The Fabric of the Nation Under Strain: Early Signs of the Unraveling

 

First, to make this about me yet again, a few reference quotes. [One] noted here:

November 22, 2020, at 8:33 AM PST

I know I’m like a broken record on this but the reaction of … red-county America in general … to this very public slap down by their more refined big-city political and media betters will be quite instructive. Unfortunately, if these demons are not properly exercised among the binding forces within these states, I fear they will eventually be exercised at the bonds between many states.

And this from December 30, 2020:

[Living within the lie is] not the makings of a healthy free / non-fear-based American society.

I come to this point as one who just days after this dirty mockery of an election I was asking “At what point do some of these united states tire of others not participating in the agreed to compact in good faith?” and “how will red-county America react to this both within and between various states?” To be more specific: Does some portion of We the People really start to resist the (not even remotely hidden anymore) managed decline by a completely corrupted beltway behemoth and the corresponding evolution away from American liberty? If so, how?

There are signs out there…all around us…and usually they pass by mostly unnoticed. This one passed down the Instapundit scroll earlier this evening:

Crabby Marylanders Want Out

Six Republican lawmakers from Maryland’s three westernmost counties…wrote to Republican legislative leaders in West Virginia earlier this month with a request that they “advise on [the] next steps” to join The Mountain State.

“We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t feel there is a strong sense of unrest and unhappiness among people in our rural area of the state” …

So, again, when I asked in December:

…what (if anything) strategically does red-county America do to counter the fact that controlling portions of (a now critical mass of) states are no longer participating in the agreed to compact in good faith? Given that reform and/or constitutional governance at the federal level are not in the offing, are there existing structures that fit (or can be adapted for) such purposes …? What structures need to be created?

I think we are starting to see a variety of paths that desperate people are willing to entertain. Given the relative general stability of the last couple of centuries, this may seem more than a bit radical. But no one should be surprised if seams start showing signs of giving way like this all across this land in the next three and a half years. And to be clear…I certainly hope that we are all forced to endure it (with Biden’s face – and the full faith and credit of the Democrat party and their NT enablers – plastered all over every ounce of the pain) until the next Presidential election, no matter how bad it gets.

I will go ahead and edit my most copied quote for these modern times:

“[A] significant and growing portion of the American population is losing have lost the virtues required to be functioning members of a free society.” – Charles Murray in Coming Apart (Page 289), 2012

If this trend does not change direction soon, American liberty will be effectively snuffed out by those in control of the Biden administration. Clearly, to all willing to see, the Republic is dead…but the spirit can go on if We the People keep it alive.

By the way, I am not at all optimistic.

Cheers.

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  1. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Somewhere I have an Orwell quote about the flattening of history. I will find it later…but given all that we know today, I think it is worth remembering what was completely knowable and, in fact, known well before more recent headlines. To that end, form a December 10,2020 post, it is worth refreshing this:

    While the case of that intentional failure to meet the originating obligation [to guarantee ballot integrity, and a fair and accurate count of the votes] has been clear in PA for quite some time, now (thanks to this post by Unsk) we have the clear cases for all four subject swing states:

    Violations of Election Law in PA:

    1. “The Secretary of State unilaterally abrogated signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.

    2. PA supreme court changed existing deadline for receiving mail-in ballots from 8:00 PM on the day of election to 3 days after the election and adopted a presumption that non-postmarked ballots be considered as valid.

    3. Election officials in Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties did not follow state law permitting poll-watchers to be present for the opening, counting, and recording of mail-in ballots.

    4. The Secretary of State directed election officials to remove ballots before 7:00 AM on the day of election in order to “cure” defective mail-in ballots. This was done only in Democrat majority counties.

    5. Election officials did not segregate ballots received after 8:00 PM on election day breaking the promise made to the U.S. Supreme Court thus making it impossible to identify or remove those ballots.”

    Violations of Election Law in GA:

    1. “The Secretary of State unilaterally abrogated signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.

    2. The Secretary of State authorized opening and processing mail-in ballots up to three weeks before election day when the law prohibits that until after the polls open on election day.

    3. The Secretary of State materially weakened the security requirements for ballot rejection based on signature verification or other missing information.”[Continued…]

    • #1
  2. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    […Continued]

    Violations of Election Law in MI:

    1. “The Secretary of State unilaterally abrogated signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.

    2. The Secretary of State sent out unsolicited ballots to all 7.7 million registered voters contrary to election law which requires a voter to request a mail-in ballot through a process that includes a signature to be matched with the voter registration.

    3. The Secretary of State also allowed absentee ballots to be requested online without signature verification.

    4. Local election officials in Wayne County — containing 322,925 more ballots for Biden than for Trump — opened and processed mail-in ballots without poll-watchers present.

    5. Local election officials in Wayne County also ignored the strict election law requirements of placing a written statement or stamp on each ballot envelope indicating that the voter signature was in fact checked and verified with the signature on file with the state.”

    Violations of Election Law in WI:

    1. “The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) positioned hundreds of unmanned illegal drop boxes to collect absentee ballots. (The use of any drop box, manned or unmanned, is directly prohibited by Wisconsin statute. Any alternate mail-in ballot site “shall be staffed by the municipal clerk or the executive director of the board of election commissioners…” “Ballots cast in contravention of the procedures specified in those provisions may not be included in the certified result of any election.”)

    2. The WEC encouraged voters to unlawfully declare themselves “indefinitely confined” in order to avoid security measures like signature verification and photo ID requirements. Nearly 216,000 voters said they were indefinitely confined in the 2020 election, nearly four times as many as in 2016.

    3. Strict laws requiring mail-in voters to certify by signature including the signature of an adult witness were ignored or circumvented by election officials.”

    • #2
  3. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    […] that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

    In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed –

    “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

    I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

    I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

    It will become all one thing, or all the other.

    Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South.

    Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

    Some guy whose statue should probably be torn down.

    • #3
  4. Nohaaj Coolidge
    Nohaaj
    @Nohaaj

    philo: By the way, I am not at all optimistic

    as you have outlined, and we have observed; who could be? 

    But: we are a nation of SOB’s who have, from the beginning, fought against odds and advice, and have overcome.

    With God’s Blessing, and some luck, and a multitude of crazy patriots, perhaps, maybe. Probably not. 

    Like you, I don’t believe that we can revert back to a – norm?  The nation has undergone such a transformation to the Socialist Left, that attempting to claw our way back to a representative republic, with liberties and freedoms, is possibly forever gone. 

    The final resolution might be a dissolved US, with red and blue states creating two unique states.  A shame, and a horrific tragedy, but … but looking more reality than fantasy. 

    Do we as plebes, have any real control over this destiny?

    I would like to think so, but doubt that we matter….

    • #4
  5. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    philo: And to be clear…I certainly hope that we are all forced to endure it (with Biden’s face – and the full faith and credit of the Democrat party and their NT enablers – plastered all over every ounce of the pain) until the the next Presidential election, no matter how bad it gets.

    This deserves more…so here it is. Many here and elsewhere were rather flippant with the “Trump as existential threat” twaddle. Every one of them deserves our complete contempt. While I tend to regard the term “mean spirited” as intellectually lazy, it is not as intellectually dishonest as “existential threat” so I will let it go on this one occasions. Here is Mr. Hinderaker of Powerline:

    Psaki is a remarkably mean-spirited woman. Notice how she can’t get through her embarrassing answer without a pointless reference to the “mess that was left by the last administration”–on this issue, even more than most, a ridiculous characterization. But the Democrats have nothing left to offer but Trump hatred, so they have little choice but to trot it out at every opportunity.

    UPDATE: On the point of psycho Jen’s mean-spiritedness, I have had a tab up on my browser for a couple of days; this is an opportune moment to add it. Psaki casually asserts that President Donald Trump represented an “existential threat” to our democracy:

    …the questions here are obvious: Donald Trump was President for four years. If he somehow represented an “existential threat to our democracy,” how was that threat manifested? He had every opportunity to make war on our democracy, so what did he do? The answer is, nothing.

    Trump was one of our more notably law-abiding presidents–as opposed to, for example, Barack Obama, who violated his oath of office by, among other things, failing to take care that federal laws on immigration be faithfully executed, in violation of Article II of the Constitution. Obama lost numerous 9-0 votes in the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Donald Trump, in contrast, was one of the most law-abiding presidents of modern times. For better or worse, he faithfully obeyed court orders, even obviously partisan and ill-founded ones like the order from a Hawaii judge, a Democratic Party activist, that purported to dictate immigration policy across the Southern border. Maybe someday a reporter will ask Psycho Psaki how, exactly, President Trump manifested this alleged hostility to “our democracy” during his four years in office? …

    A significant and growing (for now) portion of the American population deserve Biden-ism good and hard for the better part of 1500 days. It will be a good lesson…

     

    • #5
  6. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    SIDE NOTE: Clearly, I am a bit wound up tonight. But the cocktails also soften the soul. With that, I have admitted here before that “Jack Donaghy” (the art and the artist) was a guilty pleasure along with the rest of that show. The mind reels…many prayers for all involved in such a tragic event. 

    • #6
  7. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    philo (View Comment):

    philo: And to be clear…I certainly hope that we are all forced to endure it (with Biden’s face – and the full faith and credit of the Democrat party and their NT enablers – plastered all over every ounce of the pain) until the the next Presidential election, no matter how bad it gets.

    This deserves more…so here it is. Many here and elsewhere were rather flippant with the “Trump as existential threat” twaddle. Every one of them deserves our complete contempt. While I tend to regard the term “mean spirited” as intellectually lazy, it is not as intellectually dishonest as “existential threat” so I will let it go on this one occasions. Here is Mr. Hinderaker of Powerline:

    Psaki is a remarkably mean-spirited woman. Notice how she can’t get through her embarrassing answer without a pointless reference to the “mess that was left by the last administration”–on this issue, even more than most, a ridiculous characterization. But the Democrats have nothing left to offer but Trump hatred, so they have little choice but to trot it out at every opportunity.

    UPDATE: On the point of psycho Jen’s mean-spiritedness, I have had a tab up on my browser for a couple of days; this is an opportune moment to add it. Psaki casually asserts that President Donald Trump represented an “existential threat” to our democracy:

    …the questions here are obvious: Donald Trump was President for four years. If he somehow represented an “existential threat to our democracy,” how was that threat manifested? He had every opportunity to make war on our democracy, so what did he do? The answer is, nothing.

    Trump was one of our more notably law-abiding presidents–as opposed to, for example, Barack Obama, who violated his oath of office by, among other things, failing to take care that federal laws on immigration be faithfully executed, in violation of Article II of the Constitution. Obama lost numerous 9-0 votes in the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Donald Trump, in contrast, was one of the most law-abiding presidents of modern times. For better or worse, he faithfully obeyed court orders, even obviously partisan and ill-founded ones like the order from a Hawaii judge, a Democratic Party activist, that purported to dictate immigration policy across the Southern border. Maybe someday a reporter will ask Psycho Psaki how, exactly, President Trump manifested this alleged hostility to “our democracy” during his four years in office? …

    A significant and growing (for now) portion of the American population deserve Biden-ism good and hard for the better part of 1500 days. It will be a good lesson…

     

    At least for some, it was all about what Trump “would CERTAINLY do in his SECOND TERM, once he didn’t face election again!”

    • #7
  8. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    kedavis (View Comment):

    philo (View Comment):

    philo: And to be clear…I certainly hope that we are all forced to endure it (with Biden’s face – and the full faith and credit of the Democrat party and their NT enablers – plastered all over every ounce of the pain) until the the next Presidential election, no matter how bad it gets.

    This deserves more…so here it is. Many here and elsewhere were rather flippant with the “Trump as existential threat” twaddle. Every one of them deserves our complete contempt. While I tend to regard the term “mean spirited” as intellectually lazy, it is not as intellectually dishonest as “existential threat” so I will let it go on this one occasions. Here is Mr. Hinderaker of Powerline:

    Psaki is a remarkably mean-spirited woman. Notice how she can’t get through her embarrassing answer without a pointless reference to the “mess that was left by the last administration”–on this issue, even more than most, a ridiculous characterization. But the Democrats have nothing left to offer but Trump hatred, so they have little choice but to trot it out at every opportunity.

    UPDATE: On the point of psycho Jen’s mean-spiritedness, I have had a tab up on my browser for a couple of days; this is an opportune moment to add it. Psaki casually asserts that President Donald Trump represented an “existential threat” to our democracy:

    …the questions here are obvious: Donald Trump was President for four years. If he somehow represented an “existential threat to our democracy,” how was that threat manifested? He had every opportunity to make war on our democracy, so what did he do? The answer is, nothing.

    Trump was one of our more notably law-abiding presidents–as opposed to, for example, Barack Obama, who violated his oath of office by, among other things, failing to take care that federal laws on immigration be faithfully executed, in violation of Article II of the Constitution. Obama lost numerous 9-0 votes in the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Donald Trump, in contrast, was one of the most law-abiding presidents of modern times. For better or worse, he faithfully obeyed court orders, even obviously partisan and ill-founded ones like the order from a Hawaii judge, a Democratic Party activist, that purported to dictate immigration policy across the Southern border. Maybe someday a reporter will ask Psycho Psaki how, exactly, President Trump manifested this alleged hostility to “our democracy” during his four years in office? …

    A significant and growing (for now) portion of the American population deserve Biden-ism good and hard for the better part of 1500 days. It will be a good lesson…

     

    At least for some, it was all about what Trump “would CERTAINLY do in his SECOND TERM, once he didn’t face election again!”

    The damage that hypotheticals can effect are beyond measure, and that is a hill my strawman is willing to die on. 

    • #8
  9. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    When they are bound together in a federal Republic, how can a court say that one state has no legal standing regarding a corrupt election in another state when the corrupted state’s electoral votes will have a direct bearing on how the Republic containing both of them is operated. Texas suffers due to the corruption evidenced in Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states that went rogue. I don’t have legal training, but this does not look right to me.

    • #9
  10. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    TBA (View Comment):
    The damage that hypotheticals can effect are beyond measure, and that is a hill my strawman is willing to die on. 

    You mean like the hypothetical that the earth is going to be destroyed by manmade carbon emissions??? In a hundred years so that no one promoting the lie hypothetical will be around to take responsibility when it doesn’t happen? But, in the meantime we’re going to deface the land with inefficient and unsustainable (yes, I said it. I used the “s” word for something with a 15 year lifespan) wind turbines and solar arrays (consuming huge amounts of water in the desert) while making the poor even poorer through energy poverty??? Like that??!!

    • #10
  11. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Great Post and Comments Phio. 

    Many here at Ricochet still don’t understand the existential threat this massive system of election fraud is to our democracy  and to our Constitutional Republic. 

    Many Never Trumpers here at Ricochet simply want to sweep  this massive election fraud  under the rug forever.  It’s just doesn’t play well with moderates. I mean we just can’t confront the Democrats on their massive thievery and treason.  That is simply not done in polite society. I mean  the ‘adults in the room” really just won’t allow it. 

    • #11
  12. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):
    The damage that hypotheticals can effect are beyond measure, and that is a hill my strawman is willing to die on.

    You mean like the hypothetical that the earth is going to be destroyed by manmade carbon emissions??? In a hundred years so that no one promoting the lie hypothetical will be around to take responsibility when it doesn’t happen? But, in the meantime we’re going to deface the land with inefficient and unsustainable (yes, I said it. I used the “s” word for something with a 15 year lifespan) wind turbines and solar arrays (consuming huge amounts of water in the desert) while making the poor even poorer through energy poverty??? Like that??!!

    Exactly. Every water bottle you don’t recycle is literally murder!!! 

    • #12
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    TBA (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):
    The damage that hypotheticals can effect are beyond measure, and that is a hill my strawman is willing to die on.

    You mean like the hypothetical that the earth is going to be destroyed by manmade carbon emissions??? In a hundred years so that no one promoting the lie hypothetical will be around to take responsibility when it doesn’t happen? But, in the meantime we’re going to deface the land with inefficient and unsustainable (yes, I said it. I used the “s” word for something with a 15 year lifespan) wind turbines and solar arrays (consuming huge amounts of water in the desert) while making the poor even poorer through energy poverty??? Like that??!!

    Exactly. Every water bottle you don’t recycle is literally murder!!!

    Easy solution: stop using bottled water!

    • #13
  14. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    National divorce

    • #14
  15. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    NOTICE: This Member post has been promoted to the Main Feed. Content may have been edited / corrected from the original without attribution by Ricochet.

    (Somewhere along the line it seems we – or I – stopped getting notifications about promotions. For what it’s worth, that is/was an important feature to at least one of us.)

    • #15
  16. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    philo (View Comment):

    philo: And to be clear…I certainly hope that we are all forced to endure it (with Biden’s face – and the full faith and credit of the Democrat party and their NT enablers – plastered all over every ounce of the pain) until the the next Presidential election, no matter how bad it gets.

    This deserves more…so here it is. …

    MORE: Of course, this goes double for the “watchdog” press that has failed us so miserably. Clearly, they are all-in, witness this clown:

     

     

    • #16
  17. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    philo (View Comment):

    philo (View Comment):

    philo: And to be clear…I certainly hope that we are all forced to endure it (with Biden’s face – and the full faith and credit of the Democrat party and their NT enablers – plastered all over every ounce of the pain) until the the next Presidential election, no matter how bad it gets.

    This deserves more…so here it is. …

    MORE: Of course, this goes double for the “watchdog” press that has failed us so miserably. Clearly, they are all-in, witness this clown:

    Jen Psaki is one of the most dishonest, manipulative, dishonest — did I mention dishonest? — press secretaries ever. She has to be. Look who she’s working for. 

    Chris Wallace is another one absolutely wrecked by Trump. Change my mind.

    • #17
  18. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Rodin (View Comment):

    National divorce.

    The article on American Thinker presents a frightening point of view I hadn’t thought of. I’ve been thinking it would a peaceful American version of Brexit. But there’s a danger, as pointed out in the article, that that is not the only possibility. It could easily turn into a civil war because of the Marxist wish for domination that has always permeated the left. 

    Especially with so much money on the table. 

    • #18
  19. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    More folks are coming to grips with the reality that the folks who run the Administration are totalitarian.  Most ordinary Democrats do not know it, as they engage locally some more, some hardly at all, and watch main stream media.  They believe that their local Democratic Party and political activities are similar to Washington’s.  They do not understand that Washington is different.  Bureaucrats there engage in things that promote their interests and cooperate with others that enhance those interests.  State politics, in most states,  at most, are a minor constraint for some of their bosses.     New York and LA play more actively but who knows exactly how. Some Republicans  understand but many still seem to think that if they could win an election they too would run things from the top, but more fairly, more democratically.  That’s not the way tops work and it’s why the US was unique.  It’s probably over unless we separate and while that will be brutal in many respects, it’s probably the only way to preserve a republic in this world.

    • #19
  20. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    philo (View Comment):

    philo (View Comment):

    philo: And to be clear…I certainly hope that we are all forced to endure it (with Biden’s face – and the full faith and credit of the Democrat party and their NT enablers – plastered all over every ounce of the pain) until the the next Presidential election, no matter how bad it gets.

    This deserves more…so here it is. …

    MORE: Of course, this goes double for the “watchdog” press that has failed us so miserably. Clearly, they are all-in, witness this clown:

    If your idea of ‘best press secretary’ involves obfuscation, distraction, deflection, denial, misdirection, and bald-faced lying – and these are certainly part of the job description – Psaki is aces. 

    And for all that we hold her in contempt, the press core tolerates her and so Psak’ the flack deflects flack from Joe Kickback just by showing up.  

    • #20
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