I’ve been reading a lot lately about the world war 1 to World War 2 period and all the civil wars and revolutions. One question I’m trying to figure out is “why communism?”

I think the answer is simply that those nations wanted a revolution, and communism was who provided it at the time. In the interwar years, it was also fascism. In napoleons time, it was democracy. Most of them also involved nationalism and self governance.

Today, the closest thing I see is right wing protectionism, anti-foreigner policies, and authoritarianism (not much militarism though). The KKK is back for example. I don’t think that people especially want that future, but they are the main game in town for people who want the current order to be shaken up

There is potential for some nastiness in the next couple of decades if the trend continues

Edited for clarity

They didn't want a revolution.

They wanted progress, enlightenment, a better social and political order. They were just not able to see when the dream of a fully equal society died immediately, taken over by corrupt people wanting power and willing to exploit that dream to gain and keep it.

Human universals include a desire for improvement in their lives and for the species as a whole, and that means we're all vulnerable to manipulation from anyone who sells us on the idea of a "better way".

The fun part really are the parallels.

Phone, Telegram and radio signals a century ago are what Social Media and Internet is today.

We're replaying the same cards that were played a century ago, immigration - drive of nationalism and differential social ideals.

does anyone feel like they have a plan for responding to these risks? i see the possibility of nastiness, but the only idea i have is to move away. is there a more helpful response available?

I think that people’s grievances just need to be addressed, and it’s almost entirely about increasing poverty (with the rest being a matter of blaming somebody for it).

Helping people to thrive better with today’s economy would go a long way

I think your apparently non controversial answer is spot on. However the idea that people are getting poorer is a highly contrarian position.

It doesn't matter if people are getting poorer, it matters if they think they're getting poorer. By most metrics, people are better off now than they used to be, but what matters is whether they feel like they're better off, and income inequality is one way people feel they're worse off than before.

However, I don't think that's what's fuelling current sentiments from the right. I think it's more a feeling of "everyone is against you", stemming from a distrust of mainstream media (mentioned in the article) and assumptions about mainstream media heavily influencing politics. Also, the current crop of Democratic candidates are more socialist (I'm using that term in the current "Democratic Socialist" vernacular) than ever before.

I think the best solution here is to reform our voting system to eliminate first past the post. We've been getting more and more extreme politicians, and implementing something like ranked choice voting should encourage more moderate candidates, which should in turn encourage more moderate mainstream media, which I think would ease political tensions. It's probably not a panacea, but I think it's a move in the right direction.

I don't think you made a single statement that was correct. I recommend you watch some videos by say someone like Mark Blyth.

My best idea is to reform voting to get rid of first past the post. I think a lot of the nastiness is because we've become so polarized politically that we see ourselves as enemies. Doing something like ranked choice voting would hopefully result in more moderate candidates that more people actually like instead of the "lesser of two evils" bull we have now.

And I think we just need more centrism to ensure these fringe groups don't get more attention than they deserve.

> I think the answer is simply that those nations wanted a revolution, and communism was who provided it at the time.

No, those were Russian covert operations. Communism was just a front, an idea to sell totalitarian regime to the people.

Meh.

The author of this assumes that his game theory civil war will be made up of the binary falsehood of political views portrayed in popular media - blues vs. reds.

In reality, the largest portion of the US citizenry aren't happy about the government and though they may have views in one direction or another they recognize the need for the rule of law and are loyal to the country as a whole, not to the DFL or GOP. Rather than blue vs. red, it would be extremist nutjobs vs. everyone else. Everyone else would win, hard.

If Trump tries to do something illegal like ignore election results, either the GOP will pull him down to preserve the present corrupt situation that is to their advantage, or the majority of the citizens would hang him on the front lawn of the white house.

American are apathetic to many things, even those things that cause them to go hungry or lack medical care, but they'll leave work and take up arms to pull down an obvious tyrant.

Hehe, I think you've given yourself away as coming from Minnesota by referring to the Democratic party as "DFL". That's Minnesota's special homebrew Democrats! :)