[From "The Protagonists’ Part"]

While watching the statue of St. Junipero Serra get pulled down to the cheers of a mob in a San Francisco park, the first thing that came to my mind was the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. From what I’ve observed, everybody in our sphere had similar reactions.

Despicable actions committed nationwide with impunity aren’t a harbinger of smooth sailing ahead. My surmise is that we’re on stage “bad” right about now. “Very bad” and “worse” are yet to come. Most of us have reconciled ourselves to that on an emotional level over the past few years and now we’re starting to see how horror is going to play out in practical terms.

However, there’s an enormous group of people who don’t see things that way. Scientists classify them biologically as White Shitlib Idiots. To these people, the looting and wanton violence are reactions to a racist country which must be reformed. It’s for a just cause so it can’t be condemned.

Weekend social circumstances find me frequently in the company of such individuals. When discussing sensitive matters with them, I never refute their underlying premise because that would shut down the conversation and piss them off. I need these people to like me for various reasons which have to go unexplained.

The Great Cheeto is a bigoted dictator, blacks face systemic racism and police brutality, etc. I give them the impression that I’m on board with all that absurdity. That’s actually not hard to do since everybody around them is like them, so they assume that I am as well, as long as I don’t say the wrong things.

Over drinks, what I debate them on is why they think violence is an acceptable method of addressing social and political disputes. My point is that, historically, once this gets green-lighted, something that the people who initiated the violence will come to deeply regret (if they survive) gets set into motion. Weimar Germany and the aforementioned Spanish Civil War are two of the examples I usually cite.

[...]

I don’t suspect that a civil war is coming. That would require two sides who are allowed to organize in order to engage each other in combat. The only rightwing organizing for violence is done by the FBI for the mentally ill and disabled in order to create narrative headlines. I don’t expect any fight from the Right beyond lone wolves who snap.

But, we now have legitimated violence coming from the Left and a set of stiff penalties applied politically by the legal system against their targets. So, we don’t have anarchy since the police will act against people who attempt to defend themselves or property. However, a more serious societal breakdown which destroys what remains of our country’s 1st world functionality will naturally progress from this point.

In an implosion scenario driven by racial antipathies, White Shitlib Idiots will find themselves subjected to violence that they currently believe is acceptable when directed towards “white supremacists.” It seems pretty likely that many of them are going to find out the hard way that their villain status is determined by skin color, not their moral and sophisticated opinions.

When they’re getting yanked out of their cars to receive mob justice, I hope it flashes across their minds that this was what they supported all along. However, I could hope my life away so I’m trying not to bother.