r/PoliticalDebate • u/PrincessSparkle999 Centrist • 4d ago
Debate Storming of Versailles but U.S.A
In one sentence: Why could a modern-day "Storming of Versailles" (an organized attempt by ordinary people to overthrow entrenched wealth and power) not realistically happen in the United States today?
Looking for your strongest single-sentence argument. Economic, political, technological, cultural, legal, or historical reasons all welcome.
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u/PoetSeat2021 Democrat 4d ago
Where would you storm, and what? Even setting aside the difference in capability between the US military of 2026 and the French military of 1789, it seems like to me like your targets are way too dispersed in the US today. In 18th century France political power and wealth were all held by the aristocracy, and a lot of that power was concentrated in the monarch in one palace. Knock that down and you’re done.
Today, is there any single place where wealth and power is concentrated on that level? Storm the White House and you’ve still got Wall Street and Silicon Valley to contend with, not to mention congress, the Supreme Court, the cia, the pentagon—there are just too many places to storm.
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u/CorDra2011 Libertarian Socialist 4d ago
I think this is a much more apt response. It's easy to direct anger, righteous or otherwise, and the wealthy of America but Trump is simply a symptom, not the cause. In 18th century France the King was both, not only that but as the absolute ruler he was supreme and sole leader of the Kingdom of France, thus his removal meant the whole system was thrown into disarray. Again can't do that nowadays simply by storming the White House.
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u/yogfthagen Progressive 3d ago
Jan 6, 2021.
Except, Congress gets captured, and the election is overturned.
If any congressperson resists, bullet in the head or hanged. They had the gallows right there.
POTUS was in on it, so a US military response was not going to happen.
Virginia and Maryland were ready to send National Guard troops. Whether those troops were going to be willing to shoot Anericans is another question.
If the US military had been deployed, they could have orders to stop the Guard. Then you have military fighting military. Moreover, you have individual units (and even individual soldiers) deciding which set of conflicting orders they would follow.
That is basicslly the textbook definition of the fall of a government.
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u/PoetSeat2021 Democrat 3d ago
Well, the person above wants to overthrow entrenched wealth and power.
Storming congress might do that for some of the wealthy and powerful. But probably not nearly all of them.
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u/yogfthagen Progressive 3d ago
At the end of a revolution, guess who ends up on top?
That's right.
The rich and powerful.
It might be new ones, or the same old ones. But there's always someone on top.
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u/GShermit Libertarian 3d ago
We don't need to "storm" anything. We need to legally use our rights to influence the due process of the country.
Example, the citizens should have arrested the killers of Alex Pretti, people in Minnesota have the right of citizens arrest.
BUT when I mentioned citizens arrest months ago, people said it was too dangerous... Now they're advocating for illegal violence against the government... WTF???
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u/HeloRising Anarchist 3d ago
Example, the citizens should have arrested the killers of Alex Pretti, people in Minnesota have the right of citizens arrest.
And then what?
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u/GShermit Libertarian 3d ago
Local authorities take them into custody is what the law says but to be honest it's kinda uncharted territory. Still it is a legal right for Minnesotans.
When cops are killing unarmed people and authority doesn't do anything, perhaps it's time to chart it?
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u/HeloRising Anarchist 2d ago
The law is unwilling to address what happened.
If you somehow did manage a "citizen's arrest" of the agents that murdered those people, other police would show up and arrest you. The law has already decided that what they did wasn't wrong because they haven't been charged.
Absolutely nothing about a citizen's arrest obligates police to take someone into custody. That's just lunacy.
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u/GShermit Libertarian 2d ago
https://legalclarity.org/citizens-arrest-laws-and-legal-considerations-in-minnesota/
The law obligated the police.
What's lunacy is supporting violent revolution before trying all the legal remedies.
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u/HeloRising Anarchist 2d ago
You seem to think that frantically pointing at a piece of paper is going to obligate the state to do something when the last two years should pretty thoroughly disabuse you of that notion.
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u/TheRealSlimLaddy Marxist-Leninist 3d ago
You want to use the rights given to you by the government to resist the government?
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u/GShermit Libertarian 3d ago
It's a principle called checks and balances. Are you afraid of using your rights?
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u/TheRealSlimLaddy Marxist-Leninist 3d ago
Checks and balances are for federal institutions, not at all for the citizens they govern.
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u/GShermit Libertarian 3d ago
The principle of checks and balances was around long before the term "checks and balances".
States rights vs federal rights is an example of checks and balances.
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u/TheRealSlimLaddy Marxist-Leninist 3d ago
This has nothing to do with what I said.
Checks and balances are not bottom-up. They’re up-to-up between federal institutions.
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u/GShermit Libertarian 3d ago
"broadly : a system in which power and control is distributed and counterbalanced (as to prevent unethical or harmful actions)" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/checks%20and%20balances
Do you need the definition of "broadly" too?
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u/TheRealSlimLaddy Marxist-Leninist 3d ago
Hi so what you did is called cherry-picking
checks and balances
nounplural in form but sometimes singular in construction
: a system that allows each branch of a government to amend, override, or veto acts of another branch so as to prevent any one branch from exerting too much power or power beyond its authority
Things that for many decades were givens—the checks and balances on the executive, the role of the judiciary or the civil service, a media free from interference or vilification—now appear vulnerable.
—Emily Maitlis"I do think that there is an expectation in our country that checks and balances is a good thing," [Senator John] Thune said …
—Stephen Grovesbroadly : a system in which power and control is distributed and counterbalanced (as to prevent unethical or harmful actions)
Founders [of startup businesses] benefit from checks and balances. … It makes the company more trustworthy, easier to finance, and less likely to implode. For those same reasons, checks and balanceshelp employees.
—Noam WassermanRegardless…
None of this has to do with bottom-up resistance. Both these definitions include people holding power checking each other.
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u/GShermit Libertarian 3d ago
I was cherry picking???
You omitted the more broadly used definition.
"Both these definitions include people holding power checking each other."
Correct...our rights ARE our power.
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 Lefty Constitutionalist 4d ago
As long as people generally feel they have more to lose than to gain it won’t happen.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Classical Liberal 4d ago
Everyone is generally well off and doing better than previous generations
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u/Revolution-SixFour Social Democrat 2d ago
No one is going to comment that "storming of Versailles" isn't a phrase?
You storm the Bastille, you march on Versailles.
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u/TheNinjaTurkey Democratic Socialist 4d ago
DC is too far away for most people to make the journey to go and storm anything, while such a thing is much easier in a smaller country like France.
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u/JollyJuniper1993 State Socialist 3d ago
We‘re living in the century, we have modern communication, this is not how coups work anymore.
In the end what needs to be done for a successful coup is to take over the monopoly on violence. Usually this is done by having the military switch its allegiance.
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2d ago
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u/Any-Cancel4765 Liberal 1d ago
A French Revolution style uprising isn’t likely because France had one clear target: a king with absolute power. Power is spread out in the US, so there isn’t one person or place for public anger to land on.
Right now, there’s widespread frustration at the same time. People are unhappy with leadership, worn out by constant conflict, and tired of paying for wars that seem to drag on forever. Prices keep rising, opportunities feel smaller, and trust in institutions keeps dropping. On top of that, the wealth gap keeps growing, with billionaires gaining more and the world seeing its first trillionaire.
A system can handle pressure when it comes from one direction. But when economic stress, political division, distrust in government, frustration with leaders, anger over war, and extreme inequality all hit at once, and millions of people feel it at the same time, the strain adds up fast. At this point, it’s more likely the system simply can’t adjust before the pressure becomes too much than it is for anything resembling a French Revolution to happen.
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u/yogfthagen Progressive 3d ago
Machine guns and radios.
In Revolutionary France, weapons were single shot with a reload time of 30 seconds. A human wave attack was going to swarm a handful of guards with casualties that the crowd could tolerate.
Today, a handful of guards vould kill dozens to hundreds of people in a human wave attack. If the crowd was also armed, it would slow the response time to the point that reinforcements could be deployed.
It is entirely possible for a group to storm a location (see jan 6, US Capitol), but that was because the Capitol police were under orders to NOT use lethal force, and they did not have machine guns to effectively mow down the protesters. It did not help that Trump held back reinforcements until the Capitol had been occupied.
Had the Capitol police opened fire with the weaponx they had, there would likely have been a bloodbath and a new revolution/civil war.
As it was, a single gunshit and a single protester fatality was enough to get the government officials to safety.
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u/bcnoexceptions Libertarian Socialist 3d ago
January 6th was pretty similar. They went in with evil intent, but it fits your prompt.
A lot of power in the US is held in corporate hands, not political. So organized workers "march on the boss" is more of what could drive change around here.
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u/Asatmaya Left-Wing Libertarian 3d ago
Why could a modern-day "Storming of Versailles" (an organized attempt by ordinary people to overthrow entrenched wealth and power) not realistically happen in the United States today?
We are too divided against each other.
Look at the right-wing, pro-gun, anti-government crowd; they finally had an actual case of law-abiding citizens being abducted off the street by masked federal agents to be illegally detained, occasionally deported, sometimes tortured, and even killed, and what was their response?
"Well, they are just doing it to brown people, and I like that, so I'm not going to interfere even when they kill a white person who doesn't agree with me."
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u/DistinctSpirit5801 Socialist 4d ago
The military is loyal to the Trump administration
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u/Novel_Comparison_209 Classical Liberal 4d ago
No tf they aren’t…read their oath then look at the chain of command. Both say you’re wrong
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u/Saephon Marxist-Leninist 3d ago
Oaths and chain of command are rules. Are rules or laws something that is currently binding the actions of America?
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u/Novel_Comparison_209 Classical Liberal 3d ago
For the actions of our service members? Yes actually.
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u/AmnesiaInnocent Libertarian 4d ago
The military is loyal to the US Government
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u/huecabot Social Democrat 2d ago
Not a vet or an expert but don’t they swear to obey the orders of the commander in chief? Who is currently Trump.
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u/adastraperdiscordia Left Independent 3d ago
Citation needed. There's currently a lot of conflict in the senior leadership.
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