The Empire Strikes Back Part 5 (Final Installment), by Scipio

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.” Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

There is a progression to violence.  First, you create false flags like “democracy is under attack”, “they are taking your Social Security”, etc. Second, you demonize your opponent; call them Nazis, Hitler, white supremist, racists, deplorables. Third, you engage them in a diversionary event like lawfare or due process debates. Fourth, you go full scale frontal war. We are currently between three and four. These same tactics are used to start wars.  It’s the same playbook over and over from Vietnam, to Iraq, to Afghanistan to Ukraine.

Historically, instigators of violence think they can control it, but once that Genni is let out of Pandora’s Box, it can not be controlled.  It will grow until it meets its own limit. Long bloody wars have been started when both sides thought it would be over briefly, only to see it drag on and pull down their side with it. Once the violent stage becomes widespread it will be like water, it will seek its lowest level. Violence will escalate until there will be atrocities.  It always does.

When the First Battle of Manassas/First Battle of Bull Run took place at the beginning of the Civil War, residents of the Washington DC area saw it as potential entertainment. They underestimated what they were about to encounter.  They took picnic lunches to watch the “show”, and expected to see action in the form of a brief skirmish. They expected it to be back home for supper, they thought.

Little did they know the high ground positions they chose for their view of the main show would also be a strategic objective of both sides in the battle.  Their picnic quickly turned into chaos as they scrambled to save their own lives.  They fled home in a panic finding themselves in the field of fire of the two warring armies.  Panicky civilian carriages raced along the same roads with infantry and horse drawn cannons while bullets and artillery explosions were happening around them.

The Washingtonian’s and political leaders who perceived limited violence saw it quickly get out of hand.  The extent and extremity of violence once unleashed is always underestimated.  If the violence that I believe is coming to America today is according to its historical norms, it could be wide spread and nasty.

Here are the characteristics I think the violence will take.

I. Dystopian lawlessness

There has been increasing lawlessness in America for decades.  The biggest lawbreakers have been in government, both federal and local, leaving organized crime as petty thieves in comparison.  The public has seen with USAID’s revelations the theft of their hard-earned tax dollars and any trust they had in the government is all but gone. Who will they trust in the future?

The courts are a mockery of justice.  Do you want to leave your fate to a jury of twelve people too dumb to get out of jury duty, or do you want to handle things yourself?  People are starting to wake up to the fact there is no “justice”, “just us”.  During the Los Angeles riots in 1992, there are still today twenty-six unsolved murders by people who took the riot opportunity to settle old scores.  Street justice will happen.

Once, there was a time when the baseless prosecution and conviction of accused innocents only happened in the old Soviet Union.  Supposedly, there is a new sheriff in town, but he doesn’t seem to be any hurry to bring those involved in J6 prosecutions to justice.  Neither does there seem to be any attempt to bring the COVID mass murderers to justice either.  But every day we see the low-lying criminal fruit of Tren de Aragua gang members being rounded up and deported with great fanfare and media coverage.

Meanwhile the major big criminals in government and government agencies are ignored.  Recently on Alex Jones’ show, General Flynn singled out at least sixty people by name who committed treason.  Apparently, Pam Bondi is unaware of these criminals. (https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1908702863540576444). I don’t see the swamp draining.  People are losing patience waiting on judgement day.

Formerly law-abiding liberal citizens are now feeling it’s OK to shoplift from Whole Foods as blowback against (billionaire) Jeff Bezos and attacks against (billionaire) Mark Zuckerberg for restoring freedom of speech on Meta is justified. (https://jonathanturley.org/2025/04/07/the-american-jacobin-how-some-on-the-left-have-found-release-in-an-age-of-rage/).  This will only morph into other forms of passive aggression.

Of course, the widespread attacks on Tesla and Tesla owners is well documented. It shows that a large segment of society feels like they are entitled to strike out in felonious assaults against anyone or anything associated with anything they don’t approve. (https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/civil-unrest/historically-the-military-will-always-split-into-factions/) This will only increase and be directed at future yet unknown targets.

The marshalling of tens of thousands of gray-haired geezers this past weekend attending the “Hands Off” rallies because of the baseless fear of losing Social Security shows how people who are emotionally charged can be directed toward anyone or anything.  They weren’t violent because they were too frail.  When asked they had to read from crib sheets why they were protesting.

It’s important to remember people who reach conclusions based on emotion cannot be rationally reasoned out of their position.

For people who say speech is “violence”, in their moral equivalency world view, that translates into physical violence in opposition to free speech.  We saw it happen during the 2024 election when people wearing MAGA hats were attacked, campaign signs ripped up, and local GOP political headquarters were fire bombed.  Those activities have not stopped but have increased and will take on different and more confrontational forms.  People will be killed for having a different opinion.

Things will soon escalate with more individuals joining in well-organized violence disguised as protests against the Trump agenda.   They will be taking to the streets in attempts at mob rule.  Our founding fathers called “democracy”, “mobacracy”, BTW, and that is why they rejected it in deference for a republic. (https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/05/america_is_headed_for_a_civil_war_maybe.html)

The new Jacobins will continue lawfare. Without a favorable Supreme Court decision on Trump’s executive authority, you will see the Executive Branch, if ruled against, ignore the Supreme Court just as Biden did over tuition forgiveness.  The lines will then be drawn for a violent response, as a true Constitutional crisis will be in effect. That will lead to civil war.

II. Full Fledged Civil War

If there is a “civil war”, could it possibly be instead a “counter-revolution” against the previous thirty years?

The hatred between the two sides may spill over into open running gun battles between the two sides. They will live among each other and in some cases be fighting their neighbors.  It won’t be like in The Civil War when the (MDL) Mason Dixon Line basically geographically defined the two sides. People will be afraid to leave their homes and some even afraid to stay in their homes.  Those best armed, trained, and supplied will survive and prevail.  Don’t be naive, both sides are currently armed and in training. This isn’t hanky-panky training either.

Assassinations and assassination attempts will become common place. (https://www.zerohedge.com/political/police-arrest-man-molotov-cocktails-plotting-assassinate-trump-admin-officials)  Two assassination attempts against Trump should be a wake-up call. Two successful assassinations of private citizens shows this is no “theory” .(https://www.zerohedge.com/political/luigi-mangione-copycat-kills-pharmacy-worker-california)  More officials, national and local, will be assassinated and the opposing side will reciprocate. Some assassinations will be by Deep State operatives disguised as the “resistance” in an attempt to cover up their previous criminal activities. Private HVA personal security services will be a good business to be in at this time. Got armored car?

Gangs will see that law enforcement will be tied up with domestic violence, and they will take the opportunity to expand their influence. The result will be territorial gang wars on a grand scale. It will see Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, MS16, Hells Angels, Outlaws, etc. at war with each other.

The 800 lb. gorilla in the room are the drug cartels who will be fighting each other with American citizens caught in the middle. The cartels have demonstrated how well they are armed. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2213276/Video-Mexicos-Jalisco-cartel-shows-huge-weapon-vehicle-cache.html) More concerning, will drug cartel wars in Mexico during this time spill over into America? (https://www.realcleardefense.com/video/2024/11/07/cartel_war_explodes_threatening_to_spill_into_america_1070721.html) All these gangs are well-armed and not squeamish about putting you down.

Of course, by far the most dangerous group is not a gang, but terrorist cells that will take advantage of civil disturbances to execute their well-prepared plans against the US Government. Their bad actor state sponsors have had years to plan this and an open border to bring in their trained operatives.

Then there is the mystery of where are those three Humvees, one with a 50 Cal gun mount stolen in California?  (https://ktla.com/news/local-news/3-humvees-equipment-stolen-from-orange-county-military-warehouse/) In addition, where was 10,000 rounds of 50 Cal and 20,000 rounds of 7.62 X 39 ammunition recently caught at the border headed? ( https://hoodline.com/2025/01/massive-ammunition-seizure-in-cochise-county-over-29-000-rounds-intercepted-investigation-underway/)  Were they destined to rendezvous with the stolen Humvees?  More disturbing is what happened to two known Javelin anti-tank weapons that slipped through the border? Also, what about the US Stingers the Afghans have been selling on the black market along with Ukraine selling American arms on the open market?

Then there is the mystery of why Obama purchased millions of rounds of .40cal and 9mm rounds for the IRS and Social Security Department. (https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/obama-homeland-security-vast-ammunition-purchases/)   Not coincidently, these are the perfect type rounds for urban warfare.  At the time, the purchase was more ammo than the entire military had in its possession.  Something is afoot.  Has that cache been set aside for the Deep State’s private war?

One of the most dangerous, but least recognized woke gangs, under everyone’s radar is the Trans community’s,  Trantifa.  Like Dave Chappell said, “Anyone who cuts off their “d**k” and throws it away is serious about what they believe.”  There has been a string of murders associated with them. (https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/01/28/border-patrol-vet-killed-by-transgender-terrorists-n4936433) and (https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/zizians-cult-bay-area-court-appearance-20264934.php) and (https://www.oann.com/newsroom/police-trans-vegan-cult-linked-to-multiple-murders-across-the-u-s/)

They are not above mass murder either. “A tweet listing four mass shootings in the past five years that were perpetrated by transgender people has gone viral… Benny Johnson, a political columnist wrote, “One thing is VERY clear: the modern trans movement is radicalizing activists into terrorists.” (https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trantifa-insurrectionist-who-went-dc-kill-gop-leaders-was-inspired-luigi-mangione).

Black Rock’s CEO, Larry Fink, tripled his home security in April 2024 after being threatened by woke activists.

Swatting and unmasking against conservatives are increasing and somewhere along the way someone is going to get killed. (https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-investigating-alarming-rise-swatting-incidents-targeting-conservative-influencers)

At some point, when it is obvious laws are not being enforced, the political right will rise up and start its own form of opposition.  A Thermidorian reaction is coming.  The Jacobins will be turned out. (https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14500).

The military is the big question mark.  Traditionally the military splits in civil wars. (https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/civil-unrest/historically-the-military-will-always-split-into-factions/)  However, after years of recruiting DEI like-minded soldiers, lowered moral and readiness, one has to believe the majority of today’s military will go blue.  Generally, in a civil war the side with the most military support wins.  That still leaves a mess of how to separate the two sides within a cohesive unit without totally destroying its strategic abilities while leaving some tactical options available.

I haven’t even mentioned cyber-attacks, power black/brown outs, poisoned urban water, sniper attacks everywhere and anywhere, major highway arteries shut down by sabotaged burning gas semi tanker trucks.

III. Geographically Fragmented America

Fighting will coalesce into some form of consolidated “Blue Areas” and “Red Areas”.  Urban areas will tend to be blue, and rural areas will tend to be red.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QicPM_2atqE) The suburbs in between the two will be where the most violence occurs.  In war, it’s the areas between the two opposing forces that sees the most war crimes and atrocities.

Currently there are twelve secessionist movements in the United States. The idea is not totally out of consideration.  Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has even called for a “national divorce” with the US dividing between “red” and “blue” states. The extrication of “blue” elements in “red” areas and vice versa would be a sticky volatile situation.

Some have suggested the United States would fragment into a type of Balkanization similar to the breakup of Yugoslavia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  We all know the violence and purported genocide that took place and its attraction of outside agitators. If this should happen, the United States would no longer be “united” but have the legal status of the America before the Declaration of Independence.  According to a Reuters poll in 2014 25% of Americans wanted their state to separate from Washington DC. Those numbers have only increased since then.

A possible scenario might shake out like the current Greater Idaho Movement in eastern Oregon. In July 2024 thirteen counties east of the Cascades voted to secede from the state of Oregon and join the state of Utah. (https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/civil-unrest/oregon-separatist-movement-to-be-on-the-ballot/) and  (https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/civil-unrest/oregon-separatist-movement-to-be-on-the-ballot/)

Unfortunately for the movement, Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution forbids new states from being created out of another state.  However, that Constitutional prohibition was ignored during The Civil War when West Virginia was allowed to secede from Virgina. President Lincoln was very active violating the Constitution while saving “the Union”.  A precedent has been established.  Perhaps it will take another civil war for such secessionist movements to succeed. Such things are unthinkable but remotely possible.

IV. Financial collapse

Financial collapse always brings civil disturbances. Often, they cause change in political leadership or even cultural shifts. The Great Depression saw socialist forms of government sweep over the whole world in various forms.  America’s extensive bureaucracy today was created during this time by FDR.

The head of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, warned recently that we’re misreading the impact of tariffs on the economy. He believes the biggest issue is because of excessive debt. According to Focus Economics, at 124% of GDP, the US has the ninth highest public debt level in the world, ranking right up with the likes of Eritrea and Sudan.  Historically, dating back before the Romans no country whose debt exceeded 100% ever avoided default.

Excessive debt is just a symptom of failed Kenyesian economics based on Marxist emphasis on spending instead of productivity.  That’ why NAFTA was passed gutting America’s industrial base and replacing it with “consumers”.  A consumer-based economy is a socialist based economy.

Like Margaret Thatcher said, “Socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money.” America has run out of “other people’s money. In this case it is overtaxed American’s money whose future has been mortgaged to the present while living in a consumer debt bubble. What is happening in America and happening on a global scale is the collapse of the post-WWII rules-based order. (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/01/vasko-kohlmayer/alert-the-unfolding-collapse-of-the-globalist-world-order/)

When any system collapses, whether economic, political, philosophical, or social, there are always dislocations.  Trump’s tariffs are disrupting the old system where the world exploited the US in balance of trade causing domestic price increases on American consumers.  For decades the US has been the victim of unfair tariffs from China and Europe. Now the tables are being turned.  Not everyone will be affected negatively by this turn, only those who benefited from the tilted playing field before.

It remains to be seen which economic sectors will be most affected. It also depends on the industry one is in, but one thing is for sure, everyone will be frightened by the hysteria of the media and Wall Street. These are the ones who everything to lose in the new world economic order.  Since early 1980 the markets have been manipulated by government policies and The Fed in their attempt to artificially eliminate down markets.  In other words, they wanted to ignore Arthur Burns’ and Wesley Mitchel’s recognition of business cycles, John Lawe’s law of supply and demand, and many other time proven economic principles but instead, intervene to keep the market from bottoming out. Doing so, they destroyed the positive destruction of market excesses, thus allowing them to build up into unsustainable levels.  As a result, everything you own is overvalued. (https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/economics/tariffs-vs-sanctions-myths-covert-operations/)

The so-called investment strategy of blindly “buying the dip” would have been scoffed at prior to 1980 (when I first entered the securities business). Today, The Fed steps in to defend a failing market with the same effect a parent has when one spouse steps in and forbids a child’s discipline.  The market, as the child, grows up to be unmanageable.  What’s really going on with Trump’s economic plan is to shift wealth back from Wall Street to Main Street, and there are many wealthy people opposed to that.

Many very good hedge funds liquidated over the last fifteen years. The reason?  All one needed to do to replicate the market benchmarks was simply follow what The Fed did; no investment skill was needed. My favorite fund manager, Hugh Hendry, closed his famous Eclectica Fund because of The Fed’s monetary policy market manipulation. (https://www.chartwellspeakers.com/speaker/hugh-hendry/)

If you work for a large multi-national corporation or a supplier to one, you may feel some direct economic pain and/or layoffs.  Ancillary companies’ dependent on the two above will see layoffs.  Coffee shops and restaurants depending on those clientele will be hurting.  However, domestic based product-based businesses should thrive and be adding new employees.  Your situation depends on the business model your employer is based.

Unemployment, especially if it is widespread, leads to violence, especially thefts.  However, given the tinderbox condition of American society, what should be a minor uptick in crimes against property will probably expand rapidly and extensively to crimes against anything.

One would do well to read Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 classic, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”.  Le Bon’s thesis is that in a crowd, especially in an angry crowd, individuals lose their personal identity and take on the identity of the crowd, (the mob) doing things they never would do as an individual. With that in mind, people putting food on their table becomes more important than ideological, territorial, and tribal considerations.  A temporary, but necessary, decline in sections of America’s living class may fall victim to “the crowd”.  “It’s the economy stupid” is still valid.

One of Earnest Hemingway characters in The Sun Also Rises said, “How do you go bankrupt? Two ways: Gradually, then suddenly.” That is how America got where it is today.  With DOGE’s savings, Trump’s reviving America’s true economy, and even if taxes are raised, we may, maybe, quite possibly may avoid a crash.  Personally, I see to many powerful forces and an ignorant population working against him

V. Multiple combinations of the above

Scenario I violence, may be precipitated by or a reaction to financial collapse.  Once again it will be slowly, then suddenly. If the violence continues for an extended period, there will probably see some of the warring groups, communities, geographic regions work together for a common goal making them for formidable.  A good example can be seen on the old TV series “Jericho”. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805663/)  Some alliances may be strange bed fellows but their common interest will bring them together.

Scenario II will not suddenly happen and spread throughout the US.  It will simmer in some areas, but explode in other (mostly urban) areas.  The civil war will probably not extend throughout the whole US.  There will be some geographic areas that may be spared general violence, but only be subject to only isolated incidents. A fragmented military will be called in to put it down.  However, the military will be fighting members of their own hometowns in some instances and mutinies may occur. It could be a long drawn-out process.

Scenario III will be the fruition of previous legislative attempts at secession and separation.   Instead of these regions being legislatively authorized they will become defacto secessions, with groups self-proclaiming their own autonomy.  The federal government will be too weak and be putting out too many fires, especially violence, to resist such movements.  Things like the Greater Idaho Movement will become a reality with fringe areas joining them for protection and common interests.

Scenario IV will, sooner or later, have an impact or be the driving force of the other three.

I have tried to visualize how bad things can get in different scenarios.  I do not believe many of the extremes I mention will occur.  However, I am absolutely sure there is going to be kinetic reaction from the left that will be met by an equally kinetic response from the right. Violence is coming, I just don’t know in what form or to what extent.  Trump has less than two years to get this straightened out.  Given the severity and tenacity of the “resistance”, and the fifth element in his own party, I think I see more dark clouds ahead than sunshine.

On a more ominous note, I haven’t even addressed what might happen if those bozos in Europe and American warmongers started WWIII.

Regardless of what scenario or combination of scenarios play out, the wrongs that may have been made right, those dying for the cause, the price to be paid in human misery; in the end it will be as The Who prophesized, “Meet the old boss, in with the new boss” we won’t get fooled again. Will we?