Civil war a bad idea for Trump supporters

Friday, November 8, 2019  

Odds are the House will impeach Donald Trump, and there’s a good chance the Senate will grudgingly subsequently do same. Many have threatened armed insurrection should this happen, and like all angry sides in a civil conflict, they are certain their cause is just and they will win.

In the past, leaders had a different relationship with the general public, and this was certainly the case during the Civil War 160 years ago. How we perceive power and presidents has been altered by social media, and a celebrity obsessed reinterpretation of what we used to perceive as sober minded civics.

This has created an atmosphere of public and intellectual uncertainty. These are waters no ship of state has ever negotiated. We have had bad presidents, but they didn’t have the Reverend Jim Jones cult like following this president seems to attract. Are his followers serious about armed insurrection, and if they are, do they really have the networked support to force states to secede or armies to form and attempt to seize control?

At this point, a major league baseball umpire has threatened “Cival War” on twitter, should his president be impeached, although he doesn’t even know how to spell “civil.” What is the actual level of support this president engenders from his fan base? Are they, like him, mostly bluster and false bravado?

It has been reasoned that much of Trump’s 2016 support actually came from anti-Hillary sentiment, in that they voted for him because they did not like her, or they voted for a third party candidate because they did not like her, or they chose to not vote at all, rather than vote for Trump or Hillary, all being outcomes that favored Trump. Conservatives and authoritarians have shown throughout American history to be far more likely to vote, and far more likely to form well-organized, aggressive factions willing to resort to extreme measures.

But they have also always shown themselves to be a minority, in every western society. They never comprise more than 30% of the population, although they always consider themselves the majority. Since they are far more likely to be a busybody, they dominate social media and flood the hate radio airwaves, and this inflates the perception of their numbers in the public eye

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today