Guns do not a revolution make.
The United States is already in the midst of its second revolution. I'm not concerned here with the reasons and factors that have led us to this point, because those reasons can be found in almost any headline you read. I've even written about the seeds of this revolution on this blog. What I'm concerned with here is documenting significant milestones of the revolution, and covering the trajectory of it for anyone who hasn't yet had the ability to see if for themselves. The line between a civil war and a revolution is pretty blurry, and pretty useless for those caught in the middle of either one, but it's important to understand the difference in order to understand the threat, the factors at play, and understand where we might be headed.
A revolution differs from a civil war mainly in that revolutions are propelled by ideas, while civil wars are driven by force. To be sure, violence, can be, and often is, present in a revolution. Revolutions, like civil wars, are often the most violent and brutal types of warfare for the fact that they are driven by passions and emotion levelled at your fellow citizenry, and not simply by military operations. But they are not inherently violent events, and are not defined by traditional kinetic warfare even if that's where they often end up. A revolution is a battle of ideas, and a battle of ideas is what the United States finds itself in presently.
Factions
The differences between the factions fighting the current revolution could not be more stark. I have covered the combatant forces, the Marxists, pretty extensively on the blog, so I will only briefly outline these here again. The revolutionary forces are those of Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, and a myriad other Marxist umbrella groups masquerading (as they always do) as liberating forces are vying for domination over the United States' government and its culture. They are the ones seeking to subvert the system and replace it with their own. These groups fall under a command structure of people like George Soros, the DNC, the UN, and the CCP. All of whom have a vested interest in replacing the U.S. Constitution with State Communism as their framework for control.
So far, the Marxists have been winning, because they have been almost wholly unopposed. They took to the streets by the thousands this past summer, and mounted a blitzkrieg on American cities. They have been winning the culture war for decades, and have put Americans under an assault that they have been unprepared for, and even unwilling, to deal with. But after the November third election, a new ingredient was added to the bubbling stew: opposition. After millions of Americans witnessed what they perceived was a fraudulent election, they began taking to the streets to attempt to wrestle back control of their government, and of their way of life.
The American Forces
The "American Forces", as I will call them, are made up mainly of you run-of-the-mill American citizen. Their motivations are a return to God, liberty, a return to law and order and the founding principles of the United States. The American Forces, then, can't truly be classified as a revolutionary force because they aren't fighting to fundamentally change the system, but to preserve it. The American Forces can be called the defenders.
They aren't particularly adept at street activism, or revolution either. The bulk of their numbers is made up of middle-aged folks who have better things to do than get in the streets to protest. The first gathering of American Forces I attended was on November 4th at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. It was frankly quite sad. There were roughly 50 people standing outside the arena, huddled in small groups, unsure of what to do do other than hold flags and converse with like minded individuals about what they'd like to do to rescue the country. But every movement has to start somewhere.
And in the span of about two weeks, largely due to the efforts of the Stop the Steal movement, this rag tag band of American citizens grew. They became comfortable in the streets. They learned how to chant, how to march, and how to express just how pissed off the are. They made signs, they proudly and fearlessly stood with one another in front of state capitols and governor's mansions all across the country. At one rally I attended in front of the Georgia Governor's Mansion, a column of probably 100 vehicles circled the mansion blaring their horns and waving flags. This was a far cry from the timid group I stood with on November 4th.
Reinforcements
But to be viable and effective defense force, the American Forces would need to do more than gather in large groups, hold signs, and chant. The left is ruthless in their manner of waging street warfare. They have decades of experience. During the Summer Revolution, the leftists proved just how far they were willing to go in their campaign against the Republic. Therefore, if the American Forces were to be at all effective, they'd need their own defense against leftist attacks. They needed a force within a force. And a few groups have answered the call.
First and foremost was the Proud Boys. Soon after those timid first meetings of American patriots, the Proud Boys began to march alongside the American Forces to bolster their numbers. Wherever ANTIFA was present at a gathering of the American Forces, so too were the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys have handily pushed back ANTIFA and reclaimed territory wherever they have showed up. No longer were the American Forces simply a picketing group. Now they had some teeth.
The militia has also answered the call, and was present at the second rally I attended in front of the Georgia Capitol, and has been present at every one since. The militia works on the periphery. They don't engage in direct street combat with ANTIFA. Their presence is merely a defensive one.
It is a significant milestone in the revolution that the American Forces are galvanizing into an organized and unified front. The American Forces have proven that they are willing to stand toe-to-toe against with the revolutionary forces, and they are quickly learning how to take to the streets effectively. This has shifted the current from simple unrest on American streets, to a potential tinderbox of opposing forces, ready and willing to meet each other head on.
Million MAGA March
The tinderbox may very well have lit during the Million MAGA March on November 14th. The American Forces marched by the hundreds of thousands down Pennsylvania Avenue in support of the Republic and were attacked by the revolutionary forces. As members of the march returned to their cars and hotels after the events had ended, leftist militants seized the opportunity to attack the American Forces. All night into the early hours of November 15th, members of Proud Boys and the regular American Forces marched the streets of DC where they clashed with the leftist revolutionary forces. This was the first large scale conflict between the two sides of the revolution. It showed a willingness on both sides to meet one another in the street, and come to blows if necessary.
Current Shift
The Saturday after the Million MAGA March, I stood among more than one thousand people in front of the Georgia Capitol. It was by far the biggest show of American Forces that I'd yet been in, and it was the first time I'd gotten a taste of the way the revolution had gone from being two sides engaging in their own rallies and arguing online, to a revolution where opposing forces met toe-to-toe in physical space. The atmosphere was wholly different from any of the rallies I'd previously attended, and nothing like that first meet-up the day after the election.
About an hour into the protest, word quickly spread that ANTIFA had showed up. About 100 of them had taken a position on a cross street. A large group of American Forces marched to the corner and stood along the fences that the Georgia State Patrol had set up and for over an hour, American Forces and ANTIFA were locked in a standoff, separated only by the State Patrol and some fencing. While standing there on the line I observed for the first time the potential, and potentially inevitable flashpoint for the revolution to go hot.
Many standing there against the fence were fresh off the events of the previous weekend in D.C. They had witnessed the combat first hand. They had seen ANTIFA attacking their numbers like wolves. They remembered the summer, where leftist groups looted, burned, and tortured their way through American cities. One older gentleman I spoke to, had been injured in the skirmishes in DC. At one point, an elderly lady not more than 5'4" walked up beside me, practically begging to get through the line and get a piece of ANTIFA. One man tried to use a fence section as a ladder to climb over an iron fence and get to ANTIFA who were within spitting distance on the other side.
All this is to say that the average American citizen who would never think to attend a protest, let alone make time to attend them once or twice a week, have gotten to the point that they are indeed attending protests once or twice a week, and are willing to stand toe-to-toe with and when necessary fight the opposition forces to fend off what they perceive as an assault on the Republic and their very way of life. They feel that their government has failed them at virtually every level. They feel that the police, who they support and defend against the leftist throngs, corral and monitor their protests while they let the leftists ransack cities. The "sleeping giant" has awoken to the reality that its only recourse may well be to fight to defend itself.
Outcomes
No one wants a hot revolution. They are dangerous, tragic, bloody, and the outcomes are never certain. A hot revolution is an absolute last resort, and thankfully we are not at that point yet. But the purpose of this writing is to say that that reality is far from impossible. In fact, with what I've witness on the ground at these rallies, and from what I've seen of them in other places, that outcome is as likely as any other scenario. Discussing the possibility of another civil war in America is no longer relegated to the shadows of the internet, or your family dinner table. It is now discussed openly. Even mainstream outlets are willing to admit what many of us have talked about for many years. All the signs are there whether you look at history, political theory, definitions, or simply what's right in front of you.
What I, and many others, have observed as perhaps the biggest indicator that we may be headed toward violent conflict is that America is no longer compatible with itself. No one has escaped this sad reality. Politics no longer hinges on disagreements about what the best way to run the country is, or what might make the country better. Politics is now a zero sum game. The ideologies vying for control of the country are not compatible. One faction is fighting for a neo-feudal social justice nightmare, while the other is fighting for a return to liberty and constitutional governance. There can be no middle ground, so the question becomes, what will the result then be?
Fortunately, a hot revolution isn't wholly inevitable. There are a few possible outcomes, where at least one of which doesn't involve a kinetic war. One of those is that everything simply fizzles out. This is perhaps even based in physics: an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Each side will let out its collective anger as it is doing now: in large gatherings where for the most part they basically scream at one another. Everyone gets tired of screaming, and goes home and we continue to live under whatever tyranny they will put up with, until the next time we need a good therapy session.
The second outcome, which is another that doesn't mean war, is the political solution. There will still be some street skirmishes, there will still be mass gatherings and social unrest, but the political mechanisms will continue to work in such a way that the sentiments of the American people can be calmed down to the point that we eventually find reconciliation with one another. This would also require some sort of "come to Jesus" moment among millions of Americans who will be willing to set aside their ideologies for the good of the nation and let the battles be waged by our political mechanisms. Unfortunately, I don't see this as a very likely outcome for the simple fact that it is the corruption of our political mechanisms which has led us to this point in the first place. People simply do not trust our politics, or even our judicial system anymore, and are unlikely to be willing to let those systems resolve their grievances.
The third outcome, which seems at this point to be very likely (though I may tend to be too much a pessimist) is based in history. To ignore the possibility of a violent conflict on U.S. soil is to ignore what's staring us right in the face. While it's true that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, what very well may be in motion now is not sentiments cooling down, but heating up. It would seem that when sentiments such as the ones now rising in America gain sufficient momentum, a violent conflict is inevitable. To be clear, I am absolutely not advocating this. As I said above, it is the least desirable outcome of all of them. I do, however, think that sadly it may be the most likely.
Trust in our leaders is gone. Trust in the law and the judicial system is gone. Trust in our information systems is gone. It would seem that the erosion of our institutions has reached a critical junction, and after November 3rd, millions of Americans now do not have faith in their elections. Millions of American citizens are growing exponentially frustrated as they watch their country seemingly ripped out from under them. The other side simply wants to throw it all out. To completely replace our system of government with something entirely different. And so far, no one has a good answer as to how to fix it. All of this has left the American people feeling that they have terrifyingly few options.
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