Modern day American Revolution = Political Realignment

• United States presidential election, 1932 — Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • Of all the realigning elections, this one musters the most agreement from political scientists and historians; it is the archetypal realigning election. FDR's admirers have argued that New Deal policies, developed in response to the crash of 1929 and the miseries of the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover, represented an entirely new phenomenon in American politics. More critical historians see a great deal of continuity with Hoover's energetic but unsuccessful economic policies. There is no doubt Democrats vehemently attacked Hoover for 50 years. In many ways, Roosevelt's legacy still defines the Democratic Party; he forged an enduring coalition of big city machines, labor unions, Catholics, Jews, Westerners and Southerners.
  • The Democrats went from 37.7% of House seats in 1928 to 49.6% in 1930 and 71.9% in 1932, for a total gain of 34.2% in two elections.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realignment

Partisanship has increased in Washington because of the near-even split in power. When it once appeared (in my younger days) that the Dems would forever hold the Congress, and Republicans the White House, it was ironically easier for the two sides to cooperate. Now that each side knows that they are *thatclose* to winning/losing the House, Senate, White House and Supreme Court, the temptation to dig in your heels is great.

Now, move outside of Washington and you'll see most people doing what people do - living their lives, and behaving civilly with those whom they disagree. That's because we're people*, not politicians.

Truthfully, the country is not nearly as fucked up as it has been in the past. The economy is actually doing quite well given the situation with gas and housing (neither of which is really a government caused issue - banks gave bad loans to people who couldn't pay them, and the demand for oil from China an India is growing rediculously fast). As for poor spending decisions, that's been with us since the time of the pharaohs, but it can still be moderated using non-violent means.
*Internet trolls not included

I think Bursche hit it right on the money. Look at where the current administration's popular approval rating is right now. Look at the last senate election. There's a shift, or a "revolution" if you will, in the way the people are voting. A change in votes is pretty much a change in ideas/feelings of the populus. That's all the revolution we'll get in the forseeable future. Civil War is definitely out of the question. That arises over years and years of....misunderstandings among the sides.

The world is also a different place. And i know what I meant I was just reading an article on the two possibilities and put civil war instead of revolutionary.

The revolutionary war was because of the British government's disregard for the colonies. Extreme taxation, military enforced restrictions, etc all caused that uprising. The civil war wasn't just because of slavery. It was due to the southern state believing they should have individual power and didn't want to be limited to what the federal government said they could do/control. 

Like I said in my edit a civil war now would be liberal (mainly extremists but all liberals would follow) and conservative (extremist with more following).

Now the revolution im talking about is US citizens revolting against the government over over-taxation and having our god given freedom , like our founding fathers made sure we have, thrown into a shredder. I'm shocked the bill of rights still exists. The Patriot Act just shows how little the US gov cares about our freedoms. 

First the very thought of this is completely insane. If you really think the populous of the richest and most powerful country in the world would revolt against their government when they can just wait a few years and elect new leadership there is something seriously wrong. You are exaggerating things incredibally, the dollar isn't doing so well, the govn't is using the military a little more than most would like, the houseing market is slumping so what?

 Look at the 60's racial violence, assasinations of people that the populous loved (JFK, MLK, Robert Kenedy, et.), the Vietnam war (makes iraq+afganistan+ the other time in Iraq look like a couple guys in a fist fight), the Cold War, HIPPIES!!, etc. etc. etc.  If there ever was a time for "revolution" it would have been then but it didn't happen.

 When I first read this post I laughed, then I paused when I realized you were accually serious. I couldn't believe someone would accually think something so incredably improbable could happen. I'm gonna stop now before I get angry and go on a tangent.

 (just for the record a bunch of hippies getting high dosn't count as a revolution)

The Revolutionary War did not occur mainly because of taxation.  It occurred because British Parliament, an entity far removed from the American colonies, was taxing America.  They had no problem with taxation itself; they simply wanted it to be carried out by those closer to the people, specifically the colonial legislatures.  Granted, the change from salutary neglect to a tighter form of control over colonial economies did play a role, but it was the fact that some body of men across the Atlantic Ocean who had no connection to the people being taxed were doing it that really caused all of this.  The taxes were neccesary (heck, they were paying for the British soldiers protecting Americans from the French and Indians); they themselves weren't the issue.

Second, times have changed drastically since then.  The only conceivable way of rulership changing hands was by force back then (with a few, isolated exceptions).  The United States is marked for having one of the first times where leadership voluntarily and peacefully changing hands in history.

The Civil War is such a false analogy that it's ridiculous.  The issues at stake here are much less important than in the Civil War.  Despite what you may think, the major issue for the Civil War was slavery.  It was not so much that the entire North wanted to abolish slavery, but that the South felt threatened by the increasing amount of abolitionist support in the North.  Lincoln's election was the last straw that led to the South's seccession.  The abolition of slavery challenged a social hierarchy, an entire economical system for a region, and a way of life.  It had been an issue since the founding of the Union, and was only kept dormant by a refusal to talk about it.  The issues the United States faces today pale in comparison to what was going on then.

Finally, really, check this article out about political realignment.  That's how it happens today.

 umm... apparently you dont know your history... the civil war wasnt jsut about slavery, that was MINOR. Ak a historian, history teacher, something.

I just had to write an essay about it on my Mid Term for AP US History; I certainly hope I know my history. State's rights was just a means to accomplish protecting slavery.  The Civil War was as much about state's rights as the War of 1812 was about impressment.  Don't believe me?  Wiki "American Civil War" and read the causes.  Here's a few excerpts:

"The coexistence of a slave-owning South with an increasingly anti-slavery North made conflict inevitable. Lincoln did not propose federal laws against slavery where it already existed, but he had, in his 1858 House Divided Speech, expressed a desire to "arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction".^[2] Much of the political battle in the 1850s focused on the expansion of slavery into the newly created territories.^[3][4][5] All of the organized territories were likely to become free-soil states, which increased the Southern movement toward secession. Both North and South assumed that if slavery could not expand it would wither and die.^[6][7][8]"

"Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln^[19] because regional leaders feared that he would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. Many Southerners thought either Lincoln or another Northerner would abolish slavery, and that it was time to secede. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North. Deep South states with the most slavery seceded first, followed by the secession of four more states following the Battle of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's subsequent call for each remaining state to provide troops to retake forts and suppress the insurrection. Upper South states refused to send troops against their neighbors in what they considered an invasion."

I could go into more detail about why Lincoln's election was so alarming, but I think you get the point.

Note: The idea that it was state's rights that caused the war is the one popular after reconstruction and all the way into the 1960's.  It belongs in the same group of ideas that said the KKK were simply heroic white men who protected white women from rape and murder using the black's superstitions.

um yeah, ssj12, Civil War was pretty much about slavery. I studied the Civil War extensively too. granted, it was a couple of years ago but the main point was that the South feared a Northern control of the national government which could create a national ban against slavery. That was why throughout the 1800s up till the war, there were always compromises guaranteeing that some newly created states would have slavery legal so abolitionists wouldn't have majority control of Congress. The South didn't necessarily care about States right per se, just that they saw Congress was slowly but steadily falling in control of Abolitionists. When Lincoln was elected president, well, you know... Granted, the Civil War did not start because the Abolitionist wanted to end slavery, just to get the South back but if Southern States had majority control of Congress, they would not care about state's right so much. but you're welcome to your opinion. Hell, one of my former teachers said it was about money.

 your KKK point is true butare you sure? I had to write up an essay on the civil war and my history teachers and other sources said that it was because of what I said.

And I listed taxation as one factor not the only factor for the revolution. General disregard in parliment was an issue thats why I said disregard for the colonies.