academiccompositionab
Empowerment Equalizer
SSaragian
Ann Sterzinger
Rodney
RJ
busterjames
cainusmaxus
Craig FitzGerald
David Heleniak
Caity & Dan Greene
keirmartland
Keith Preston
Bill the Butcher
ljp711
MRDA
Jack Donovan
Rachel Haywire
comrade hermit
Michael
Vince
robertstark2014
Noonan
S E Pearson
Rachel Haywire
Nexus X HumectressIt’s like ATS now has a de facto mass army of inadvertent troops, comprised almost entirely of folks who have never heard of us and wouldn’t like us if they had.
As most readers know, I have long been an advocate of a political realignment along decentralist vs. centralist, populist vs. power elite, and anti-system vs. system lines. For quite some time, I held to the view that “culture war” tribalism undermines the development of anti-system resistance, and fuels the divide and conquer approach of the ruling class. However, I am increasingly convinced that this latter criticism does not apply to the current situation. In recent years, it has become fashionable for some on the Left, largely in response to Trump, to postulate that perhaps many on the Left were mistaken to emphasize culture war issues over class issues for decades, to the point of pushing significant sectors of the working class to the Right. In response, the “maximal culture” warriors on the Left are attacking these culture war “second thoughters” for allegedly fomenting red/brown alliances. Meanwhile, the number of actual advocates of left/right crossover projects seems to be growing as well.
It would seem that all of these factions collectively have the effect of weakening the system and strengthening pan-secessionism. Opinion polls continue to show that as the culture war has continued to intensify, support for pan-secessionism has only increased with nearly 2 in 5 Americans now having at least casual sympathies for pan-secessionism. Therefore, it would seem that strengthening the culture war is in the interests of the pan-secessionist strategic project. Additionally, class war politics has also grown significantly in recent years, in obvious response to the present Third Worldization of the US economy. A maximal culture war that is paralleled by a strident class war will likely have the effect of increasing pan-secessionist sympathies to an even greater degree. Meanwhile, the growth of “red/brown alliances” indicates that a growing number of people are willing to completely turn their back on the system, irrespective of abstract political ideologies, as indicated by the “End the Damn the Wars” protest over the weekend, which included everyone from Communists to Boogaloo Boys.
The objective at this point should be to encourage fragmentation to the point that the system cannot hold, in the same way that the Eurasian Communist expanse could not hold in the late 80s/early 90s while preventing a ruling class effort to save the system through the installation of a more overtly authoritarian regime (as the Soviet military and intelligence services attempted in 1991), and simultaneously preventing a full-blown civil war (as in Yugoslavia following the collapse).
> It would seem that all of these factions collectively have the effect of weakening the system and strengthening pan-secessionism.
They have no effect at all. These “politics” exist as a tribal and status signaling mechanism on social media networks – they drive ad revenue and that is all. They have no effect whatsoever on really existing governmental and economic power centers.
Take a look at the Twitter feed for the woman talking about veganism and “forest defense.” She may spend all day long on social media attacking her counterpart, a MAGA mom anti-vaxxer. Their “tribalism” has zero effect on “the system.”
What possible scenarios can one imagine where either of these “sides” would have any effect whatsoever on the really existing political/economic system?
The more internal fragmentation there is, the more difficult it is for any kind of state system to hold. Increasingly, the political tribes are coming to view each other as the equivalent of an enemy nation, and sympathy for the kinds of pan-secessionist ideas we discuss here has increased in direct proportion to the political, economic, and cultural polarization that is taking place. Even the neocons are starting to get worried:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/books/review/divided-we-fall-david-french.html
This seems the strengthen the system, not destabilize it.
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.” — Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope
Having MAGA Mom vs. Trans-SJW on Twitter has proven to be very stabilizing. By demonizing the other side, they are more likely to vote for “the lesser of two evils” and when they get the exact same policies, they can say “at least they are not Trump/Hillary.”
A recent poll showed that secession is supported by the majority of Texas Republicans – but since when did the public ever get a political outcome they wanted? IIRC, you posted the infamous study showing that the only political factions that ever get actual policy change are those represented by corporate lobbyists.
Texas could easily be its own nation, so could California. But it is not in the interests of the ruling elites of those states to go independent. It seems likely US imperial ambition is waning, but there is nothing at all to indicate anything even close to a break up of the 50 states – not even Puerto Rico wants independence anymore.
The “divisions” are a feature, not a bug.