Roy Edroso reminds me this morning that I have a folder here labeled “Snappy Comebacks.” Every now and then, I’ll drop in something I think pithy. Most are not really that snappy, or one-liners, but whatever. This one dates back to the second Obama administration (2013), but with a minor edit could still work today:
It sure seems that every time some people are mildly threatened by cultural, political or demographic change in America, they run out and buy more guns and ammo.
They create shortages. There’s of talk of tyranny and rebellion, and how they need their private arsenals to defend the United States of America from internal enemies – meaning their neighbors and the elected government. And they carry AR-15s to rallies to show everybody they can’t be messed with and that they really mean business this time.
Well. There’s Pennsylvania Avenue, pal. And there’s the commie, fascist, Muslim, Kenyan usurper. And there’s your “Don’t Tread On Me” flag and your tri-cornered hat. And your gun safe full of weapons. And your basement full of ammo.
So which way to the revolution, Rambo? Are you really a Minuteman, or is that just what your wife tells her friends?
[Angry reaction?]
Right, I’m sure you know how to throw a punch. But you think you and your arsenal are going to defend the country from tyranny, and that glass jaw shatters under a simple verbal punch from some sawed-off, liberal wuss?
You got stuff alright, but is it the Right Stuff?
Edroso’s Substack entry, “Rebel tell,” casts doubt on polling about the prospects of a second civil war from Zogby, Larry Sabato and others. Outlets from the Washington Post to (naturally, he says) Russia Today weighed in with commentary. But do those polls measure what we think they measure?
Polls can be useful, but one of my pet theories is that the more divorced from the respondents’ everyday reality the poll question is, the less useful the result. I believe people when they say how they feel about a specific proposed tax policy, for example, but when you ask them if they’re for “lower taxes” in general, it’s like asking them if they’d like to have all the ice cream they can eat and never get fat.
Also, look at this 2020 Gallup poll report that says, among other things, “Broad Attitudes on Race Have Become More Negative.” One of their proof points: “In 2018, about half of Americans rated relations between whites and blacks as ‘good,’ representing a major drop from as high as 70% or more who previously had rated relations as good.”
Sounds bad! But further down, you see this: “The percentage of Americans who approve of marriages between blacks and whites moved from 48% in 1965 to 87% the last time Gallup updated the measure in 2013.” And actually Gallup recently updated that — the pro-marriage-miscegenation vote is now 94%.
I will go to my grave believing that when you ask people what their attitudes on race are, you’re much more likely to get a meaningful answer than when you ask them, as Gallup did, “how you would rate relations between various groups in the United States these days.” In the latter case they’ll be telling what they think other people’s attitudes are, because for most of them “relations between whites and blacks” is a news story, not their lives.
It’s like polling that asks who Democrats should nominate for president and Democrats tell pollsters who they think other people would vote for.
Edroso observes:
But civil war? Listen, I’m as dystopian as the next fellow, but think about it for ten seconds and it’s obviously ridiculous.
Unless you’re the kind of person who really likes the idea of killing a lot of people you don’t agree with.
Clearly, there are a few armed wannabes out there who fantasize of doing just that, and a few will do exactly that. But barely enough for a skirmish or two, much less a war.
Considering how many of Trump’s would-be revolutionaries whined like children about losing their jobs once word got back to their employers that they’d participated in assaulting the Capitol last January, Edroso’s not out in lefty field. Like the former Poseur-in-Chief, much of the gun cosplay is just that. Try polling people on whether a new civil war’s economic devastation to their families might be worth it to put those hated Others in their places.
Sure, out on the wingnut fringe they get all moist over this stuff. Edroso cites several offerings. From the American Greatness website. From John Hinderaker, one of the original 101st Fighting Keyboarders. From American Thinker and Ben Shapiro (another Fighting Keyboarder).
This excerpt captures the tone:
Sometimes their approach is more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, though the sorrow at least is unbelievable. Take Claremont Institute president Ryan Williams, whom Emma Green interviewed at the Atlantic the other day. “I worry about such a conflict,” Williams moans. “The Civil War was terrible. It should be the thing we try to avoid almost at all costs.” The “almost” has been widely noted; less widely noted is Williams’ accelerationist pedigree, as revealed in comments like these he gave in the Institute’s 2018-2019 Biennial Report: “At the Claremont Institute we have framed this war — and make no mistake, it is a war — as a conflict between Multiculturalism and America.” Sounds like he’s been hankering to grab a musket for a while.
So which way to the revolution, Rambo?