yeah. willingness to use lethal force on non-coethnics. hope that helps. use of force on coethnics is a difficult problem for dictatorships to solve. it took iran essentially fifteen years and required disassembling their military in order to do it.
Replies
"What is a co-ethnic in the US," seems to be a question Trump and Miller are willing to ask, though.
aug 28, 2025, 8:10 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes. In MAGA talk, "liberal" is now a race, with the same valence as "Jew" elsewhere
aug 28, 2025, 9:30 pm • 1 0 • view
I guess the open question is (and I tend to be more on your side than the other, but am less confident) whether the consolidated effort by the right-wing to other urban residents as “not Real Americans” and therefore non-coethnics can succeed despite shared language, heritage, etc.
aug 28, 2025, 7:54 pm • 3 0 • view
The Jewish people are already variably coethnic or non-coethnic to the rest of white America depending on the observer and the specific needs of the right-wing at any given moment, and it’s an untested assumption that this is for historical rather than instrumental reasons.
aug 28, 2025, 7:54 pm • 2 0 • view
Wholeheartedly agree that the U.S. military as it currently exists cannot be used for this purpose because of the broader definition of coethnicity that defines its composition. The right-wing seems to understand this too, hence the attempt to constitute alternatives both nationally and locally.
aug 28, 2025, 7:54 pm • 2 0 • view
Put another way - on a spectrum of “socially constructed” to “genuinely different,” how far away are rural and urban Americans from Hutus and Tutsis, and how much impact can Hutu Power FM have on moving this position?
aug 28, 2025, 7:59 pm • 1 0 • view
I think it has
aug 28, 2025, 7:59 pm • 0 0 • view
also specifically industrial armies against preindustrial populations
aug 28, 2025, 7:51 pm • 7 0 • view
colonial examples universally profit from being able to ally with some ethnic groups/local rulers against others. very effective way to build empire in any era--worked for the romans and persians, too.
aug 29, 2025, 12:52 am • 2 0 • view
this requires a kind of deep and granular social cleavage the modern US just doesn't have, and i don't think could really imagine.
aug 29, 2025, 12:53 am • 2 0 • view
oh, sure. I'll bet the Martians could get there in a couple of centuries but probably not off the bat.
aug 29, 2025, 1:09 am • 0 0 • view
"willingness to use lethal force on non-coethnics" is also something which colonialists could find among minorities mistreated by the majority in the local population -- the Kikuyu in Kenya; Sikhs, Gurkhas, and Punjabi Muslims in India; Alawites in Syria. the white American majority lacks this!
aug 28, 2025, 7:45 pm • 66 1 • view
this is actually why I'm more concerned about cops than the military! they're pretty accustomed to violence directed at racial minorities and left wing protestors, and they are already embedded in every community in the country, and seem to love trump. not dooming, just think that's the threat
aug 28, 2025, 7:46 pm • 40 0 • view
cops are accustomed to low level or sporadic violence against these groups, I would be surprised if they were willing to massacre protestors on the Iranian model
aug 28, 2025, 7:52 pm • 6 0 • view
every country has a class of law enforcement who are eager to use the truncheon and put down protests with tear gas- in many countries they have a history of abusing minorities and murderous abuse of force- in no country however, can they be trusted to massacre their co-nationals
aug 28, 2025, 7:59 pm • 4 0 • view
in iran, this was the basij, which was not trustworthy to commit massacres during the Green Revolution. they had to use special IRGC units in 2023-2024 to get it done.
aug 28, 2025, 8:00 pm • 4 0 • view
yeah and the argument that the american police are more abusive, cruel or ideological than the literal morality police is really not going to hold water
aug 28, 2025, 8:03 pm • 2 0 • view
Depends on who you ask. Black folks in right wing states might disagree.
aug 28, 2025, 8:18 pm • 0 0 • view
yeah a lot of this predicated on people not merely accepting their presence. like we are positing a populace that requires massacres to put down unrest and i’m just not sure. maybe!
aug 28, 2025, 8:08 pm • 5 0 • view
if trump tries to outright steal an election/refuses to seat a dem congress or tries an autocoup, i’ll be there in DC. i guess im just not sure how many will be with me and what lengths they’ll be willing to go
aug 28, 2025, 8:09 pm • 9 0 • view
but like back in february i went on a NZ pod and imo a little boldly claimed that donald trump would not leave office through traditional political channels and i thought the most likely end to his term was people in the streets, fleeing the country in the middle of the night. still think that!
aug 28, 2025, 8:11 pm • 7 0 • view
Inshallah
aug 28, 2025, 8:14 pm • 3 0 • view
🤞
aug 28, 2025, 8:12 pm • 2 0 • view
or put another way: if people actually rise up, I do not think trump now nor ever will have the power to put them down. I just don't know what it's gonna take for people to rise up, and just how broken things will be by then
aug 28, 2025, 8:17 pm • 4 0 • view
Tbh if I were a betting point, I would bet that the most likely possible outcome is a blue wave in 2026 and Republicans just refuse to seat the new dems
aug 28, 2025, 8:12 pm • 2 0 • view
i think that's pretty tough because they will have to hold down literally the entire caucus to try to make that happen
aug 28, 2025, 8:18 pm • 4 0 • view
With enough pressure, the white house can get congressional Republicans to do what trump wants. They will say the election is fraudulent and that will be enough to get congress in line
aug 28, 2025, 8:20 pm • 0 0 • view
The thing is they can't lose more than a few votes on the question of "end the country and plunge each side into civil war" to do this, maybe they get there but also the new congress could meet e.g. in philadelphia and, constituting a quorum of the house, make a legitimate claim to power
aug 28, 2025, 8:37 pm • 0 0 • view
You arent wrong but to modern Republicans the actual logistics of holding a position are irrelevant
aug 28, 2025, 8:46 pm • 0 0 • view
*betting man
aug 28, 2025, 8:12 pm • 1 0 • view
Kind of beside the point but I actually do appreciate the not doomer, but perhaps pessimist view here. It's very important to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities here, we don't have a good answer for police being violent gangs and we're gonna need one.
aug 28, 2025, 8:27 pm • 4 0 • view
Morale remains our most critical resource atm and I can understand why people end up protective of it, but failing to examine vulnerabilities is sure destruction
aug 28, 2025, 8:27 pm • 3 0 • view
Cops also kill a ton of poor white people!
aug 28, 2025, 8:21 pm • 7 0 • view
Like it's an incredibly racially injust system, rotten to the core, but American police absolutely have plenty of practice killing coethnics
aug 28, 2025, 8:23 pm • 9 0 • view
they don’t have near as much practice doing it in the form of the massacre, tho. they’ll kill in a large number of isolated incidents, but to stop a protest with force you need to be willing to machine-gun crowds, many of which will not be poor!
aug 28, 2025, 8:47 pm • 1 0 • view
But also, widespread and significant local buy in from elites who the British were more than happy to not only work with but actively promote the welfare and stability of at the expense of everyone else.
aug 28, 2025, 8:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Given the voting trends, if they did this, America would be fiefdoms ruled by car dealership owners (exaggerated for humor). I imagine it would be two days before there was a mass uprising.
aug 28, 2025, 9:54 pm • 2 0 • view
I don't think it would even take that long. It's funny how many on the right are terrified of "gun violence" in cities or whatever, but also those cities are just gonna roll over and take it if The Cool Times happen. Nah man, I'm pretty sure Chicago alone has more gun owners than most states.
aug 28, 2025, 9:57 pm • 1 0 • view
As a Hoosier, you're welcome for weapons in a potential future conflict.
aug 28, 2025, 9:58 pm • 1 0 • view
Lol, I'm in the the blue dot in Nebraska, but I appreciate the sentinment. I'm sure you can relate, the plains/midwest is similar enough and empty enough that I just feel a sort of kinship with anyone who lives here than I don't for the coasts, South, or mountain west.
aug 28, 2025, 10:03 pm • 1 0 • view
Also comparisons to colonialism just really don't seem to click here. The British East India Company did not have to directly control the populace! They only had to control the owners of the existing local mechanisms of violence and control!
aug 28, 2025, 7:42 pm • 29 0 • view
notably the EIC had to spend like 100 years hollowing out the Mughal Empire’s state bureaucracy before the British govt proper could kick the structure down completely. in fact, the British directly copied their modern state bureaucratic system from the Mughals in part to make that process easier
aug 28, 2025, 7:44 pm • 9 0 • view
I think the risk is not that the national guard overruns police departments, but that local police are encouraged to “coup” their civilian city governments, or at least to accept orders from Washington instead. In the case of Adams and New York, he might even go along with it.
aug 28, 2025, 7:45 pm • 13 0 • view
i suspect that in that case you have serious problems paying your thugs.
aug 28, 2025, 7:46 pm • 14 0 • view
The question of who "wins" the fight between NYPD and a mayor ultimately comes down to "who does the comptroller side with?"
aug 28, 2025, 7:48 pm • 10 0 • view
I've got bad news for Trump, then.
aug 28, 2025, 9:55 pm • 0 0 • view
even in the event of open insubordination I don’t think many city governments would dare defund the police (at least they haven’t when this has happened at smaller scales)
aug 28, 2025, 7:47 pm • 5 0 • view
I think there's a difference between "Blue Flu" and outright contesting duly elected government. The latter hasn't really been attempted since the 70s. And I think modern electeds have more steel than their antecedents.
aug 28, 2025, 7:51 pm • 5 0 • view
I don’t see the steel but it’s probably because I’ve too recently escaped from the misrule of the New York Democrats
aug 28, 2025, 8:02 pm • 4 0 • view
god they're so fucking bad
aug 28, 2025, 8:02 pm • 6 0 • view
It’s not clear to me that any coup is even necessary in most places.
aug 28, 2025, 8:01 pm • 2 0 • view
I understand the possible annoyance people have that the modal anti-trump protestor is a white grandma, but in this case it is extremely useful.
aug 28, 2025, 7:49 pm • 1 0 • view
and also the moral authority of their closest analogy to the Pope
aug 28, 2025, 7:42 pm • 1 0 • view
Also a huge coopting of the native population and elites. I feel this person may need to learn the history of the actual empires... it wasn't a great, British army sweeping in
aug 28, 2025, 7:41 pm • 22 0 • view
over like 50-100 years too lol
aug 28, 2025, 7:42 pm • 11 0 • view