I also speculate that even if the Democrats win every chamber in Congress and the Presidency, their win would be meaningless. While they would fight the and get the economy back to work, most of their positions on many issues might be grounds for rebellion. They would expect that everybody follows their laws to get their processes working. Instead, they would be met with extremely negative reception that would result in defiance and rebellion from citizens (especially from the conservatives). Hence why I would say it’s meaningless.
Why do I speculate that? Because the Democrats have gone so far to the left well past the point of sanity. Some of the issues, their positions would make tensions worse, not better. And others, whatever they’re fighting against has been deeply rooted in American culture so much that any change is going to cause chaos. The Republicans would face the same reckoning if Roe v Wade gets overturned or if any welfare program gets repealed. Sure they would win, but the lack of support shows that it’s meaningless.
Between COVID-19 and white nationalism, COVID-19 isn’t as dangerous, and is going away sooner. But there always has been, and always will be, evil in our country.
You are right to be concerned about the right wingers potentially repeating the French Revolution if Trump loses re-election. They’ve been so frustrated that they would go crazy. A question I have to ask is, would you rather let the Sith hold control for another four years, or would you rather awaken the beast and let it take control for 80 years? Personally, I would rebel against dictatorship if that were ever to come, but I wouldn’t cross the moral event horizon to get what I want, something that election rioters would do.
I admit being guilty of going off-topic, but I wanted to make a connection stating how significant COVID-19 is compared to many historical events. I never lived through something that big. I’m so glad that I haven’t contracted the disease. I don’t think I’m asymptomatic, but I did have episodes that made me think I have it, but luckily, it was allergies.
I think it's a far stretch to say that a hypothetical Joe Biden victory in the presidential election would lead to a rebellion in the United States. Conservatism, in many ways, is on the decline in the United States-it is an ideology that is
heavily white, male, and Christian-and the US is on its way to becoming majority-minority before the end of the 2020s. If you
really want to get down to it, since Donald Trump campaigned so heavily on immigration back during the 2016 election (and, of course, is doing so again for 2020), Trump's election victory in 2016, in many ways, has been described as a reaction-largely from caucasians-against the idea of the US becoming a majority-minority nation. Aside from those who are white, male, and heavily Christian (I'm not talking about Christians who wouldn't consider themselves very religious, such as not attending church very much, which would honestly include myself, and I'll admit, while I am a Christian personally, there is very little about the Bible as of late that I've honestly been taking to heart, but I digress), the Republican Party has faced a real weakness in recent decades, hence why George W. Bush's re-election over John Kerry in 2004 remains the last time the GOP nominee won the popular vote in a presidential election since Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, lost re-election to Bill Clinton in 1992. Two of the last Republican presidents-George W. Bush and Donald Trump (in Bush's case, anyway, when he got elected to his first term in 2000)-lost the popular vote. Note that even though the electoral college has always been the way that the President of the United States has been elected, it is usually a rare event for the winner of a presidential election to lose the popular vote-before Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016, the only other times it happened were in 1824, with John Quincy Adams's election (and Adams didn't lead in the electoral vote either, rather, it was that none of the four candidates in the election, which also included Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay, won in the electoral college either, and the House ultimately voted Adams in, largely because Clay was Speaker of the House under outgoing President James Monroe, and Clay feared Jackson, who led in both the electoral and popular vote, as Andrew Jackson infamously would threaten to kill anyone that bothered him), Rutherford B. Hayes's election in 1876 (which, of course, he only defeated Samuel J. Tilden because of the Compromise of 1877), and Benjamin Harrison's election in 1888. It has been stated numerous times that eventually, a party winning the presidency via being elected by the electoral college without the popular vote is not a sustainable trend for a political party in the future, especially when you consider that the United States is heading on this majority-minority path.
On top of this, I can't imagine that a Joe Biden administration would repress people who criticize the administration's actions, economy-related or not. No one wants a return to John Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts. (Technically Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt brought them back in ways during the two World Wars, more so Wilson, although there is no World War that is about to take place, because if there was,
we'd all be ceasing to exist) In some ways, you could say that the mentality seen way back at the end of the eighteenth century during the first Adams administration has been seen again under Donald Trump-anything that criticizes the Trump administration's actions since its inauguration in 2017 has been dismissed by the president as "fake news".
Also, Mica, on your points you said to Red Cat... It could be argued, ironically, that
we would only be more likely to head to a dictatorship if something like the French Revolution happened here in the United States. Napoleon Bonaparte effectively became a French dictator/emperor in 1804 all because of the French Revolution of 1789-1799. While I am aware that small-governmental figures of the time in the US did admire the revolution in France (most notably Thomas Jefferson, who would go on to be elected president in 1800, although, like 1824, this was another election that went to the House, because of problems with the running mate system in which Jefferson tied in electoral votes with his running mate, Aaron Burr),
no one in their right mind, Democrat or Republican, wants someone like Napoleon leading the United States, especially when you consider we've been the sole superpower in the world since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. (Of course, it's been pretty clear that we may not be a sole superpower anymore, as China has been rising in power in recent years, and arguably, with its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Russia has been having a rise of its own again under Vladimir Putin)
If we're going to use France as an example, the closest thing I can think could happen is that Joe Biden, or at least members of his administration, may urge a more "Jupiterian presidency" like Emmanuel Macron suggested while running for, and after being elected, its president around 2016-2017. Nevertheless, there is a
lot about Macron I'd argue differs from Biden.
