I have a question. It’s not an opinion host question where I throw out an incendiary accusation disguised as a query. However, I feel the need to clarify my intent because as soon as I considered asking said question, I felt that someone, somewhere, is going to find a reason to invalidate the question by finding offence in the asking.
So, the question.
If you add all of the minorities together, then are they a majority?
In Canada for example, a few minority parties can join together to create a coalition of governance. This has happened from time to time but the coalition doesn’t usually last too long. Too much infighting, and eventually they can’t reach a consensus and so the government is dissolved and we get to have another fucking election. However, when one of the coalition partners is almost a majority then the number of minority partners drops and so does the infighting. As a result, Canada has produced some of our most progressive social legislation when this type of government occurs.
Fragile but productive.
But like I said, too many cooks and instead of legislation, we just have a gaggle of special interest groups hurling insults at each other. The scene is reminiscent of a hells kitchen event where each cook is making their own dish, and all of them are fighting over who gets the stove first and how the ingredients are being distributed. After some reflection and sulking, a few groups decide their feelings are hurt enough to fall on their swords over some issue near and dear to their hearts or wallets. Then the Governor General loses their shit and kicks all the donkeys the fuck out of the kitchen. Then the whole Anschluss dissolves and we’re back to the polls.
When that happens, Canadian voters return a majority to power because the alliance of minorities has failed to do their fucking job, and we’re tired of the bills not getting paid and decisions not being made.
So, history would suggest that if democracy is going to function, then we need either a majority or a near majority in order to make the gears of governing turn. Too many minority parties and the Parliamentary kitchen descends into chaos.
So, another question begs to be asked.
If too many minority parties make governing ineffective, then do too many minority groups also render our society inoperative?
I think so, but as usual there are a few codicils attached. To begin with I’m thinking there’s some confusion regarding what constitutes a minority. I kind of understand the ethnic minority concept. For starters there’s no choice involved. You’re born with an ethnicity and so like it or not you’re part of a group. Often times that group comes with distinguishing features like a color scheme, and if there’s less of your color in the country then you’re a minority.
That’s pretty straight forward.
Humanity has a long and sordid history of dividing into groups by skin color, geographical ethnicity, and whichever fairy tale is the order of the day. Then grievances born of greed and disguised as insult, lead us down a worn path, until the groups lose their collective shit and kill one another.
This an old story. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. It’s in our nature.
But what’s the timeline for a breakdown when there’s a multitude of minority groups? I suppose the move to violence depends on how passionate people are about the reasons they’re in any particular group.
Right at the moment we have a lot of minorities. I think that given the current swing of the social justice pendulum, that the increase in minority groups has something to do with the perception that being in a minority automatically qualifies you for some kind of compensation. People can get pretty passionate about being compensated.
But what happens when that passion morphs into action?
Because it seems to me that the level of effectiveness of society depends on how all of these minority groups behave, and how they choose to represent their interests.
Some of the groups protest. Some of the groups legislate. Some of the groups protest with flags and guns. Some of the groups form a militia, and some of the groups buy the people that legislate. Some of the groups protest and then riot and loot. Some of the groups litigate, and some of the groups self detonate.
Usually in a crowded market.
Strictly by the numbers the Trump base is a minority. I think they’re still figuring out how to protest though, because the base is composed of a variety of minorities and so it’s a chore to get everyone together. There’s the white is might faction, the religious faction, the racist faction, the conspiracy theory faction and the anti educated faction. Some of the groups overlap but I think they need some work on how to protest effectively. For some reason they were arrogant enough to charge the house of government thinking they could pull off an insurrection with a couple thousand delusional malcontents.
Maybe they misread the effectiveness of their white privileges’ and need to reassess their approach. Sadly, I suspect their next attempt is going to involve the McVeigh method, but they better make sure that whoever builds the bombs is completely lacking in melanin. Otherwise the act is terrorism, and tabernac, that’s no good eh?
Maybe the base should start with a peaceful protest. Then they can morph into lighting fires and getting shot with rubber bullets. I think they should think out their protest location and path though. It would be a good idea to have the vestiges of peacefulness break down in a mall parking lot. Then they could loot with personal preference for their kind of minority. The internet would then be gifted with hundreds of videos of rednecks exiting the broken glass at Bass Pro Shop clutching camo hunting jackets and trolling motors.
I think that if black lives matter is Yin, then the Yang base is white lives matter more. They just haven’t found a socially acceptable way to get that message out yet. Fox is trying to help, but Tucker is still working on being inciteful while pretending to be insightful.
The base is just one half assed coalition of minorities, but there are many, many more.
Some of the groups have their own day, week or month and they hold events to remind everyone else that they’ve been historically repressed and deserve compensation. This official recognition might not seem like a big deal, but recognition is another word for admission, and the admission of past injustices helps with litigation and eventually sweetens the compensation.
I think we’re headed down a path with our democracies that looks kind of Machiavellian. Metaphorical city states where Silicon Valley is Florence, black rights is Pisa, the base is Milan, gay rights is Genoa, religious rights is Rome, women’s rights is Venice and indigenous rights is Naples. Right at this moment all the other smaller factions like anti-vaxxers and flat earthers are the small villages in the countryside between the city states. Soon enough I suspect these villages are going to have to decide which walled city to join because it’s not really safe in the country unless you have a powerful patron.
Because powerful means wealthy, and wealthy means you can hire mercenaries to attack rival cities and the country folk that supply necessities to the city.
The police are actually mercenaries who do the bidding of one of the walled cities. That particular city is called government and I’m not sure they have a Machiavellian equivalent. The papacy maybe. Fat Donnie was legit confused when he couldn’t use the army to shitkick his protesting detractors, and this is one instance where I can sort of see his point. The difference between using regular army as opposed to riot cops or the National guard is semantics. They all wear uniforms of the ruling class and what they’re called is kind of misleading.
I think that the end of democracy as we know it will be preceded by a selection process. When all the minor minorities begin to ally themselves with a particular city state then the end is near.
Unless we get a major unifying event then it seems inevitable.