2024 Political Shockwaves: The Aftermath of a Series of Violent Protests, Riots, Politically-Motivated Arson Attacks, Murders, and Assassinations, Followed by Massive Revolts

With each successive election cycle in the 21st Century, Americans seem to be growing more divided and more strident. This political divisiveness has spilled over into popular culture, movies, and even rifts in some religious denominations. College and university campuses have become flashpoints for large protests. Policing and prosecutions at the federal level – and in some coastal states – have become overtly politicized and weaponized.  Each passing year, there is less and less “common ground.”  People seem to have been grouped into diametrically opposed camps. 

In the 2020s, we have witnessed enormous government overreaction to a pandemic, with overreaching draconian measures enacted. These included masking mandates, enforced isolation for extended periods, the destruction of hundreds of thousands of small businesses, forced vaccinations of military servicemembers and heathcare workers, and coerced vaccinations in the public sector. Meanwhile, there were huge riots that burned many businesses to the ground and inflicted countless millions of dollars of damage to public and private infrastructure. And since then, we have seen “woke” politics and transgenderism run amok. Simultaneously, our southern border was intentionally flung open by the Bidenistas, triggering the largest rush of illegal immigration in the nation’s history. All of these had political gains in mind, or at least political implications. I suspect that all of these were seen by The Powers That Be as tests of the citizenry to gauge the limits of our tolerance and our submissiveness. Sadly, as a nation, we failed those tests. The majority of the citizenry was cajoled into taking a not fully tested genocidal “vaccine” that was actually a genetic programming tool that is even today incrementally destroying the immune systems of those who took “the jab.”

An Indicative Aside: On April 26, 2024, the near future movie Civil War was released. Although it was not overtly political, its political subtext was hard to miss.

AN ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION

The July 13th, 2024 attempted assassination of Donald Trump sent political shockwaves through the nation.  The very next week, the Republican National Convention was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In his lengthy nomination acceptance speech, Trump included this passage:

“Our resolve is unbroken and our purpose is unchanged to deliver a government that serves the American people better than ever before. Nothing will stop me in this mission because our vision is righteous and our cause is pure. No matter what obstacle comes our way, we will not break. We will not bend. We will not back down. And I will never stop fighting for you, your family, and our magnificent country. Never.

And everything I have to give with all of the energy and fight in my heart and soul. I pledge to our nation tonight. Thank you very much. I pledge that to our nation and to turn our nation around. And we’re going to do it very quickly. Thank you.

This election should be about the issues facing our country and how to make America successful, safe, free, and great again.

In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens. We are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement, which is what’s been happening in our country lately at a level that nobody has ever seen before.

In that spirit, the Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system and labeling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy.”

The posturing has even more seriously ramped up on the opposing side. Up until July 13th, the Democrats continued with their “…like Hitler” and “a threat to our Democracy” noises. But then they sounded so shocked when someone took a shot at DJT. Can’t they see the connection between their rhetoric and the actions of individuals who feel that have been tasked with some sort of murderous “mission”?

19TH CENTURY PARALLELS

It has not been since the 1850s and early 1860s that the citizenry of the United States has been so profoundly divided over political, economic, and moral issues.  In the years leading up to the 1861-1865 Civil War, the political discourse grew so vociferous and strident that it boiled over into pre-war revolts and skirmishes — first in Harper’s Ferry Virginia, and then in several border states, particularly Kansas. That state soon earned the nickname Bleeding Kansas. There, firebrand abolitionists like Henry Ward Beecher were busy handing out repeating Sharps rifles. (These began to be called “Beecher’s Bibles.”) As a cascade of state secessions from the Union continued, a Confederate government was formed, with its capitol in Richmond, Virginia, just 97 miles from the Union capitol in Washington, D.C.. Some southern merchants and state governments began soliciting trade deals with foreign nations.  Meanwhile, many Northern states began preparations for war, months and even years before hostilities began in earnest at Fort Sumter, on April 12, 1861.

A Personal Aside: It was in 1856, at the height of the Gold Rush to California that my branch of the Rawles family made the journey west by covered wagon. Part of their motivation was economic gain and the hope of securing inexpensive ranching land. But the other motivation was avoiding a civil war that they could see was coming soon – with almost certain inevitability. Ironically, five years later one of my great uncles who had made the trip west, Joseph Rawles, Jr. decided to enlist in the Union Army. He traveled back East to, enlist, and to serve in combat. Thankfully, he survived the war and returned to California, in 1866. But he was shot and killed by a stagecoach bandit, in the early 1870s, near Cloverdale, California.

The 1850s and the 1860s were a turbulent time in American politics. There was huge angst before, during, and after the Civil War. Before the war, there were some serious fisticuffs on the floor of the House and Senate. During the war, there were draft riots and the issuance of Federal Greenback currency. The nation’s first presidential assassination came near the end of the Civil War. (General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9th. Lincoln was shot on April 14th. He died the next morning.  But the final meeting of the Confederate government was on May 5th. The U.S. government did not declare an end to the Civil War until August 20, 1866, with President Johnson’s official proclamation.)

Also after the war, there was plenty of strife during the Reconstruction period. Many of the nation’s first private firearms carry restrictions were unconstitutionally enacted, primarily in southern states.  The era of Big Government began during the Civil War and accelerated dring the Great Depression and the Second World War.

SOME POSSIBLE FUTURES

There are several potential outcomes to the currently hyper-amplified politics and overheated rhetoric in America. These could include:

1.) A gradual downturn in angst and discord, brought about by economic prosperity at home, peace abroad, and a return to our nation’s Christian roots.

Or,

2.) An economic collapse, leading to bigger government, more regulation, and a new currency regime.

Or,

3.) The outbreak of a Third World War.

Or,

4.) A series of violent protests, riots politically-motivated arson attacks, murders, and assassinations in an upward spiral of tit-for-tat violence replete with politically-motivated campus/factory/building seizures and revolts, culminating in a Second Civil War. The aftermath of that war could go in several directions – the worst being the institution of Martial Law and a totalitarian state with an almost complete loss of privacy and personal liberty.

I don’t claim to be a seer of any particular outcome. In this essay, I’m merely enumerating a few likely outcomes, by extrapolating current trends and by drawing on some well-documented historical parallels.

LA VIOLENCIA

For some further reading, I suggest studying the period known as La Violencia, in Columbia from 1948 to 1958. Columbia’s experience illustrates the fragility of the modern social fabric and how quickly threat spirals can develop at the societal level, engulfing a country in waves of politically motivated violence.

MY PRAYER

I hope and pray that we will see peaceful change, smaller government, and a genuine Christian revival in our nation, rather than a revolution or a Second Civil War. But the recent chain of events – especially since 2020 – has not been encouraging. I posit that we are seeing a poetical widening gyre, turned into real-life action. Willam Butler Yeats envisioned it thusly:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.”

Please pray for our nation, and keep your powder dry.