The Briefing Room
General Category => Editorial/Opinion/Blogs => Topic started by: Machiavelli on October 24, 2016, 08:50:15 pm
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A bit over the top, doncha think?
Damon Linker
The Week
October 18, 2016
Here we are in July 2019. The country is wracked by violence, hatred, and economic despair. President Hillary Clinton just declared martial law. And rumors are swirling that the 2020 presidential election might need to be suspended.
How did it come to this?
In retrospect, the country's direction should have been clear since before the 2016 election. All of Donald Trump's (widely believed) talk of the election being rigged, the mischief-making by WikiLeaks, the sporadic left-wing violence against the right. As Trump careened toward defeat, I think most of us naively hoped that he'd back away from his inflammatory rhetoric and the political unrest would die down once the results of the vote were clear and overwhelming.
But of course it didn't happen. Certainly nothing about Trump's behavior up to that point gave us any reason to think he'd suddenly become civically responsible. And besides, he needed to stoke the anger and resentment of his followers to ensure maximum ratings for the launch of Trump TV.
More (http://theweek.com/articles/655708/after-trump-loses-ominous-american-future-imagined)
Damon Linker (http://theweek.com/authors/damon-linker) is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a consulting editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press, a former contributing editor at The New Republic, and the author of The Theocons (https://www.amazon.com/Theocons-Secular-America-Under-Siege/dp/1400096855) and The Religious Test (https://www.amazon.com/Religious-Test-Question-Beliefs-Leaders/dp/0393067955).
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A bit over the top, doncha think?
A LOT over the top.
Look. America withstood 8 years of the Obama Regime. We can suffer through Her Thighness.
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The future is ominous no matter which of these freaking liberals win
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Martial law and all that comes with it have been predicted by political opponents of every president as long as I can remember and obviously, has never come about (except for the Civil War or non-political, small scale, temporary, cases like natural disasters).
The fact of the matter is, martial law is messy and would shut off many of the luxuries that those who could declare it rely on. It wouldn't be declared unless the alternative is worse.
These leaders like to be able to drive around in peace, hob nob with celebrities, have glitzy parties, drive expensive vehicles, and have servants wait on their every need. Doomsayer predictions of martial law would turn all that upside down. It is messy, would require sacrifice and work on their part, and would mean a degradation in the lifestyle they have.
No, it is too messy. Plus, with modern technology and modern media, you don't need to do something like martial law. You can simply plant stories to people and control their actions much easier. The word is far more powerful in many cases, than the gun.
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America's worst election was 1876, the closest we ever came to a second civil war. Didn't happen then, wouldn't happen now, I don't think.
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This is silly. Like Sarah Palin in 2008, Trump will gradually fade from public consciousness. Most people are turned off by his boorishness and self-absorption and, I predict, any efforts to create some kind of media outlet will fail dramatically.
His sycophants are a tiny sliver of the population, and even most of them will go back to life as it was before Trump.
Who follows a loser?
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His sycophants are a tiny sliver of the population, and even most of them will go back to life as it was before Trump.
Who follows a loser?
Especially among Trump's psychophants, whose only goal and purpose is 'winning'. I would say that more than half of them distance themselves as soon as he is officially a loser. After all, alpha-males *never* lose.
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if hillary wins....
Not that ridiculous Grim again!
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if hillary wins....
Not that ridiculous Grim again!
If?!?!?!
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Martial law ain't gonna happen. Most likely there will be a terrorist incident, a la Timothy McVeigh, and a lot of arrests and prosecutions of alt-right that generally go unnoticed.
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Maybe that is what it's going to take, America staring into the abyss before anything changes.
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The future is ominous no matter which of these freaking liberals win
The future is ominous not because we have these two lousy candidates....it's ominous because year by year we seem to growing more and more statists for whom socialism seems like a great idea. The snowflake generations.
An outright Marxist like Sanders would never have gotten his foot in the door even thirty years ago. Now, instead of going the opportunist route like her hubby, Cankles McPantsuit is trying to copy his, Sanders, Marxist platform.
If the educational system isn't changed, we can look "forward" to future generations of quasi-Castros and Chavezes as the average voters.
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if hillary wins....
Not that ridiculous Grim again!
You mean Bob Grim who used to pitch for the Yankees in the fifties or the Brothers Grim? :tongue2:
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The author may well be a good feature writer and analyst. He's crap at fiction.
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We're likely going into a recession right now, and if it is only as bad as the last time we will be running $2T a year deficits. Another $10T in debt and even with interest rates at the level they are now, it's going to eat up a big chunk of our much reduced tax revenue up.
DC will be out of money at that point. It won't be able to afford martial law or much of anything else.
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How long until they dust off the old joke from the Goldwater era
I was told if I voted for Trump we'd have riots in the streets and get into an unwinnable war.
Well I voted for Trump, and damned if they weren't right.