Rhetoric about the 2nd civil war is escalating. A mainstream funded website has even gone so far as to advocate for things to become more extreme. But is all of this just rhetoric or are the factions of the regressive left, the authoritarian left, and the "fascist government" becoming a much more serious issue? Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Photos of immigrant detention centers are being placed next to photos of Holocaust concentration camps. | ||
| Ice agents are being called Nazis. | ||
| People are saying we are witnessing the rise of fascism in the United States, that the president is a fascist, and that the U.S. | ||
| today is the same as Weimar Germany was before the rise of the Nazis. | ||
| The rhetoric is getting more and more extreme, and the political factions are pulling further and further away from each other. | ||
| Over the past year, we have seen talk about the potential for a second American Civil War, and some people are giving it a really high percentage likelihood of actually coming to pass. | ||
| This past month, we have seen some articles saying we might be facing a second American Civil War. | ||
| But none of these are as alarming as the mainstream-funded website Splinter News, formerly Fusion, almost getting to that point where it's advocating for domestic terrorism. | ||
| So when the rhetoric escalates to this point, I have to wonder, are we really facing a second American Civil War? | ||
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| On August 14th, 2017, We saw this article in the New Yorker. | ||
| Is America headed for a new kind of civil war? | ||
| In the story, they say, America's stability is increasingly an undercurrent in | ||
| political discourse. | ||
| Earlier this year, I began a conversation with Keith Mines about America's turmoil. | ||
| Mines has spent his career in the U.S. Army Special Forces, the United Nations, and now | ||
| the State Department, navigating civil wars in other countries, including Afghanistan, | ||
| Colombia, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan. | ||
| He returned to Washington after 16 years to find conditions that he had seen nurture conflict abroad Now visible at home. | ||
| It haunts him. | ||
| In March, Mines was one of several national security experts from foreign policy asked to evaluate the risks of a second civil war, with percentages. | ||
| Mines concluded that the United States faces a 60% chance of civil war over the next 10 to 15 years. | ||
| Other experts' predictions ranged from 5% to 95%. | ||
| The sobering consensus was 35%, and that was five months before Charlottesville. | ||
| We keep saying it can't happen here, but then, holy smokes, it can. | ||
| Minds told me after we talked on Sunday about Charlottesville. | ||
| The pattern of civil strife has evolved worldwide over the past 60 years. | ||
| Today, few civil wars involve pitched battles from trenches along neat geographic frontlines. | ||
| Many are low-intensity conflicts with episodic violence in constantly moving locales. | ||
| Mine's definition of a civil war is large-scale violence that includes a rejection of traditional political authority and requires the National Guard to deal with it. | ||
| On Saturday, McAuliffe put the National Guard on alert and declared a state of emergency. | ||
| We saw the street battles last year. | ||
| We saw Charlottesville. | ||
| But the rhetoric hasn't slowed down, and there have been a few street battles this year. | ||
| Those street battles aren't the defining factor of whether or not we are facing a civil war. | ||
| It's certainly the most important to pay attention to. | ||
| Look, I think it's fine if we're yelling at each other and things get annoying. | ||
| Having someone kicked out of a restaurant is rather silly, but it's not the end of the world, and if that is the extent of a second civil war, I wouldn't call it a war. | ||
| I would call it civil annoyance between political factions. | ||
| But the rhetoric is escalating, and there are a few things that have caught my attention that have me particularly worried. | ||
| Yesterday we saw this tweet from Claire Lehman. | ||
| Pyramid of White Supremacy, published by Salisbury University, expressing attitudes such as, there are two sides to every story, and we all belong to the human race, are considered to support lynching and mass murder. | ||
| And we see this photo, the Pyramid of White Supremacy. | ||
| In this photo it says, in a pyramid, every brick depends on the ones below it for support. | ||
| If the bricks at the bottom are removed, the whole structure comes tumbling down. | ||
| At the top of this pyramid, we can see genocide. | ||
| It says mass murder and unjust police shootings. | ||
| There have been many unjust police shootings in this country. | ||
| In fact, many countries have unjust police shootings. | ||
| But this pyramid is making it seem like that is only one step away from mass murder. | ||
| Now, mass murder and police shootings rely on all of these other bits below it. | ||
| What's particularly alarming, as Claire Lehman mentioned, is there are two sides to every story, and we are all part of the human race, are considered to be support for genocide. | ||
| At the bottom, remaining apolitical is considered support for white supremacy and genocide. | ||
| Politics doesn't affect me. | ||
| It's just a joke. | ||
| Why can't we all get along? | ||
| This is just a bit of propaganda that's being shared, but it's coming from Salisbury University. | ||
| Michael Ian Black tweeted, Theater is political. Sports is political. Life is | ||
| political. Be political. | ||
| And Dave Rubin tweeted, Progressives want everything to be political because they | ||
| want to control every facet of your life. | ||
| And I'm not entirely sure I agree with that opinion. | ||
| But when you look at this other bit of propaganda that states being apolitical is baseline support for genocide, | ||
| you can see that they're pushing really hard to make people political. | ||
| I don't know why. | ||
| Perhaps it's because they want to bolster their ranks. | ||
| They want more people to align with their ideology because maybe there is going to be some kind of conflict. | ||
| But what is particularly worrisome about this is that if it ever does come to violence, If you are apolitical, you will be considered the enemy. | ||
| Which has been alarming to me because I'm a journalist. | ||
| And so I do look for different sides to every story. | ||
| I try to understand what's going on. | ||
| And in many instances, not all, I do remain apolitical because my goal is simply to understand what is happening. | ||
| It would seem that the rhetoric, even among journalists and in universities, is that if you are not on their side, you are the enemy. | ||
| And we have seen innocent people attacked in the streets. | ||
| We have seen events shut down. | ||
| We have seen people bashed over the head with bike locks. | ||
| None of this should be taken as to mean I do think we are facing a second civil war. | ||
| It's likely we are all in a bubble and just paying attention to the wrong thing, because I can assure you, many people are focused much more on soccer right now, the World Cup, and sports than any of what is going on. | ||
| And it is only about 18% of this country that is estimated to consider themselves feminist. | ||
| Out of that percentage, how many are actually willing to get violent and willing to fight? | ||
| Probably not that many. | ||
| I would say many people might default to say they are a feminist, believing in these kinds of policies, but for the most part might just go along with it. | ||
| I think it's actually less than 10% of people who actually are willing to engage in any kind of political conflict. | ||
| But keep in mind, it only takes a small minority to instigate some kind of massive conflict. | ||
| 10% of this country is still around 30 million people. | ||
| That's a lot of people, and it doesn't take that many to rise up in the streets and cause a fight. | ||
| In Charlottesville, it was a few thousand people, but it made national headlines, and that can influence the rest of the country. | ||
| So, maybe this is all... | ||
| Hyperbole. | ||
| Maybe this is just people exaggerating, maybe it's clickbait. | ||
| I certainly think it is, to an extent. | ||
| But, I did see something that was rather alarming the other day. | ||
| An article from Splinter News. | ||
| This used to be Fusion, a company I worked at, and it's funded by Univision, and at one point it was funded by ABC. | ||
| Which is basically Disney. | ||
| This is a mainstream-funded website that is dancing on the line of actually advocating conflict or domestic terrorism. | ||
| This is an article from yesterday morning called, And it shows a picture of a Pakistani immigrant's limousine being torched in Washington D.C. | ||
| It starts by saying, Do you think that being asked to leave a restaurant or having your meal interrupted or being called by the public is bad? | ||
| My fascism-enabling friends, this is only the beginning. | ||
| One thing that people who wield great power often fail to viscerally understand is what it feels like to have power wielded against you. | ||
| This imbalance is the source of many of the most monstrous decisions that get made by powerful people and institutions. | ||
| Further down in the story, it says, And this is what I want to highlight. | ||
| The, and it should. | ||
| Because this statement right here is advocacy for more extreme behavior. | ||
| And what kind of behavior are they specifically talking about? | ||
| It says, Wait until the recession comes. | ||
| Wait until Trump starts a war. | ||
| Wait until the racism this administration is stoking begins to explode into violence more frequently. | ||
| Read a effing history book. | ||
| Read a recent history book. | ||
| The U.S. | ||
| had thousands of domestic bombings per year in the early 1970s. | ||
| This is what happens when citizens decide en masse that their political system is corrupt, racist, and unresponsive. | ||
| The people out of power have only just begun to flex their dissatisfaction. | ||
| The day will come, sooner than you all think, when Trump administration officials will look back fondly on the time when all they had to worry about was getting hollered at at a Mexican restaurant. | ||
| When you aggressively F with people's lives, you should not be surprised when they decide to F with yours. | ||
| And again, this statement begins with this sentence. | ||
| This is all going to get more extreme, and it should. | ||
| I found that to be rather alarming. | ||
| I don't want to imply that this person actually is saying it should get more extreme to the degree of domestic bombings. | ||
| But I can't help but wonder what they really mean. | ||
| This is a Univision-funded website. | ||
| Splinter News is a part of the Fusion Media Group. | ||
| This includes The Onion, The Root, the old Gawker properties. | ||
| And this is a person saying, it should get more extreme, don't forget there were thousands of domestic bombings in the United States. | ||
| What is fair to assume here? | ||
| I don't want to imply intent, but it sounds to me at least like this person is saying maybe there should be some kind of bombings. | ||
| Now a lot of people have said to me, Tim, the military is going to win. | ||
| These protesters don't stand a chance and talking about it is pointless because they're just kids protesting. | ||
| Right, but maybe in 10 to 15 years, these kids run for office, they become politicians, they're in the military, and they gain access to these resources. | ||
| If some political ideologue gets into office and gets power, then we might see things get bad. | ||
| I don't necessarily think Trump is the figure to institute some kind of fascism or some kind of authoritarian government, but there are certainly people who oppose him and people who support him who very well might be. | ||
| So we should pay attention to what's going on in this country. | ||
| Because whether or not you agree with the president, there are extremists on all sides who have a stake in gaining power. | ||
| Now on June 1st, we have what may be the actual voice of reason, surprisingly, coming from Vox. | ||
| Stop making Second American Civil War clickbait. | ||
| And it actually references the New Yorker story I first talked about, that experts estimate a 35% chance of US Civil War over the next 10 to 15 years. | ||
| This article basically says that the people who are trying to make it seem like America is facing a civil war are actually just trying to paint their political faction as the good guys. | ||
| People on the left who are saying we're facing the Weimar Republic before the rise of Nazis are those who oppose the Nazis. | ||
| People on the other side are saying it's like the rise of communism, and they oppose the communists, when in reality, it might just be two groups of wingnuts who are exaggerating and stuck in a bubble. | ||
| And I certainly hope that's the case. | ||
| But when we see rhetoric from a website like Splinter News, which is well-funded, advocating some kind of escalation in extremism, I start to get worried. | ||
| Because it starts with street battles. | ||
| It starts with extreme political rhetoric. | ||
| Brands start getting political. | ||
| Everything becomes political. | ||
| Being told that if you don't get involved, makes you a white supremacist. | ||
| Being told that if you want to look for some kind of objective truth, you are supporting white supremacy. | ||
| It all becomes very worrisome. | ||
| And then we start seeing mainstream articles not just talk about the possibility of a second American Civil War, but actually advocate for things to become more extreme. | ||
| So what do you think? | ||
| Comment below and we'll keep the conversation going. | ||
| Is this just more total BS clickbait in an attempt to generate clicks, make money? | ||
| Is it possible we actually are facing a civil war? | ||
| And I guess more importantly, is it possible that the clickbait rhetoric is actually pushing that drive, is actually pushing the belief and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? | ||
| In which case, Am I at fault for doing the same thing right now? | ||
| Comment below! | ||
| We'll keep the conversation going. | ||
| You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast. | ||
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