. These are really the only courses of action a population can take when democratic institutions fail, they do not consent to being governed by those in power, and they can't raise an army.
If Trump succeeds in convincing enough of his supporters (or just enough of the right kind of his supporters) that democracy is dead, that belief will justify "freedom fighting," including acts that might otherwise be considered domestic terrorism. Similarly, if Trump succeeds in overturning democracy and seizing autocratic power, that will signal to those on the left that democracy is dead, and that belief will justify their engaging in exactly the same sorts of acts. In both cases, those acts would be justified not only against the government in question, but the supporters of that government.
At the end of the day, when a population decides that the rules of the game they've agreed to have been broken or no longer apply, we go back to the tried and true rules that have always underpinned governments throughout human history: force (i.e. violence and war).
This is why the game the Republicans are playing is exceedingly dangerous. The longer it goes on, the more likely someone decides to take dramatic "patriotic" action. Then one thing leads to another...