You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

If Trump wins the election, there will be riots in the street.

The right believes by countering the protests, by waving the flag of law and order, they’re winning. What they don’t know is decades of tilting the playing field and working the refs has come back to haunt them.

If I talk about politics, and I’d rather not, like the rest of America I’d rather vote and get on with my life, paying cursory attention, those on the right get up in arms, they bite back, they tell me I’m wrong, but they don’t unsubscribe, whereas those on the left say nothing and if they’re sick and tired of being sick and tired they unsubscribe quietly and head into the night. Oh, then there are those on the right who want to make a point, they respond UNSUBSCRIBE when they know very well there’s a link at the bottom of each e-mail to do this, they just want to get their opinion heard. You see the right is working the refs and getting a disproportionate share of the left to question their numbers and beliefs, when each and every poll indicates the public overwhelmingly despises Trump and his policies.

That does not mean he won’t win. He’s helped by gerrymandering and voter suppression, and an expressed willingness not to accept the result if it doesn’t go his way. Then what?

This is not the America of 2016, never mind 1980. The problems of the underclass, of what’s left of the middle class, have festered to the point where people cannot take it anymore, they’re hopeless. That’s another reason Hillary lost, she represented more of what we already had, which wasn’t working for so many people. If I hear one more talking head or writer laud Obama my head is gonna explode. I’ve got nothing against the man, but he didn’t solve the underlying problems of America and Timothy Geithner succeeded in not only rescuing the banks, but paying them handsomely while the regular folk lost their homes and tried to stave off bankruptcy.

In other words, there’s no poll that will truly tell you the national mood, what’s blowin’ in the wind. But I’ll tell you it’s dissatisfaction, anger at minority rule for far too long. That’s right, Trump loses the popular vote and still gets in the White House. Gerrymandering results in a disproportionate number of Republicans getting into Congress, and the idea that less populated states like North Dakota and Wyoming get as many senators as California and New York is sticking in people’s craws.

Yes, everything is up for grabs.

There’s a belief that we adhere to a system, that the entire country buys in and we all play by the rules. But the Republicans haven’t played by the rules for decades and the Democrats have been too scared to stand up to them and the end result is people, not only the young, and of all colors, have taken to the streets to protest the state of America. And the only way to keep them down is through the use of the military.

You keep hearing the canard on the left that Trump won’t stay in office because the military is not on his side. I don’t see the federal law enforcement employees refusing to step up in Portland, what makes you think this is true, especially in a country wherein the commander of an aircraft carrier stands up for his coronavirus-infected sailors and he loses his job. Yes, that was political, just like the recent incarceration of Michael Cohen. As for Roger Stone, that’s no longer on the front page, unfortunately, but do you think America has forgotten about it? NO!

While the right oppresses, the left does nothing. Covid-19 rages and all Democratic governors and mayors can do is blame Trump. No one will stand up to the man, no one will outline a plan, a solution. Meanwhile, just yesterday Trump said we’ve got to push to reopen states. Do you think the public is ignorant, that they’ve got no clue as to what is going on? The news outlets and those in power keep blaming the young ‘uns, for partying. But the truth is these same young people stayed home under lockdown in March and April, and what was the result? NOTHING! There was no plan to transition from closed to opening, which should have been done slowly with testing and contact tracing, but those were absent.

In other words, it’s a free-for-all. And you expect the public to obey the law?

Back when music ruled the world, back when people listened to artists, before it was all about their brand and the number of streams and money, the bard from Hibbing sang:

When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose

You just can’t make it in America anymore. I just finished reading this book “Want,” by Lynn Steger Strong. It’s about the plight of a millennial couple. The wife’s got a Ph.D., but she can’t get a full-time professorship. Her husband leaves the bank because it’s soulless and unfulfilling and…they end up declaring bankruptcy. Student loans, dentistry problems, the vagaries of life…they happen to everyone and the only people who can survive them are those with rich parents or the thin layer employed on Wall Street and maybe in tech. Where is the hope for these people? They did everything right and it turned out to be wrong.

We didn’t expect the death of George Floyd to result in spontaneous combustion, not only protests in the blue cities, but the red, even overseas. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, enough is enough.

So, federal troops, essentially secret police, rounding up people in the night…I’ll protest that to the end of time. The Holocaust taught us you stand up early, you just don’t let heinous activity continue in plain sight. Yes, there were news stories back then, but people shrugged and said it can’t be that bad, I don’t believe it, and then the camps were liberated and the photos came out and…

People still don’t believe it. Yes, the Jews are scapegoats. Are you following what happened with Wiley in the U.K., never mind Nick Cannon in the U.S? Sure, it’s anti-Semitism, but you get scapegoats when people feel oppressed and need someone to blame, no wonder it’s increased dramatically under Trump.

So, the people protesting/rioting/whatever believe they are powerless and the only way to stand up to the oppression is to take to the streets. They don’t care about the consequences. They’re willing to be gassed, get arrested, have their bones broken. They’re the last line of defense. This is the history of revolutions, if you studied them you’d know, and if Trump steals the election, or refuses to accept the vote, these protesters are going to go berserk and will be joined by many more, and the protests will not stop and it will not be business as usual.

Trump and Fox and Limbaugh and the rest of the right wing bloviators believe law and order will win the day, that if they keep denigrating the protesters, focus on destruction, they’ll remain in power. NO WAY! No one wants buildings burned down, businesses trashed, but the truth is it’s a result of Trump bringing in the feds. Before he did, the protests were not violent. In other words, it’s Trump who poured the gasoline on the smoldering ashes. Of course, if you’re in the right wing bubble, you believe just the opposite. That the public is scary and uncontrollable and must be kept down. That’s another thing the protesters have had enough of, social media that allows disinformation to run rampant. Just because Republicans are ignorant, that does not mean everyone else is. Do you have the equivalent of QAnon on the left? OF COURSE NOT!

Like Leonard Cohen sang, everybody knows.

But what the young and oppressed know, those who didn’t succeed in getting theirs after Reagan trashed taxes and before the cost of higher education went through the roof, is the game is rigged and they’ve lost and they’re no longer going to stand for it.

So, Trump wins. There are hosannas on Fox News. And just that quickly, they’re truly rioting in the streets, setting fires, overturning cars. And they’re not gonna stop, just like the protests haven’t stopped since May. And chaos will reign and the end result is Trump will declare martial law and the transition will be complete, we’ll live in an authoritarian state.

Blame the Republicans. Who are complicit, the Vichy regime.

Blame Fox and the rest of right wing news outlets, who did it for the money.

But don’t blame the protesters, the hoi polloi, the regular people. They’ve given up on the system, the law. They’re willing to sacrifice everything they’ve got because they don’t have that much. You can only push people so far before they’ll react.

So, read the news about the horse race. It’s irrelevant. The only people paying attention are those invested in the game. But most of the public opted out long ago. They just can’t win under these rules. And if you push them any further…

They’re gonna go wild in the streets and won’t stop until Trump and his cronies, including the spineless senators, either cave or crumble.

Come on, the rule of law didn’t save all those companies disrupted by the internet. And the record labels sued their customers, how did that work out? Just because you’re rich that does not mean you have power. Nothing can compete with the masses other than armor.

Beware of that.