I don't agree. I think there will be 37 different sides and a whole lot of blood. Everybody is angry at the world and everyone feels like no one can be trusted, no one is really on "my side".
Ugly ugly ugly.
You’re right. We’re in a hell of a mess and people are stressed.
My protest movement will be focused on ponies. Every American should get one free pony of their choosing from the government. I plan to round up thousands of bronies and assorted fans of the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic show. I think I can turn out quite a crowd for occupation and seizure of various playgrounds around the nation beginning very soon. We will carry really cute signs of AppleJack and Fluttershy which will make those mean tax payers agree to our demands. Our protests will be bloodless for now.... But once it becomes clear we have no way to feed or take care of our ponies, we'll be back for more of your tax money and darn it, things could conceivable get bloody if we had any weapons or knew how to use them. If you do, please don't hurt us, we only want ponies....
“I don’t agree. I think there will be 37 different sides and a whole lot of blood. Everybody is angry at the world and everyone feels like no one can be trusted, no one is really on “my side”.”
I believe you are right, and that it is part of the basic plan. Fracture your enemy across multiple fault lines and he can’t resist.
Here we have a lot of lines to fracture: Free trader conservatives vs protectionists, who view each other as not being conservative at all...
Differing opinions on what constitutes free speech...on whether private property rights trump the right of self defense... the list goes on...
Not only is it not true that “conservatives” have all the guns and ability to use them (I have known many radicalized ex special forces types, who believe in peace, but may just take up arms if required, by their own admission), but we are not a homogenous group within ourselves, and many of us have espoused positions which might put some of us on the opposite sides of armed conflict.
The absolute worst thing that could happen to this country is a Balkan conflict, with a return to the bushwhacking activity which was common in the civil war era.
I have wondered in the past whether a certain characteristic of our current potentate has made him bulletproof, where anyone else attempting to take over so many different aspects of our lives and businesses might meet a more swift removal from office. Even if (in a wild conspiratorial brainstorm) some evil corporation were to decide to remove this thorn in its flesh, the resulting civil war would be worse for its bottom line than riding it out.
This makes it more likely (to continue in the same hypothetical vein) that his handlers, if he has any, might be aware of his usefulness in this regard, when they get tired of him, or he is no longer otherwise useful. *Except*, that the last thing they would want is a civil war with two clear sides - we can overcome that, ugly as it is, as we did before.
So, everyone ignore the weird late night rambling, and get back to the subject:
It is vital that we have real conversation about what should constitute core conservative ideas and behaviors, now, and what we can disagree on without resorting to violence, before we find ourselves carried into a maelstrom without any chance of averting it.
It won't be that 'clean'. It will be an ugly "multi-sided" brawl. Internal wars are always thus. Even the US Civil War (which really was a failed war for Independence, not a "civil war") had it's "free agents" out on the Indian frontier, Kansas-Missouri Borders, West Virginia, Copperhead Democrats in the North, etc.