The United States is seeing indications of unrest, the likes of which we haven't seen since at least the late '60s - perhaps not since 1860. Some of us are old enough to remember the unrest of the 1960s, the mass marches, the protests, and yes, incidents of violence. While none of us (unless you take the Social Security records at face value) are old enough to remember the American Civil War, a lot of us have read a great deal into that conflict and what led up to it - the regional tensions, the ideological issues, how they built up, were allowed to fester and spilled into violence.
History, as they say, may not repeat, but it often rhymes. I've been watching politics since the Carter administration, and I've never seen anything remotely like this level of hatred and calls for violence from the left; not during the Reagan administration, not during either Bush 41 or Bush 43, and not even during Donald Trump's first administration. This is something new, and yet at the same time, it's something that's happened many times before. We are fast approaching another such fork in the road, and it is the left that is driving us there. There have been riots, there have been confrontations, there have been arson attacks on, of all things, Tesla dealerships. And this may very well only be the beginning; the noises the left is making are becoming more and more vicious.
My colleague Rusty Weiss, on Saturday, gave us a chilling look into the left's rhetoric.
Read: Dem Lawmaker Left in Tears After Town Hall, Says Voters ‘Hate Us,’ Want Them Prepared for Violence
Rusty writes:
Perhaps most frightening, they seem to want to see more violence.
"Another thing I got was: 'Democrats are too nice. Nice and civility doesn't work. Are you prepared for violence?'" the senior member of Congress said.
There are only two ways to interpret that - Either 'step up your game, or we're coming after you,' or 'When do you plan to call for violence yourself?'
So what might happen now? Well, as a guy who has written a fair amount of speculative fiction, as well as having read a great deal of history, I have some thoughts. Note: This is a worst-case scenario, presented only as speculation. I doubt things will ever get this bad - but I've been wrong before.
First: Expect the attacks from the left to continue. So far they have been operating on what is, for them, perceived to be safe ground. The antisemitic riots are taking place on college campuses that are, if not openly supportive, then at least tolerant of the virulent Jew-hatred expressed. Most of the Tesla incidents have happened in urban or suburban environments. The leftists are confronting politicians, and as Rusty has shown us, they are calling for violence from their elected officials - and threatening violence if they are not appeased.
These threats have to be taken seriously. And what might happen if the Democrat political party refuses to engage? Granted, some might; the Democrats have a few seriously deranged people among the ranks of their people in elected offices. But it's far more likely that the next step will be what we are seeing now, taken to the next level, by deranged individuals or small groups.
Second: Escalation. If the real nutcases on the left, the ones shouting about the need for violence, decide to take this to the next level, it won't be like 1860. They won't form an army and march on the red states and the countryside. They will form small cells, operating independently of each other. They will start with vandalism and arson, and simply being outside of the big blue cities won't be any guarantee of immunity; like cowards, these terror cells - for that is what they are - will strike under cover of darkness, they will hit and run, and they will try to subject the rest of us to a death of a thousand cuts. They will take losses - we have the guns, after all, and we know how to use them.
This, I must point out, is already underway:
Read: SHOCK: Terrorism How-To Guide Being Distributed to American College Students
But here's where things may well go very, very wrong for the left. As I've written before, the right, unlike the left, seems to view political violence as a toggle, rather than a knob; one side is marked "Peaceful Discourse," and the other "Raise the Black Flag." And the left, even if they make forays into the countryside, are creatures of the cities, by and large. And it is those cities to which the right controls the flow of food, of electricity, of information - of almost everything needed for everyday life. The radical elements of the left may well have badly underestimated the support they get from the people of those cities when the lights are out and their kids are hungry. And, in time, the people in the countryside, the small towns, and the suburbs will organize, and any more incursions out of the cities will become more and more difficult, with losses mounting.
Every conflict is won or lost by which side can most effectively keep their people stocked with beans, bullets, and gas. There's an old saying, that in war, amateurs study tactics, while professionals study logistics. That is the advantage that the right has. That is why the right would, in the end, win any such conflict.
This doesn't mean the increasingly vocal nuts on the left won't try. These are not, after all, serious people, intellectually:
See Also: LOL: Professors Absurdly Compare Tesla Cybertruck to South African Apartheid-Enforcing Vehicle
But they are serious about their calls for violence. And we should take them seriously.
We live in interesting times, friends. Keep your eyes open.
