Is it me? Even leaving aside the jacquerie underway in Europe, it seems, as we approach our midterm elections, that things are getting more Schmittian over here every day, and that talk of civil war is increasingly normalized.
The political analyst Jennica Pounds, who calls herself “Data Republican“, suggests that plans are underway on the Left for what’s called a “color revolution” in the wake of the midterms. You can read a brief article about it here, and Auron Macintyre discusses it in a recent podcast, here.
The Left is FAR more organized than we are. It’s in their nature. They use power to consolidate power; people who just want to be left alone use power to dismantle it.
I have been saying for years that we are almost certainly headed for trouble; in 2013 I wrote:
America’s ideological landscape is like the continent itself: transected by deep fault-lines at the irregular boundaries of rigid plates. Though crushed tightly together, these great masses seek to move in different directions, and so they strain relentlessly against one another. The pressure builds, and builds — until, sooner or later, it must release itself in a destructive convulsion.
Two years ago I outlined three possible futures:
1) The two sides just say “aw shucks” and hug it out, and their fundamental, incommensurable differences simply vanish;
2) The nation finds some pathway to a “divorce”;
3) One side crushes and subjugates/eliminates the other.
I think it’s safe to say 1) isn’t going to happen. (Correct me if you think I’m wrong.) So: what is going to happen?
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The color revolution model undermines the legitimacy of a state by forcing it to “crack down” on “mostly peaceful protestors” with “legitimate grievances,” and then representing the “crackdown” as “police brutality.” States are often brutal and protestors often have legitimate grievances, but in a color revolution the protests and brutality are, in a sense, staged to shock and revolt domestic and international opinion.
The ICE riots in Minneapolis were the most recent example of the tactic stateside. Two protestors were killed, making the Trump administration appear even more villainous in the eyes of the Left, but also causing aggressive deportations to end, making the Trump administration appear craven and useless in the eyes of the Right. So, it’s all good to an enemy of the Trump administration. Its old enemies hate it more than before and its old friends feel disaffected and betrayed.
The Gaza debacle illustrates this dynamic with cartoonish exaggeration of its elements. The triggering event was not “mostly peaceful,” but there is a widespread sentiment that the Palestinians have “legitimate grievances.” And then came a “crackdown” that shocked and revolted much of the world; a “crackdown” that has probably permanently damaged the legitimacy of the Israeli state.
The color revolution strategy works against the American Right because it has not learned Kant’s dictum that “whoever wills the end also wills the necessary means.” The American Right wants things like mass deportation but is then shocked and revolted when the first (and staged) bill arrives. It is addicted to tough talk and allergic to tough action, and so is easily suckered into ineffectual “crackdowns” that only injure itself.
Here is a scenario, which is not the same as a prediction. The war with Iran ramps up after the election and the Left suddenly remembers that it opposes war. Weakened by a blue wave in the election, an embattled Trump administration is eager to project an image of strength. The war with Iran is already incredibly unpopular so the grievance of the protestors will appear legitimate, even if the protestors themselves are loathsome Leftists. The crackdown is then passed through the media filter and public opinion recoils in horror.