“One thing we have really found is a place to feel comfortable being ourselves,” Dean said. Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history.

One party controls the entire legislature in all but two states. In 28 states, the party in control has a supermajority in at least one legislative chamber — which means the majority party has so many lawmakers that they can override a governor’s veto. Not that that would be necessary in most cases, as only 10 states have governors of different parties than the one that controls the legislature

This can only end badly as conservatives seem to have no problem ruling over land in empty states.

  • kool_newt@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Splitting us up is the goal, divide and conquer. It’s one thing to hate your queer neighbor, it’s so much worse when you can point to another geographic region of “queers coming to harm your children” that military force can be used against. The separation is for two reasons, one is to help hold on to senate power by getting blue voters out to make sure red states don’t turn blue or purple, the other I think is to prepare for war and make war more likely, separating the sides. Civil war is hard when everyone is mixed up.

    We’ve seen what "conservatives’ do when they have power, they literally owned other humans, chattel slavery. We’ve seen what the goals of the military industrial complex (arguably the most powerful industry), more war,everywhere. Giving these groups the benefit of the doubt is dumb and will lead to real bad things.

    • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      No one really wants a civil war. People are too comfy for that. Something will shift and people will realize they are being manipulated. The anger will just burn out eventually.

      • PostmodernPythia@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Wanting civil war isn’t the question. The question is, what do we do when the right manipulates the system to give itself perpetual, absolute power? Give up? Fight? Leave? Leave and fight? Not many people want civil war because it’s not obvious to them yet that the alternative is worse. Give it time.

            • Senuf@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              Civil war in contemporary USA. And the right manipulating the system to give itself perpetual, absolute power.

              It’s an interesting alternate history novel.

      • kool_newt@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Nobody wants a war? A good 15% of the US population is seething to use their guns against gays or liberals.

        • LootGoblin42@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I don’t believe that. People that say that are just LARPing. People in general are good. They don’t sit around in extreme states of anger all day every day. Something has to trigger and feed the hatred. Eventually the fuel for it will stop working.

          • PostmodernPythia@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            What evidence would it take to change your mind? What makes Americans more likely to be good than people who participated in authoritarian atrocities historically? Where is your confidence that things will be fine coming from?

          • millie@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            I don’t know that they’re actually ready to pick up a gun, but I’ve definitely seen that hate in people’s faces. There are some people who flip a switch in their brains the moment they see me and instantly go into anger mode.

            I’m pretty good at diffusing it in some people and avoiding it in others, but it’s 100% there. And powerful people are doing their absolute best to cause it to spread.