DAYS OF RAGE pt. 5, finale: "what does it portend?"

  All right. Here we go.

  Time for the final "DAYS OF RAGE" tweetstorm: the "what does it portend?" edition.

  It's taken me a long time to work through my thoughts on things. Sorry about that. This stuff really isn't pleasant to think about.

  Political violence is like war, like violence in general: people have a fantasy about how it works.

  This is the fantasy of how violence works: you SMITE YOUR ENEMIES IN A GRAND AND GLORIOUS CLEANSING BECAUSE OF COURSE YOU'RE BETTER.

  Grand and glorious smiting isn't actually how violence works.

  I've worked a few places that have had serious political violence. And I'm not sure how to really describe it so people get it.

  This is a stupid comparison, but here: imagine that one day Godzilla walks through your town.

  The next day, he does it again. And he keeps doing it. Some days he steps on more people than others.

  That's it. That's all he does: trudging through your town, back and forth. Your town's not your town now; it's The Godzilla Trudging Zone.

  That's kind of what it's like.

  I'm going to talk about some nasty things here. I do not want any of it. But some or all of it could happen. Some of it already is.

  In 2017, I am very pessimistic about America's future, to the point that I think the country should seriously consider a National Divorce.

  Everyone feeling nice and at ease now? Good, let's get started.

  Let's not mince words: the United States of America is currently engaged in a cold Civil War.

  In North Carolina, the Repub governor lost re-election, so the Repub legislature convened a special session to limit powers of the post.

  Democrats nationwide howled w/ justified outrage; as we all know, legislators who dislike a governor should flee state to block quorum...

  ...facilitate occupation of government buildings by mobs, and have allies execute secret raids on homes on the governor's supporters.

  All of those are things that the Democrats did to oppose a Republican governor in Wisconsin, and the Democrats were pretty cool with it.

  This isn't a cutesy "both sides" argument. Nor am I calling out the press for bias, or politicians for hypocrisy (that's later).

  My point is: *notice the Left and the Right use fundamentally different tactics?* No accident. They're different cultures.

  The Left and Right don't just want different things. They also have different abilities, goals, resources, and senses of propriety.

  Meaning: *contemporary political violence from the Left and from the Right will look very different.*

  I took a detailed look at violence in the 1970s in my earlier tweetstorms about DAYS OF RAGE... (links coming next)

  Parts 1+2: https://storify.com/sphenoid/days-of-rage-pt-1 …

  Part 3: https://storify.com/sphenoid/days-of-rage-part-3 …

  Part 4: https://storify.com/sphenoid/days-of-rage-pt-4 …

  Now, 2017 isn't going to be the 1970s. Goals, situations, and cultures change. The actors want different things. But we can look for hints.

  Like, what kind of people will do this stuff?

  The mental model we have for domestic terrorism in 2017 is shaped by what scares us: mass shooters and jihad. '70s radicals were different.

  '70s radicals wanted to get away with their crimes. They wanted to avoid detection, didn't want to get arrested, didn't want to die.

  Most '70s bombers had no moral objection to killing people, but they also didn't go to any great lengths to maximize body count.

  That's pretty different from 21st-century mass shooters (who tend suicidal) & jihadists (for whom a high body count is part of the message).

  Some suicidal mass murderers choose political targets, though it's uncommon. Overseas jihadists draft depressives, but it takes organization

  When we're talking about domestic political violence, we're mostly talking about *stuff that is coldbloodedly plotted by serious people.*

  So maybe we can hope that political violence in the US, '70s-style, won't go all-out for massive numbers of deaths? Well... maybe.

  The way I see it, domestic conflict in the United States could operate in basically four stages:

  1) cold Civil War 2) targeted political violence, mostly short of murder 3) political violence with murder as the default 4) Civil War II

  The United States should start seriously talking about National Divorce before we get to stage 3.

  We're in Stage 1 now. Stages 2 and 3 are what we're concerned with: the public getting mobilized. What'd that look like, on Left and Right?

  People tend to think that the Right will be an awesome, horrific force in political violence. The SPLC's donations depend on that idea.

  Righties tell themselves that *of course* they'd win a war against Lefties. Tactical Deathbeast vs. Pajama Boy? No contest.

  Why, Righties have thought about what an effective domestic insurrection would look like. Righties have written books and manifestos!

  It's horseshit.

  The truth: Left is a lot more organized & prepared for violence than Right is, and has the advantage of a mainstream more supportive of it.

  You think that's unfair? Okay, well: *imagine an abortion clinic bombing ring getting presidential clemency.* http://www.cnn.com/US/9909/10/faln.clemency.02/index.html …

  Imagine an abortion clinic bomber *getting a comfortable job at an elite university.* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn …

  Outrageous, right? No way the Right could get away with that. But the Left does! And the press gives them cover.

  (This is the "hypocrisy and media bias" section, by the way.)

  The press freaked out and called for a National Conversation every time some shithead punched a protestor at a Trump rally.

  If Trump fans pulled a Portland, running through the streets, intimidating motorists, smashing windows, what would press reaction be?

  You don't need me to tell you. PANTS-SHITTING HYSTERIA FASCISM OMG HITLER.

  When Lefties *really did that:* "meh, that's what Lefties do." No need for a National Conversation. Certainly not a Clinton disavowal.

  But organizing protests like Portland and the other cities takes experience, efficiency, and a lot of people you can call out.

  The Left can do that. *The Right can't.* That is a logistical advantage that is enormous, and it matters.

  bc a Left that can tell that many people to do that stuff in that many places *can also tell at least some of them to do something else.*

  The hard Left selectively uses violence, normalizes it with weasel words: "Direct action." "Diversity of tactics."

  "Nonviolent property damage." "Antifa."

  If you want to know why Righties will get down with streetfighting, if it comes to that: take a look at Antifa. A good long one.

  Part of the bargain of civilization is ceding the authority to commit violence to the State. (Has its own problems. Beats the alternative.)

  Lord knows there are people I'd love to beat the shit out of in the street, but if I don't get to then neither do you.

  No, I don't give a flying fuck who they are. *You don't get to do that.*

  Lefties say, "Well, that's Nazis, they only do that to Nazis; Nazis are *different,* you have to shut that shit down, etc."

  But *Lefties pull the same "shut this shit down!" stuff on mainstream Righties on college campuses, all the while calling them Nazis.*

  Hell, Lefties said Ted Cruz was a Nazi, Mitt Romney was a Nazi, George W. Bush was a Nazi.

  I've done human rights work that had me working in proximity to the U.S. military, so at a professional meeting a Lefty called me a Nazi.

  So if you tell me that I'm a Nazi, and tell me people I respect are Nazis, and tell me you're in favor of going out and beating up Nazis...

  ...guess what? I AM SUDDENLY VERY INTERESTED IN THE PHYSICAL SAFETY OF NAZIS. And I'm JEWISH.

  Lemme tell you a true story.

  In 209 BC, two Qin Dynasty army officers, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, were ordered to lead their troops on a march to provide reinforcements.

  Massive flooding delayed them. They couldn't make their rendezvous time. In the Qin Dynasty, this carried the death penalty. No excuses.

  "What's the penalty for being late?" "Death." "What's the penalty for rebellion?" "Death." "Well -- we're late."

  And that's the story of the Dazexiang Uprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazexiang_Uprising …

  How does full-on streetfighting start in the United States of America? My guess is: pretty much like that.

  "What's the penalty for kicking the living shit out of Leftist protestors?" "Oh, Jesus, we'd be demonized as Nazis."

  "...what'll they do if we *don't* kick the living shit out of Leftist protestors?" "They'll -- *hmmmmmmm....*"

  So, what're the odds of Righties kicking the living shit out of Lefty protestors actually happening? Depends on what happens January 20th.

  The movement DisruptJ20 is aimed at screwing up the Trump inauguration. Dunno how big it actually is. Michael Moore has praised it.

  Here's an article on DisruptJ20. Notice the variety of things they've got on the agenda: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-protesters-plan-to-wreck-donald-trumps-inauguration/article/2611311 …

  Reread that article, and think about how the national press would react if instead of a commie it were Richard Spencer.

  The thing about Commies is you have to pay attention to what they don't say: "This is a nonviolent protest and we will not attack anybody."

  Instead: "We are preparing for the possibility of sporadic fights breaking out because people are very emotional about this." Cute, huh?

  DisruptJ20 will most likely operate on a sliding scale from disruption to violence. This is deliberate.

  They'll harass Trump supporters, and try to bait Trump supporters into attacking them.

  One tactic you'll see: if one of their protestors does get violent, other protestors will loudly call, "Peaceful protest! Peaceful protest!"

  This is not an attempt to dissuade the violent person, but to persuade onlookers that *they are not seeing what they are seeing.*

  At the very least, the protestors figure, onlookers will assume "they're not all like that! They're trying to stop the *bad* one!"

  Of course, that's a scam.

  Now, the head of the DC National Guard has been instructed to resign the moment President Trump is sworn in. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/commanding-general-of-dc-national-guard-to-be-removed-from-post/2017/01/13/725a0438-d99e-11e6-b8b2-cb5164beba6b_story.html?utm_term=.9ac74dcc9624 …

  I'm guessing that's because POETUS expects a full-scale riot and wants an unquestioning Mattis loyalist in position to put it down hard.

  But if DisruptJ20 comes off at all, and Trump supporters are harmed or harrassed like the rally in Chicago...

  ...expect Righties to get very interested in forming street defense leagues: goons and headhunters to make Black Bloc spit teeth.

  And they'll be purely defensive. For a while. But they're human. So then they'll think about getting proactive.

  Bluntly: this is dangerous. The people who do it for the Left are literal Communists. What kind of Righties will it draw?

  Oh, I dunno, I'm guessing people who're comfortable with violence, who don't mind breaking norms or being arrested...

  ...if you're now thinking, "Oh shit," well, guess what? So am I.

  If streetfights start happening on a regular basis on American streets, our democracy will corrode very quickly.

  We'll see rapid radicalization at both poles, meaning normalization of political extremists.

  The usual story American politics tells of how extremists get politically normalized is, to say the least, inaccurate.

  "Extremists get normalized bc the mainstream says things SO BEYOND THE PALE it invites extremes." ie, "Republicans make Nazis." Bullshit.

  How extremists really get mainstreamed: because the extremists have organization, logistics, and manpower that the mainstream finds useful.

  Mainstream Lefties happily go to protests they favor that are organized by the literal Stalinists of ANSWER & the Worker's World Party. Why?

  *The commies are really good at getting people signs and making sure there are enough port-a-potties.*

  When you're great at organizing signs & port-a-potties, Lefties overlook that you're into an ideology that murdered a hundred million people

  So how far would this go? Would mainstream Nazi-hating Righties be ok w/ literal Nazis on the streetfighting squads that keep them safe?

  I dunno; how'd you feel about folks who voluntarily get their bodies between your peaceful gathering and a crowd trying to intimidate you?

  Lefties could keep that very human thing from happening. But they'd have to de-escalate. And they won't.

  Mellow out on college campuses? Quit disrupting righty events? No chance. It's too much fun.

  So the hard Left is going to do more to normalize literal Nazis in America than anyone since Charles Lindbergh.

  Let me be blunt, though: with or without literal Nazis, *if Lefties pull another Chicago, Righty defense groups will happen.*

  I honestly don't think think the literal Nazis are going to be as involved in streetfighting as you might think. It'd be a distraction.

  The big thing the hard Right is trying to do right now is create organization and infrastructure. They have, historically, sucked at it.

  The hard Left has great infrastructure. Look at DisruptJ20: they know enough lawyers to have 2 teams dedicated to getting them out of jail!

  Think any Righty group has gotten around to organizing lawyers on tap like that? Nope.

  Why are the Lefties so good at this? Communism. American Communist Party got fantastic hand-me-down Russian-facilitated training, & shared.

  But hard Righties learn from overseas compatriots now, too. And a bunch of overseas hard Right movements are aided by the Russians.

  It's not gonna happen overnight. But in ten or twenty or fifty years, you could have a *superbly* organized hard Right movement in America.

  Now, you can do two things with radical infrastructure: use it to nudge the mainstream (SDS) or use it for radical action (Weatherman).

  I think Righties have to go SDS, while Lefties have room to go Weatherman.

  This is not from any innate philosophical difference, but purely practical. Effective Righty infrastructure is too rare & valuable to risk.

  (Also, any Righty organization or conspiracy is going to be stocked to the gills with snitches. Look at Malheur. Literally 25% snitches!)

  So I cannot stress this enough: ANY RIGHTY ORGANIZATION DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP TO BE VIOLENT IS DOOMED TO FAIL.

  What this means: hard Left violence will be *coordinated.* Hard Right violence will be *distributed.*

  As I've mentioned before, I see three kinds of mass murderers. I think my typology applies to political violence too:

  The first kind is loners. The second kind is conspiracies (which have to be VERY tight-knit, or somebody narcs).

  The third kind is guys from the murder factory.

  (A murder factory is a self-perpetuating machine that brings in recruits and spits out killers. Islamic State: that's a murder factory.)

  Murder factories are hard to build. Weatherman tried to build one. They failed.

  The hard Left is bigger w/ 50 years more experience now, & I still doubt they could make a murder factory w/o support from a foreign power.

  So if Lefty violence will mostly be the result of conspiracies, while Righty violence will mostly be the work of loners...

  ...*there will be differences in the kinds of things that Lefties and Righties will be able to do.*

  A lone perpetrator can pull off a bombing, for example, but not a riot.

  Left and Right also have different vulnerabilities. The Left is far better at allowing its people, esp radicals, to rise & mainstream.

  As a result, way more new Lefties attain prominence and effective leadership status than Righties. Makes a deeper activist bench.

  With a sea of effective, prominent Lefties, Lefties who are lost will be mourned but not irreplaceable.

  This is emphatically not the case for Righties.

  To be perfectly blunt: the Right would be *extremely* easy to disrupt with targeted assassinations. The Left would not.

  Once political violence starts, the smart move is to keep your violence low-level and try to provoke the other guys into serious violence.

  This, as with EVERYTHING ELSE, favors the Left. The Left can absorb a hell of a lot of serious violence.

  Martyrs are fuel for Leftism. Look at the history of unions.

  So these are the tactics I see the Left using at that stage:

  1) use as many different nonmurderous but disruptive-to-violent tactics as possible -- "shut it down," occupations, property damage, riots

  2) weaponize Institutions against Righties, when possible 3) drag events out -- long, very low-level conflict works in Lefties' favor

  4) target individual Righties for intimidation/disemployment, to discourage others

  5) target the most effective Righties for Unpersoning, lawfare, and (only if absolutely necessary; this would be VERY rare) assassination

  Yes, the Left is doing almost all of this stuff already. But it could be ramped up.

  Take disemployment: Lefties clamoring to get somebody fired. The way it works now is reactive, news-cycle driven. It doesn't have to be.

  Political donations are public record. So are voter registrations. It would be trivial to set up a Disemployment Committee to scrape these.

  HR departments tend to have a lot of Lefties in them. They could bring back a coordinated blacklist. You'd never know it.

  Expect expansion to second-order targets, too. If you can't target someone (bc they're self-employed, and unshameable), go for their family.

  (That's already happening, btw.)

  Remember: *most Americans are a paycheck or two from financial calamity.* I'm surprised disemployment hasn't yet been repaid with murder.

  Setting up fake petitions to get your enemies to sign themselves up on your Enemies List is a tactic I expect to be pretty bipartisan.

  Lefties' enemies lists will have fewer prominent Righties and Righty infrastructure types on them, just because there *are* fewer of those.

  If you notice who Lefties really tend to go after, it's two kinds of people:

  1) Righties who might be growing in popularity and/or influence, to make them radioactive & make others afraid to associate with them

  2) regular people, who have employment and social fragility, to make them scared to admit WrongThink.

  So Lefties will target more people on top and on bottom, status-wise. Righties will target more in the middle, go for the Lefty NCO corps.

  That's bc the biggest impact the Right can make at this stage of conflict is to : destroy, damage, or neutralize Lefty Institutions.

  But Lefty Institutions are massive cultural power centers. Universities, Media, Bureaucracies, Organizations/Foundations, Cities.

  The Right is not big enough or organized enough to really destroy Lefty Institutions.

  Like the Left, they'll be looking to intimidate people out of the game and take away enemy tools. Example:

  Institutional and media bias means radical Leftist tactics are accepted, which means radical Leftist tactics become normalized.

  Ergo, the only way the Right can delegitimize Lefty tactics is to use them, at which point they'll become The Worst Things Ever Done By Man.

  My guess is the Right will start using Leftist tactics against members of Leftist Institutions: "This is what you ordered. Eat it."

  Specifically, I think the hard Right is going to discover the joys of "nonviolent property damage," which the Left has foolishly normalized.

  I'm always puzzled when Lefty journalists praise "nonviolent property damage," as if they don't have offices, homes, and personal property.

  University administrators who let Lefties disrupt Righty speakers with impunity also have offices, homes, and personal property.

  Heck, when Lefty rioters get arrested, papers print their names and mugshots. And they have homes, and cars, and ... you know the drill.

  The advantage of "nonviolent property damage" for Righties: one person can do it without trying to put together a conspiracy.

  And yes, though no people are hurt it could get very ugly, very fast. But the Institutions aren't destroyed. They're still there.

  But what happens if the Trump administration is a player?

  No, I don't think the Trump administration is going to be putting people in camps, or offering free helicopter rides.

  What the Trump admin might do is use the full force of the federal government to take a chainsaw to Leftist Institutions' funding and power.

  Which threat, of course, could spur radical Lefties to violence. (Remember: provoking your enemy to violence is a goal.)

  It gets really nasty: if government and non-government factions combine (by design, or merely taking advantage of each other.)

  What could that look like? Imagine this sequence of events:

  President Trump goes to hold a provocative rally in a Leftist area of a Leftist city, inviting a "shut this shit down" Lefty riot.

  The riot happens. Righties show up... and *join the rioting Lefties,* ensuring that as much damage is done to local property as is possible.

  Trump's DOJ blames the Lefty rioters for the damage, prosecutes for conspiracy to riot, and tears apart their funding structure under RICO.

  The federal government delays for ages, and finally (on the start of a holiday weekend) denies the city recovery assistance for damages...

  ...motivating other cities to avoid that fate by proactively shutting down any Lefty radicals who show signs of organizing.

  I dunno if that'd work, or what hell it'd unleash. But I can see something like that happening.

  Ultimately, what nongovernmental actors can do depends on their capabilities, organization... and money.

  Money was the big thing that hampered radical groups in the '70s. People died or killed people or were arrested trying to get it.

  In the 70s, radicals were basically limited to 3 options: 1) parasitizing existing institutions (like FALN and the Episcopal Church),

  2) leeching off organizations of well-off radicals (Weatherman and the National Lawyers' Guild), or 3) robbing banks (everyone else).

  Robbing banks isn't a great strategy long-term. That's how people got police attention, and occasionally gunfights and murder charges.

  In 2016, I'd expect radicals to use electronic crime options: ransomware, identity theft, that sort of thing. Less risk of detection.

  On the Left, though, most violent plots would be funded in the same manner as the FALN: parasitization.

  Given the sea of Lefty foundations, nonprofits, and professions, parasitizing a few organizations to fund terrorism would be very doable.

  Nor would it be hard for YouTube stars or Leftists with Patreons -- or, hell, the National Lawyers' Guild -- to turn money toward radicals.

  On the Right, funding would be more of a challenge. It always is.

  Bitcoin would make funding anonymously easier. Also, many righties would be acting alone, so they wouldn't have huge budgets.

  Still, the Left, again, has an absolutely *massive* structural advantage.

  There will also be efforts to target each others' funding. Note that Lefties already do this to Righties, and Righties to Lefties.

  Righties want to not give their own money to their enemies. Lefties want *no one* to give *any* money to *their* enemies.

  You can see some of this going on now re: defunding Planned Parenthood. For the pro-life groups, it's about abortion, full stop...

  ...but for Steve Bannon, I'm guessing it's abt a powerful institution that uses money & political organization to support enemy politicians.

  Of course he'd look to stop taxpayer dollars from going to Planned Parenthood. If you think of politics as a war, that's a no-brainer.

  This is a rare area where Lefties are more vulnerable than Righties, because Lefty organizations get more taxpayer support than Righties do.

  Lefties are great at mobilizing boycotts and targeting advertisers, though, as we're seeing them currently do with Breitbart.

  Could issues over some of this turn violent? Yeah. People could be threatened for advertising, showing support, etc.

  Any violence would be attention-getting threats/demonstrations, rather than murders. Breaking windows, bombs in offices at night, etc.

  Mostly, though, Americans who turn to political violence will target gatherings of their enemies, and people on their enemies' lists.

  Because people are angry at their enemies. They want to punish them.

  All this godawfulness gets even wackier if the factions of the government get involved. Which, uh. They sort of already are.

  The Left has the Bureaucracy and the Deep State. To judge from the press, the CIA is already at war with the Trump administration.

  So if there are any Righties still dreaming of smiting, lemme point out again: *the Left is better placed to go at it than the Right is.*

  Righties might go, "Yeah, but the military!" Yes, the military runs very heavily Righty. As do the cops.

  To which my answer is: if we get Civil War II, how many Americans do you think the U.S. military is willing to run over with tanks?

  At some point, there's going to have to be a negotiated settlement for either strong federalism or national divorce.

  But we're not gonna do either, because Americans want to rule each other, so.

  If you're asking, no, I don't know how we're going to stop this. I don't even know why you'd ask *me.*

  Maybe CalExit could take some pressure off, but I dunno. I feel that bad times are coming.

  All right, I've yammered more than that game theory guy. Let's recap and wind up:

  The Left wants to disrupt the Right's power, organizations, celebrations.

  The Right is sick of Leftist disruption and wants to punish it with force.

  The hard Left has an effective infrastructure. The hard Right is looking to build one.

  The hard Left will use the tactics it's already using.

  The hard Right will use Leftist tactics, at which point the Press will become very interested in denormalizing those tactics.

  I'm guessing the Trump administration will try to eviscerate Lefty Institutions with budget cuts and the hard Left infrastructure with RICO.

  Look for *lots* of property destruction, by everyone. I would not be surprised to see innovative tactics used to destroy property.

  The press is a Lefty weapon and a Righty target.

  Everyone will have enemies' lists. All of us are already on somebody's.

  Effective Righty violence will be, by necessity, by loners or by *really* close conspiracies (think family members).

  Effective Lefty violence will be by capable, fully operating cells.

  If we get political violence between civilians, it's mostly going to be low-level until it abruptly isn't.

  Some suicidal mass murder types may copycat political violence and choose political targets.

  YOU DO NOT WANT WHITE PEOPLE TO RIOT. YOU DO NOT. WANT. WHITE PEOPLE. TO RIOT.

  Nobody wants Civil War II. That doesn't mean we won't get it anyway.

  I feel a little sick writing about this stuff. And a little stupid for talking about it. It sounds crazy in daylight.

  But every place I've been that had this happen thought it sounded crazy, too.

  And I have a bad feeling that right now what Americans want is to chop each other down like trees.

  You want to know what I'm really terrified of? Imagine a few dozen iterations of this story:

  There's a famous case where a shadowy group was after a high-value, high-status target who used his considerable resources to retreat.

  The group couldn't get to him. So they targeted everybody associated with him: Friends. Family. Staff. Lawyers. Sympathetic journalists.

  Eventually, that utter devastation of infrastructure led to the death of the high-value, high-status target, whose name was Pablo Escobar.

  That's what I'm really scared of. Killing like that, on repeat. It's my nightmare scenario. I know it's unlikely. But.

  Because this is the stupidest part of this whole thing: after 2016, I'm a little superstitious, and I'm wary of omens.

  The shadowy group that unleashed carnage on Pablo Escobar's Institutions had a name. They were known as Los Pepes.

  /fin