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GW University PhD: Where we're headed is worse than civil war
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1468239713928724494.htmlLast week, during our last session of my White Backlash graduate course, my students asked me if I thought the U.S. would descend into a civil war during the next decade. I replied that the current situation is much more bleak than that. Here's why:
1) Nearly a year later, the state has still failed to meaningfully punish those who carried out the deadly 1/6 assault on the Capitol, much less punish its organizers in Trump, Bannon, Guiliani, Christopher Miller, Josh Hawley, etc.
Why does this matter? White backlash mvmnts rely on a collaboration btwn vigilantes & the state. We see this most clearly in the local nature of coup attempts during Reconstruction & Jim Crow. Lawmakers encouraged supremacist violence & legitimized participants.
From the “Liberty Place” & Wilmington coups in the 19th century to the and St. Louis, Tulsa, Orangeburg, and Greensboro massacres & suppressionist violence of the 20c, white vigilantes & state actors worked hand-in-hand.
This pattern defined the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, during which cops & vigilantes worked together to beat the shit out of protesters, since legitimized in the Rittenhouse verdict. Rather than interrupt this alliance, Dems allowed it to metastasize.
2) Republicans have further rigged an already antidemocratic system to cement white power indefinitely, passing state-level voting restrictions & redistricting following the Wisconsin model of minoritarian rule.
Why does this matter? The ethnonationalism & white supremacy of the GOP are unpopular, & Dems have reasonably relied on that unpopularity to win office & keep the very worst bad actors from winning power.
After finding that the piecemeal suppressionist efforts & institutional means of overturning the 2020 election insufficient, Republicans have expanded both.
Republicans passed voter restrictions in 19 states like Georgia & Texas making it harder to vote white pursuing “reforms” in making it easier to toss out results in which Dms win.
GOP lawmakers seek greater control over local elections | AP News
Partisan takeovers of election boards. Threats to fine county election officials and overturn results...
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-legislature-local-elections-bills-73b331234cec8c966bb2308f6ed1696e
At the very same time, Republicans passed bills in 36 states making it easier to arrest & run over protesters, which would be Dems only recourse following GOP suppression & election rigging.
US Protest Law Tracker - ICNL
The US Protest Law Tracker, part of ICNL’s US Program, follows initiatives at the state and federal level since November 2016 that restrict the right to protest. Click this link to see the full Tracke…
https://www.icnl.org/usprotestlawtracker/
Finally, Republicans are in the midst of an “anti-CRT” campaign making it illegal to criticize white supremacist structures, even historically, in classroom & state agencies, again leaving Dems w/o recourse after GOP sabotage.
In short, the system they created is incredibly thorough, designed to prevent fallout from suppression. It MIRRORS PRECISELY the tactics white supremacists used to create & affirm via SCOTUS an apartheid state from the 1890s through the 1960s in the U.S.
This means that unless Dems pass & implement federal legislation (like yesterday, tbh) addressing this 3-pronged attack on democracy, 2022 or 2024 will likely bring the final death of multiracial democracy.
3) Finally, mainstream reporting & public discourse continue to treat the GOP as a legitimate party & “bipartisanship” as a legitimate end.
Why does this matter? The “bipartisan” descriptions of the GOP assault on democracy as, for ex, “polarization,” hide the ways that the GOP has radicalized over the last 40 (& esp 10) yrs.
Refusing to acknowledge GOP radicalization (not to mention the proliferation of online right wing misinformation) makes it difficult for most Americans to understand the causes of our current crisis.
Historically, the most violent white supremacist backlashes occurred in response to multiracial organizing like we saw in 2020 that led “mainstream” & “centrist” forces to align with white reactionaries in the name of “civility.”
We see that most clearly during Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Red Summer, & Massive Resistance, during which white vigilante & state forces meted out mass violence while white elites found new ways to rig the system.
This white "moderatism" seeks power in preserving or reestablishing a white consensus politics by undermining critique of the "bipartisan" white consensus as inherently illegitimate.
A much longer thread on that dynamic here, but the nutshell is that from legacy to social media, our information networks are owned & operated by those literally invested in the white consensus.
Perhaps Dems & legacy media simply haven't learned the "lessons of the last 4 yrs" or whatever. Maybe. But the behavior fits a specific pattern of historic white backlashes that put those outside the "white consensus" in mortal danger.
Civil wars are miserable & horribly deadly, but they usually carry the potential for a better, more equitable future. Unless we change course dramatically & right away, the current white backlash leaves little room for that hope. /end
1) Nearly a year later, the state has still failed to meaningfully punish those who carried out the deadly 1/6 assault on the Capitol, much less punish its organizers in Trump, Bannon, Guiliani, Christopher Miller, Josh Hawley, etc.
Why does this matter? White backlash mvmnts rely on a collaboration btwn vigilantes & the state. We see this most clearly in the local nature of coup attempts during Reconstruction & Jim Crow. Lawmakers encouraged supremacist violence & legitimized participants.
From the “Liberty Place” & Wilmington coups in the 19th century to the and St. Louis, Tulsa, Orangeburg, and Greensboro massacres & suppressionist violence of the 20c, white vigilantes & state actors worked hand-in-hand.
This pattern defined the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, during which cops & vigilantes worked together to beat the shit out of protesters, since legitimized in the Rittenhouse verdict. Rather than interrupt this alliance, Dems allowed it to metastasize.
2) Republicans have further rigged an already antidemocratic system to cement white power indefinitely, passing state-level voting restrictions & redistricting following the Wisconsin model of minoritarian rule.
Why does this matter? The ethnonationalism & white supremacy of the GOP are unpopular, & Dems have reasonably relied on that unpopularity to win office & keep the very worst bad actors from winning power.
After finding that the piecemeal suppressionist efforts & institutional means of overturning the 2020 election insufficient, Republicans have expanded both.
Republicans passed voter restrictions in 19 states like Georgia & Texas making it harder to vote white pursuing “reforms” in making it easier to toss out results in which Dms win.
GOP lawmakers seek greater control over local elections | AP News
Partisan takeovers of election boards. Threats to fine county election officials and overturn results...
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-legislature-local-elections-bills-73b331234cec8c966bb2308f6ed1696e
At the very same time, Republicans passed bills in 36 states making it easier to arrest & run over protesters, which would be Dems only recourse following GOP suppression & election rigging.
US Protest Law Tracker - ICNL
The US Protest Law Tracker, part of ICNL’s US Program, follows initiatives at the state and federal level since November 2016 that restrict the right to protest. Click this link to see the full Tracke…
https://www.icnl.org/usprotestlawtracker/
Finally, Republicans are in the midst of an “anti-CRT” campaign making it illegal to criticize white supremacist structures, even historically, in classroom & state agencies, again leaving Dems w/o recourse after GOP sabotage.
In short, the system they created is incredibly thorough, designed to prevent fallout from suppression. It MIRRORS PRECISELY the tactics white supremacists used to create & affirm via SCOTUS an apartheid state from the 1890s through the 1960s in the U.S.
This means that unless Dems pass & implement federal legislation (like yesterday, tbh) addressing this 3-pronged attack on democracy, 2022 or 2024 will likely bring the final death of multiracial democracy.
3) Finally, mainstream reporting & public discourse continue to treat the GOP as a legitimate party & “bipartisanship” as a legitimate end.
Why does this matter? The “bipartisan” descriptions of the GOP assault on democracy as, for ex, “polarization,” hide the ways that the GOP has radicalized over the last 40 (& esp 10) yrs.
Refusing to acknowledge GOP radicalization (not to mention the proliferation of online right wing misinformation) makes it difficult for most Americans to understand the causes of our current crisis.
Historically, the most violent white supremacist backlashes occurred in response to multiracial organizing like we saw in 2020 that led “mainstream” & “centrist” forces to align with white reactionaries in the name of “civility.”
We see that most clearly during Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Red Summer, & Massive Resistance, during which white vigilante & state forces meted out mass violence while white elites found new ways to rig the system.
This white "moderatism" seeks power in preserving or reestablishing a white consensus politics by undermining critique of the "bipartisan" white consensus as inherently illegitimate.
A much longer thread on that dynamic here, but the nutshell is that from legacy to social media, our information networks are owned & operated by those literally invested in the white consensus.
Perhaps Dems & legacy media simply haven't learned the "lessons of the last 4 yrs" or whatever. Maybe. But the behavior fits a specific pattern of historic white backlashes that put those outside the "white consensus" in mortal danger.
Civil wars are miserable & horribly deadly, but they usually carry the potential for a better, more equitable future. Unless we change course dramatically & right away, the current white backlash leaves little room for that hope. /end
35 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
You write like an anti stupid person. Good to see.
