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Every time their was a so-called "shutdown," I still got my SSI checks direct-deposit from the Federal government despite said "shutdown" and the unconstitutionality — again, mere words on a musty old parchment by dead slave-owning white men — of spending without House authorization.
Congress does not themselves write the checks, people in the executive do — like, as you note, the Treasury. So when Congress declares something "defunded," and the Treasury just ignores them and keeps sending the checks out anyway, no CIA gunmen needed, what then?
"Constitutional crisis" and so on, but so what? Nobody in DC really cares about that dead letter, nor have they for probably a century now, so what if this is made (more) explicit? The FBI, ATF, and other ordinary law enforcement will be enough to crush any — inevitably disorganized, sporadic, and aimless — "resistance" or "rebellion" from the citizenry.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/fleo20st.pdf
Most federal law enforcement is either fairly reddish or has jobs that do not include "chasing domestic extremists" which they can be expected to protest being pulled off(because being a security guard at NASA is both cooler and less likely to involve getting shot at than staking out some compound in Idaho that's drilling 1/8 inch holes in lower receivers, plus you get to go home every night) and/or simply can't be pulled off. The ATF, FBI, and US marshals combined simply do not have the personnel to carry out a meaningful crackdown.
Not according to the people I talk to IRL.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Consider the German Peasants' War. 300,000 pissed off peasants, who at least sometimes "were well-armed. They had cannons with powder and shot…" against 6,000–8,500 nobles, knights, and assorted mercenaries. A 35:1-50:1 numbers advantage…
…except it wasn't. Because it was several thousand organized and experienced knights and mercenaries against a thousand peasants here, then several thousand knights and mercenaries against twelve hundred peasants there, then several thousand knights and mercenaries against four thousand peasants over there, then…
And in the end, the peasants were crushed, over a third of them killed, and the losses on the other side? To quote Wikipedia's "Casualties and losses" box: Minimal.
It wouldn't take that large a SWAT force to take out your "compound in Idaho" with small odds of any losses. Any one out of "the ATF, FBI, and US marshals" could easily put that together. And after they take out the first such compound, then they take out the second, and then the third, and then the fourth., and then…. In each individual engagement, they'll have the superior forces. Because for the "rebels" to actually have superior numbers, all the little groups of five, or six, or a dozen guys would have to actually come together and coordinate. And as I noted, they are fundamentally incapable of ever doing so, and openly proud of it.
In the 90s, they did this with an isolated guy and his family, living in their cabin, and then they did it to a bunch of weirdo Christian types. It worked real well both times, and then a federal building blew up.
There is zero need for massed formations or mustered armies in such a scenario. You are basing your assessment off the idea of a campaign of pitched battles and clearly-defined fronts. There is pretty much zero chance that's what a future American civil war would look like. It's pretty unlikely that such a war would even be fought with AR15s, much less tanks and planes.
Which accomplished nothing, except getting our government to make their suppression of such groups quieter and less of a big media show.
Explain how "20+ man SWAT team takes out 4-5 'domestic terrorists' with no losses, then another 4-5 'domestic terrorists' with no losses, then another, then another…" ends in victory for the folks on the losing end of every single engagement, rather than being picked off, tiny packet by tiny packet, until none are left?
The last several years are best modelled as a massively distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble. You are betting that the methods this search has discovered so far are more or less the best methods available. Having examined the question at some length and with a particular frame of mind, I am confident that your assessment is wrong.
It's more "what's available to one side that they're willing to use" than just "what's available."
And I don't see the basis for your confidence. I believe that there's basically nothing that the Red Tribe is both capable of and willing to do "to hurt the outgroup badly," and you — and others — have provided no real evidence to change my mind on that.
"Never give up, never surrender" might be great when it's coming from Tim Allen in a movie, but even the Japanese, with their "kamikaze attacks" and "banzai charges," eventually gave up and surrendered. At some point, one has to admit that war is lost. If the Red Tribe has not yet clearly passed this point, then where is that point?
Most people don't. That seems like a good thing, on balance.
When our will to fight is broken. At the moment, we're still ramping up toward conflict, and it's still possible that conflict can be precluded through more-or-less peaceful resolutions of the existing points of contention. Once conflict actually starts, it will be too late for talking about it. To the extent that the risks of such a conflict are not generally appreciated, it seems to me that no benefit to Reds is derived by elaborating them. If the only reason Blues might not oppress Reds is that they're not sure they'd be able to do so without mortal consequences, fighting is probably preferable than perpetuating the existing "peace". In which case, overconfidence and obliviousness on the part of Blues is a strategic asset worth preserving.
Your position, it seems to me, could come from one of a couple premises. Either you think Reds lack the awareness, the will, or the capability to successfully prosecute a fight with Blues. I think the Culture War demonstrates sufficient Awareness. Will and capability are intertwined: the greater the capability, the less will is required, and vice versa. You are assuming that people wait in their homes for the SWAT teams to come for them, which it is not clear they will do. Further, you are assuming that the capability is limited to our ubiquitous autoloading cartridge-firing weapons, and that assumption is most certainly not valid. The value of personally-owned firearms is primarily political, not strategic; the political fights over gun control are useful to coordinate within Red Tribe over the question "is it time to fight?". Once the question is answered to the affirmative, it seems to me that autoloading cartridge smallarms largely go to the sidelines.
As for what defeat looks like, if blues can successfully confiscate personal firearms, inflict serious social and legal consequences on non-woke Christianity, and maintain something approaching the current economic and socio-political conditions, that would pretty clearly be a victory for them in my book. I think it very unlikely that such an outcome is achievable, but you are free to think otherwise if you wish. Time will tell.
Also:
If Emperor Shōwa had taken that position in 1945, instead of the one he did — consider the Kyūjō incident, or Onoda Hiroo — where would Japan be now?
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