Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
There’s No Civil War
America is not on the verge of a civil war, no matter how much some media moguls may want us to be.
The silent majority of the American people don’t spend their time and energy on sick Twitter burns. Or howling at Trump Tower. Or putting on “pussy hats” and marching with Linda Sarsour. Or even writing brilliant, articulate posts like this on Ricochet.
Even we’re not like this most of the time. We mostly focus on family, friends, jobs, and how awesome the Mets are this year.
My most recent American experience was the day of the eclipse. I spent two hours with my daughter outside a mall (my wife was shopping, I was bored) offering people to look through our glasses. It was awesome. Each person had the same stunned, awed reaction when they saw the eclipse. I watched them. Different races, sexes, religions, and (I assume) income levels, professions, and political views.
Somebody who only knows America from Twitter, Fox, and CNN might expect that to cause trouble, but Americans know their offline world isn’t like that (mostly). In our normal day-to-day interactions, we relate to each other as fellow human beings living our lives together. Off Twitter and cable news, the American reality is not one of civil war.
There’s probably a sappy eclipse metaphor here but I’m distracted laughing at my memory of the picture of Trump looking at the eclipse. That was the Trumpiest thing ever. Carve that on Mount Rushmore.
So, engage in the cultural civil war (or not) but don’t let it dominate your time or destroy your perspective or your soul. Don’t follow the totalitarians into thinking everything is or should be about warring worldviews. What unites us is far greater than what divides us. And even our differences are mostly a good thing.
Spend most of your mental energies living, loving, and laughing.
And if you need tribal conflict, instead of fanning the flames of culture war, focus on those three magic words. Let’s go Mets.
Published in Culture
The leftists are working day and night to bring more of “what happens well outside politics” inside politics. They’ve been very successful at this, and I expect this downward trend to continue well into the future.
I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
You keep saying this, Jamie. I’m not sure what your point is. Do you think we’re too stupid to know that? Are you suggesting that we just surrender to them, since they’re not going away?
We’re talking politics and culture, so I assure you that “defeating them” in this context means winning elections and influencing the culture, not literally killing, imprisoning or expelling our opponents. I think you can give this line a rest.
Has she looked into Heritage Girls?
What were the conditions for the ‘Cold War’? The immediate goal is simply to survive and protect what is not already lost, long-term the goal is for the progressive Left to no longer be a threat to ordinary Americans.
As for strategy, that’s fluid, but it starts with fighting back.
Things aren’t good. Some Americans are afraid to speak up. (And some Americans won’t shut up.)
Conspiracy theories, constant turmoil, differing philosophies, and a lack of trust fills the air.
The fact that things aren’t good is bad enough, but things seem to keep getting worse. The economy is supposedly doing well in many areas right now. Imagine if the country was at say a 9% unemployment rate or some other economic crisis right now.
Jewish insults are almost as good as British insults.
Thanks for the great discussion. Some follow-up thoughts:
Dennis Prager adds to the conversation … Whatever the Left touches, it ruins
For example, you mean like Mona and the Nevers joyously celebrating the unConstitutional FBI raid on the office of the personal lawyer of the President of the United States?! I mean, that could have legitimately been done to Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 Presidential election, and yet Comey’s FBI invited such lawyers in for coffee and danish. #StinksToHighHeaven
First, I am not “agitating for this civil war”. I am a realist who is suggesting that we are already in it. It is a fact that the Left most certainly desires the “annihilation of [its] enemies”. That is all of us on this forum, whether you accept it or not. These are not friends who are just merely wrong. And I’m not talking about the average leftist ‘citizen’. They are merely the useful idiots who have been brainwashed into this unthinking worldview by the leaders of this godless movement throughout their primary education. And I take offense at the “dangerous extremist” slander. I would suggest that you are a “useful idiot” if we continue such symmetry. The leaders of the Left do not just disagree with my “vision for the country”. First, it is the Founders vision, not mine. And second, their vision is to fundamentally transform it into European socialism. Yes, I’ll fight that even if you call me a dangerous extremist for doing it.
Dennis Prager, a well known commentator on so many conservative topics for decades is “woke” to the truly dangerous extremists on the Left and he is trying to warn us all … and so Dennis Prager is also denounced on these pages as a “dangerous extremist” … Whatever the Left touches, it ruins
Because … Trump. Sad.
I’m not sure there is a “grand strategy” for defeating the left, but I would offer a couple of thoughts:
First, it is not in the cards to completely defeat the left. So long as we live in a democracy that recognizes individual freedom of thought and speech there will be some stupid people who believe in leftist ideology. We can’t stamp it out entirely, short of imposing a tyranny, which would pretty much defeat the purpose of our fight.
Second, to the extent we can win, we need to recognize that the fight is waged at the ballot box, and not in the trenches of the Somme. Our tactics should be geared to winning elections, and we have been doing pretty well at that. Of course, the pendulum swings. The voters are fickle. But we should recognize the actual battleground.
Third, we should celebrate, not fear, the stupid antics of the left. Every time there is television footage of Antifa breaking windows and burning cars, it helps our side. Even if the television “personality” commenting on the footage is saying that it is justified and good, people will react negatively to such behavior. In the famous words of Groucho Marx, “Who are you going to believe – me or your own eyes?” I have met many conservatives who came over to our side because they were so disgusted by the antics of the rioters at the 1968 convention.
Fourth, we need to remember that when the left gets its way, there is inevitably a backlash. Leftist policies always lead to misery, poverty, and squalor. When that happens, there is often a reaction by the citizenry, even if those citizens had been reliable lefties in the past. When New York was sliding into the abyss, it turned to Rudy Giuliani. When Britain was overrun by tax and spend socialism and the effects of nationalizing industries, it turned to Margaret Thatcher. The main thing we have going for us is that our policies mostly work, while leftist policies always fail. We may not be able to explain that to the voters in words, but we can demonstrate it by results. Many of the voters will notice those results.
Yes, let’s not be like them. During spring 2016 every time I listened to her I became more open to supporting Trump and more antagonistic to them. And then she stopped influencing me because I stopped listening to her podcast, which I had once enjoyed.
I’m a big fan of Prager, I read 5 of his books, some multiple times, but I only partially agree with this.
Part of fighting the left is not letting political arguments turn into all-consuming, totalitarian struggles.
And the greatest good we can engage in at this time probably still involves raising our children and being kind to our neighbor. Krauthammer is right that get the politics too far wrong and you lose everything. But as a columnist I once greatly respected (George Will) once said, picklemakers probably think picklemaking makes the world go round. Prager is naturally obsessed with the battle over political ideas. The battle is important. It is not the greatest good we can engage in at this time.
Amen. Hence the efforts by the left to silence us . . .
Yeah I agree this is how things are supposed to work. I am really kind of neutral on the idea of “war” metaphors.
My problem here is that your solutions are exactly what the left are targeting. Conservative speech = hate speech. Conservative speakers spark protests bordering on riots because they are going to give a speech. Two African American Trump supporters are deemed “unsafe” so they blocked by Facebook.
If the answer is speaking to people but the trend is toward limiting or criminalizing conservative speech. Then your ideas only can work in small groups or one on one discussions.
I am not saying violence is the answer, just that your answer may not be working any more.
How is it unconstitutional? Please show your work.
You mean the conflict where we fought proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam, and had smaller conflicts in Latin America in which over 340,000 US soldiers died in combat?
Gil, on a personal level I agree with you. I obviously am not donning Based Stickman gear and waging war in the streets. However, I don’t condemn him either. Antifa is a physical threat. As is BLM. As are union thugs (Warning: SEIU at this rally). This is real. A Trump Chicago rally in March 2016 was called off just due to the threats of violence. Even Ted & Marco had the gall to blame the victims … because Trump. If I was talking with a friend who was a leftist, I don’t start out with this perspective. With fellow Conservatives? Of course I do. And loudly because we are way too “unwoke” on this subject!
We have come at this discussion from the opposite ends of the spectrum. However, I want to point out @richardfinlay ‘s contributions to this conversation. I would say that he comes from a perspective in between us …. and he has a lot of wisdom to offer. See posts #24, 30, 49, 54 and 58. You have the perspective that the Left are friends and that we should be persuasive. Richard remarks that would be “nice if everyone were nice”. They aren’t, and Richard asks … “How well is that working for you?”. At post #58, he highlights the definitive problem with this “individual” attitude/approach …..
Your proposed way results in “being overrun without effectively fighting back — being overrun — is not “war” but I don’t find it reassuring.”
Richard Finlay … take a bow, sir. You are more persuasive than I.
I think this comment both captures and repeats a problem with this and many other Ricochet comment threads…
Yes. We split into tribes defending half-truths that nobody on the thread is really attacking. But then I think you do exactly that:
I don’t think any of us are trying to say that, and I’m sorry if I gave that perception.
I agree completely.
My post was prompted by the Twitter founders’ promotion of the America’s New Civil War post which said
So for this Ricochet thread:
Partial Truth A: We are not in and cannot win a totalitarian ideological fight to the death with leftists. We must live, love, laugh and engage with people across the political spectrum, who are not going away. Totalitarian ideological struggle is suicide to America and to conservatism.
Partial Truth B: These are very important issues and many on the other side really want to destroy us, and we must fight back. Unilateral disarmament is suicide.
Our tribal human natures are leading us to fight each other over our half-truths, as in your sports radio example. I’m not sure I’ve seen much real disagreement in this comment thread.
Was it really that many?
Moderator Note:
Offensive and rude. Knock it off.I’ll let Professor Dershowitz educate you … Mueller violated Michael Cohen’s constitutional rights just seizing records says Dershowitz …
[REDACTED]
Actually, I did make a mistake. That number is total US casualties, not deaths. Casualties includes soldiers who were wounded.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war
So it’s really more like 90,000 died instead of 340,000 died, but my point still stands that the Cold War involved actual wars and actual dying, instead of stupid stuff on Twitter.
Dershowitz opinion is at odds with both case law and that of actual practicing ASUSA’s. Oh and even the linked article points out that this practice isn’t uncommon.
Even libertarians are in favor of investigating criminal activity, but your jeuvenile personal attack is much appreciated.
For shame! This is Indian country. :)
I don’t know that there needs to be a strategy. Some of this is cyclical.
American liberal populism tends to be reactionary against forces that attempt to exert control over people. When I was young, during the Reagan era, there was a lot of fear about the religious right imposing their rigid morality in law. This created a feeling among non-ideological casual liberalism to want to resist the attempts at control from the right. This anti-right sentiment still lingers today. Even though the right has been moving away from that kind of policy, these reactionary feelings die slowly.
Now the tendency toward fundamentalist control is coming the left, and we’re seeing an emergent populist resistance to that. It may take more time for the American middle to readjust and recognize this shift, but they will, and the natural American inclination toward liberalism will shift accordingly.
The solution for the liberty-loving right is to do a thorough PR makeover, purge the antiquated elements that romanticize or cling to oppressive traditions, cede moral scolding entirely to the Left, and energetically promise real freedom to all people as equals who are free to pursue whatever they want. In contrast, the left will look like the fundamentalists that they are.
If I were in charge of the Republican party, I would enforce some new rules within the party: for 20 years, the party will enforce term limits for congresspersons with no new candidates older than 35, and no presidential candidates older than 45. It would be like a radical toxins flush that would signal to America that we understand the need to purge corruption and old ways of thinking. As a result we would also, invariably, end up with a more diverse party that isn’t as easy to pigeonhole as old white men who don’t really understand how things work today.
Indians? I don’t know whether to make fun of you for being a flyover or for supporting a racist team. Or just for being from Cleveland. They’ll let just anybody on Ricochet, apparently.
Well, thank you for fixing it for me.
BTW, you Yankee fans can just ignore the part in the OP where I mentioned not letting the cultural battle destroy your soul. I guess you might as well just go all in on the fight.
It’s a birth defect. I was born in da Bronx and Mickey Mantle hit a home run for me (that’s what my father told me) on the day I was born. What’s a girl to do??? Not to mention, back then it was possible for a young family to go to games and get good seats on a regular basis and still be able to eat afterwards. Yeah, I’m older than the Mets (whippersnappers, get out of my yard!!). Yikes!
That’ll do just fine.
I grew up a Cubs fan but after 30 years in one place, one adapts.
Last year’s World Series was a Cosmic Joke played on me.
More accurate to say I’m in and around Cleveland. I’m from the Chicago ambit.
Working on the ‘from Cleveland’ part, though. Minneapolis beckons.