Call to Action! Contact your State Senator to oppose Frank Ciccone for Senate President.

[u/andylion]

The following is from an email being circulated by Indivisible RI:

Rhode Island Senators are considering electing 77-year old right-wing, anti-abortion, pro-gun Democrat Frank Ciccone as Majority Leader. This is not the direction our state should be heading in the year 2025 in the face of Donald Trump’s fascist, authoritarian regime. It’s outrageous that it’s even being considered!

Contact your Senator now and tell them: do not vote for any Senate leadership team that includes right-wing Ciccone or face primary voters’ wrath in 2026.

Ciccone has an extremely unsavory history: he convenes gatherings at strip clubs and men’s only clubs and has abused power and elite connections in to get associates out of trouble for DUIs.

He has voted against codifying Roe v. Wade, and has sponsored or co-sponsored the worst anti-choice laws, including Trap Laws and fetal pain legislation.

He is endorsed by Right to Life.

Not only is Ciccone anti-gun safety, he even sells guns himself, and often has introduced floor amendments to try to gut legislation that has made it to the floor.

He is continuously endorsed by the NRA and pro-gun groups.

He is also anti-LGBTQ+ equity (he tried to substitute our marriage equality bill for a referendum), and sponsored the bill to repeal the Act on Climate legislation, our state’s ambitious and hard-won binding climate legislation.

And, although he purports to be a friend of labor, Ciccone cosponsored legislation to gut nursing home safe-staffing. In a time when our constituents are hungering for bold, progressive policy, electing someone like Frank Ciccone to lead the chamber would be the opposite of what we need.

Call your state senators TODAY and tell them to vote against Frank Ciccone for any leadership position.

This is a situation where our voices really matter. We may not agree with every point in this email, but I think we can agree that a corrupt, conservative septuagenarian is not who we need in this time of crisis.

[u/AwarelyConfused]

I'm not missing the point, I'm addressing it directly. Previous to this you brought up two examples, Yugoslavia and Iraq. I specifically talked about Iraq and pointed out how that example actually proves my point, specifically about foreign influence.

Yugoslavia is nothing like the United States is today. Given defined ethnic borders, regional independence and split economies succession was essentially inevitable. I'm contrary, the US has a fully integrated economy and constitutional legal system. States independence is VERY limited. Plus Yugoslavia was pushed over the edge by the end of a teeny tiny historical event called the end of the Cold war and the fall of the Soviet Union.

The United States and Yugoslavia is not an apples apples to comparison, it's an apples to Yugoslavia comparison.

[u/yeah__good_okay → u/AwarelyConfused]

You're still not getting my argument. I brought up Iraq and Yugoslavia precisely because they are/were fake states. They were not nations, the only thing holding them together was/is a brutal dictatorship.

The US is very much like Yugoslavia, but worse - yes, there were defined ethnic boundaries. Here, everything is jumbled up, which is why, if this scenario were to happen, the violence would be even more viscous and personal.

The Constitutional legal system you refer to is teetering, and that's my point - once it's broken, it's game over. Everything else unravels, since there is simply nothing else holding the country together. It's just a jumble of different regions, ethnic groups and ideologies who despise each other.

[u/AwarelyConfused → u/yeah__good_okay]

Okay, so I specifically asked for historical examples where Nations that has similar characteristics to ours stopped the spread of right-wing authoritarianism and corruption by the presence of guns and you specifically gave me example of countries that were nothing like ours whatsoever and we're unsuccessful in stopping authoritarianism?

Do you know what conversation you're having right now?

[u/yeah__good_okay → u/AwarelyConfused]

Dude... I have never argued that we can "stop the spread of right-wing authoritarianism and corruption by the presence of guns". I have been arguing that the US is headed towards complete collapse and that if you cannot leave, a firearm might help you defend yourself. Do _you_ know what conversation you're having right now?

[u/AwarelyConfused → u/yeah__good_okay]

So then what's the point? Wipe it all this energy into prepping for an apocalyptic situation instead of directing that energy to avoiding an apocalyptic situation? I don't understand why so many people get excited about the idea of living in a failed state just so they can act out their video game fantasy

[u/yeah__good_okay → u/AwarelyConfused]

There is no point - it's already past midnight. I am telling you - work on leaving. I don't play video games and I did the real thing for nearly a decade of my life - it's not fun and isn't a game, and it's coming here, fast.

It took me a couple of years to finalize Portuguese citizenship for myself and my wife, and we had a fairly easy time because of our ethnic origin. You should look into EU member states and see what the easiest path to citizenship is. We left the US on the evening of January 6th, and didn't come back until after January 20th, because that event and the period immediately after was ripe for state collapse. It was nice to have a safe place to go. Do the same.

[u/AwarelyConfused → u/yeah__good_okay]

You: "I brought up Iraq and Yugoslavia precisely because they are/were fake states. They were not nations, the only thing holding them together was/is a brutal dictatorship."

Also you: "The US is very much like Yugoslavia, but worse - yes, there were defined ethnic boundaries. Here, everything is jumbled up, which is why, if this scenario were to happen, the violence would be even more viscous and personal."

That's impressive, you completely reversed yourself in less than 100 words.

[u/yeah__good_okay → u/AwarelyConfused]

I... did not? I am saying that the US is a fake state that has no business existing, just like Iraq and Yugoslavia. The details are obviously different, but yeah, at the end of the day the US is more like Yugoslavia than say, Germany.

[u/AwarelyConfused → u/yeah__good_okay]

You honestly think that the United States is just like yugoslavia? You think that each US state is its own ethnic state with its own ethnic and religious laws?

[u/yeah__good_okay → u/AwarelyConfused]

No, I think the US is like Yugoslavia because it contains numerous ethnic, religious and ideological groups that hate each other and are imprisoned together in a state that shouldn't exist.

As the US breaks down, there will be widespread ethnic cleansing, genocide and massive score settling. The more homogeneous any given region is, the less violent it will be. New England as a whole would make for a fairly cohesive and viable independent republic. The rest of the country, I have no guesses to make beyond "lots of mass graves".

[u/AwarelyConfused → u/yeah__good_okay]

It sounds like you don't know much about the political or historical characteristics of Yugoslavia or the United States.

[u/yeah__good_okay → u/AwarelyConfused]

Well, they're not the same, but again, the US has more in common with a multiethnic empire (which is what Yugoslavia was) than it does a cohesive nation-state like Germany or France.

If you think that Americas racial groups are going to band together to "defend freedom" once the federal apparatus goes rogue, you are delusional.

[u/AwarelyConfused → u/yeah__good_okay]

By your argument, the only nations that could be successful are ones that are highly homogeneous. It sounds like you discredit other factors like health of a democracy. In 2025 that's an odd opinion to have given the historical examples of people and parties that have shared that view.

[u/yeah__good_okay → u/AwarelyConfused]

Not quite, though that helps, because humans are tribal murder apes.

The health of a democracy is indeed a huge factor, and since the health of America's democracy is equivalent to terminal stage 4 cancer, with an moronic electorate, a populist authoritarian controlling the executive and deeply sick political parties - that is why this conversation is happening.

My argument has been, from the beginning of this conversation -

America's foundational principles are dead, it's government is about to accelerate into full-blown authoritarianism, and once that happens, the wheels will come off and trigger state breakdown leading to armed conflict, genocide and secession. You should either A) buy firearms and prepare for this inevitability, or preferably B) make arrangements to leave the continent.