It won't be like that. It'll be exactly what you described....this isn't new - it's the way it always plays out in authoritian regimes....
It's not something unique to only one side.
If you go to reddit.com/r/all you'll find lots of user accounts saying the same about Republicans; not that they're wrong, but that they're evil.
(I don't identify as either side, but I've had to block nearly 100 subreddits from showing up in r/all because of the constant hate, and even then there will be random subreddits that make to the front page of r/all because it's about hating another group. I want to see interesting things, not witness an echochamber.)
https://nypost.com/2022/07/06/house-candidate-jerone-davison...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/marjorie-taylor-gree...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/us/politics/gosar-violent...
One can only hope; though it might have terrible consequences, like the republican's mask slipping more than it already has, leading to more violence.
> the conservatives who gain control in 2022 will grind the federal government to a halt with hearings and procedural moves
that's why I'm hoping the Jan 6th folks actually get Trump in prison, to get us back to some believable "hey your actions actually DO have consequences" normality. Listen, I can dream, right?
Politicide is like genocide, except you target only members of a specific party, like how the Trotskyists were killed by Stalin, or what Pinochet did to Allende's party in Chile. I haven't read this anywhere, but I assume that one usually follows the other.
I may have actually mixed them up in my original comment now that I look at it. Serves me right for spending too much time on Wikipedia.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/us/politics/gosar-violent...
“Policide” (and, confusingly for the distinction you are drawing, with near-equal frequency “politicide”) is used to refer to the analogy of “genocide” as understood in internation law where the target, rather than a people as a people is a political entity (almost exclusively in the examples I can find a polity, whether a sovereign state or some less polity, not a political faction or party.)
> Politicide is like genocide, except you target only members of a specific party
This is confusing (even leaving aside the problem that “politicide” is also a synonym for “policide” and is also used as a portmanteau of “political suicide”, giving it three distinct definitions in the same general domain) because you are using “genocide” in the sense of the frequently encountered mistakenly-narrow definition, and not the sense in which it is used in international law, to wit, to mean extermination of the members of a people rather than attempts to destroy the people as a people. But, yes, politicide has this sense with regard to extermination of members of a political faction, but it is not particular analogous to genocide.
> I haven’t read this anywhere, but I assume that one usually follows the other.
“Policide” doesn’t seem to generally be used when the target is a political faction, but if it were, politicide (in the relevant sense) would be an extreme method of policide, not something that follows it (a successful policide would make politicide superfluous, as there would be no one to target, the group no longer existing as a group and thus not having members to exterminate.)
One would imagine that the usual course would be escalation to politicide when other means of policide failed, though there are certainly instances where its pretty much zero to politicide.
(As far as the GOP goes, I think policide/politicide of a particular opposing faction isn’t necessarily wrong as a description of part of what they are headed toward, but misses the point. What I think they are headed for, unless saner heads within the party or defeat and replacement of it as a major party change the course, is an Christian Right American quasi-capitalist corporatist version of the Cultural Revolution, suppressing, violently where necessary, anything seen as ideological dissent from a particular authoritarian ideological vision.)
Nah, you've described the first 15 minutes, which is all that will happen. After that everyone will buy popcorn and go home to watch TV.
What a total utter crock of shite the posts on this topic are! YC needs to pay better attention to nutball posting on their website.
Checking your comment and post history it's quite obvious why you've taken exception to it. But you're a long-time HNer, maybe you're reasonable. Could you talk to your fellow conservatives and ask them to stop threatening the lives of their fellow Americans? People have been killed this year already by real nutjobs who were inspired by it. Just a thought.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/us/politics/republican-vi...
I don't know any conservatives who are threatening anyone. But I'm talking to you and so I ask that you tone it down and quit promoting paranoid BS. If your news stream frightens you, then I suggest you take Joe Biden's advice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mztxHgYQo
(pretty good song, eh!8-))
The URL you posted
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/us/politics/republican-vi...
mentions no particular killings. The article states that threats are being made from the right. It fails to mention threats and real violence from the left(e.g., BLM rioting, etc.). The article is a slightly better-written continuation of the river of bullshit being posted on this HN topic today.
Also, consider your source: nytimes is shifting further and further left each month.
Dang needs to step into this gusher of BS and cap off the well. Why is this topic not yet closed? It is clearly not useful to a rational person (yes, yes, I have ceased to follow it), it being little more than a venting of anger on all sides, esp. the liberal side.
Or maybe this HN topic is a honeytrap intended to lure out whackjobs from all sides, so our friends in 3-letter agencies can practice using the Internet tools that Snowden et al gave away?
You've called me a nutball and whackjob (directly or by innuendo), which as I'm sure you are well aware, is against HN rules of civility. I actually accidentally break this rule all the time, but in this instance I really don't need to worry, as I'm sure you already know exactly what I think of you, so I don't need to elaborate.
You're taking this discussion personally. Don't!
I don't intend to "cancel" anyone and think the whole idea is a breach of rationality, ethics and etiquette. Just some good manners is necessary. Even a heated discussion with overreach is good. Discussion w/o emotional motivation/expression is rarely productive.
And remember, in any discussion, it is clear that you should not care (beyond etiquette and the law) what anyone else thinks of you. Otherwise you will censor your own true thoughts and others will fail to get your message. Then we all lose. That is part of free speech (an old idea, but a good one, perhaps not commonly in use currently).
Having just read about the Spanish Civil War, I can see how this will potentially play out.
It will begin with a high profile assassination, then the extreme right will use the protests that will follow as justification for escalating violence, similar to the BLM protests. More violence. Maybe another high profile killing (on either side). Tit-for-tat murders begin, as they have in various government collapses around the world, especially in the 20th century.
The extreme left will undoubtedly respond in various ways beyond protests as tensions grow and the right will use whatever happens as propaganda to enrage their already agitated base. Whacko conspiracy theories and disinformation will make Trump’s term seem like the golden age of truth. Moderate conservatives, moderate liberals and disengaged independents won't know what to believe.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the conservatives who gain control in 2022 will grind the federal government to a halt with hearings and procedural moves. Then they’ll shut down the government with the budget. For months.
While the federal government is incapacitated, there will be a huge right-wing rally in some red state with full-throated attacks on the left. The ramped up crowd will head off afterwards and destroy a bunch of businesses and homes of people they suspect as being “pedophiles”. There will be violence and killings, recorded and shared freely as conservatives celebrate, similar what happens with Kyle Rittenhouse's actions. The state’s governor and local law enforcement will make minimal effort to prevent it and results in no prosecutions, and the fed response will be slow, as usual, and ineffective despite presidential condemnation.
This inspires other big events – full on Nuremberg style rallies – all over the country with similar results. Soon there will be skirmishes in the streets of major cities. The propaganda will be out of control, with front page stories, prime time videos and millions of social media posts filled with dead children and other atrocities, real or imagined.
Then it will really hit the fan when a group of black or Latino protestors attack a group of random white people who they associate with the right-wing. This causes irrational fear among the white population, and seemingly overnight, every other white “liberal” across the country will become suspicious or outright fearful of anyone of color. Mothers will pull their children from schools, or insist on “temporary” segregation for their child’s safety. Who knows what those children of color might do. The violence ramps up as POC communities are targeted, with the justification of “proactive self-defense” Law enforcement does nothing beyond platitudes and Uvalde like responses to shootings. They may even be at the forefront of the effort.
Fast forward and the 2024 election is fucking chaos. The entire right-wing will now accept nothing less than a win in literally every race, and it will be a presidential landslide anyways, because the Republicans are “pro law enforcement”, which, by this time means enforcement targeting mostly people of color and other “potentially dangerous leftists”. Americans have shown the memory of a goldfish and are easily scared. With violence spreading across the country, they’ll react by voting conservative, similar to after 9/11.
Then the right will have full control of all branches of government and start to pass all the laws they want. In addition to their current agenda, they will pass laws which essentially allows legalized vigilantism and an Amendment which cancels presidential term limits and other restrictions. Trump is pardoned.
California and other blue states respond, but the authoritarians in charge this time aren’t as stupid as Trump, learned the lessons he taught about the fragility of our laws, and use the power of the federal government to cripple the left through various voting restrictions intended to remove Democrats. It will all be “legal” and “constitutional” according to the right-wing SCOTUS. Eventually, the Democratic party will be officially declared an illegal organization because of its support for immoral lifestyles. The more the people rebel, the harder the states and feds crack down.
Then, it’s all a matter of rounding up the remaining resistance and the country becomes a de facto authoritarian regime. That’s when politicide turns into policide.
This is all a very probable future. We'll know it's starting with that first assassination. Look for it.