1. people in the cities are just going to pick up their guns, drive to the countryside, and start looting farms. And there are way way way more of them than there are farmers. This was also the scenario I proposed earlier when I mentioned economic collapse. (in the event that we somehow avoid nuclear war despite complete worldwide economic collapse)
And if this were the 1980's or earlier I might agree. As it stands, the average urbanite outside of the inner cities; is too sick, too obese, too frail and too unaccustomed to hardship to really form Mad Max style bands of warlords. Yeah, there will be some groups that do but there won't be enough numbers.
Also, you know there is considerable distance to cover.
That aside, this happened in South American a few times and it ended very badly for the city dwellers. I would think in a nation with considerably more guns, considerably more experience in urban/suburban warfare and a large population of veterans in suburban and rural areas that it would prove far more difficult.
2. cities are where you find all the factories, factories which are needed for modern technology, which is what we were talking about preserving.
Not to the extent it was thirty years ago and as
@Cherico noted a lot of these guys can work machinery. Luring away trade bros and other skilled labor from the cities also isn't going to be too difficult.
So while the cities are on fire, and a bunch of armed people are pouring out of the cities to pillage the farmland... during all that we are somehow retooling factories (what few remain) to use outdated tech that could be done entirely by local production of raw resources
Nah, what rural American is presumably doing is fortifying itself, allowing the cities to descend into utter chaos and anarchy and then when the dust settles reasserting some modicum of trade with the remnants.
They don't really have to do anything except keep their stuff together.
You are assuming a nice clean "republican vs democrat" scenario rather than a "oh shit there is no food, no electricity, and everything is on fire". (and speaking of, expect a lot of fires to be started on purpose)
No, I think he's assuming in a total collapse, party leaders won't matter and that sea of red erects its own walls and from behind them shouts "Sort your own shit out and we'll start doing business with you again, come here and we'll use ya for fertilizer and as scarecrows".
It wouldn't be a clean break and it wouldn't be left vs right.
It would be the producers in that sea of red, some of which might be blue, telling the coastal hives "We are tired of suffering your diseases, corruption and inanity and now we don't have so we won't..bye".
Your new conservative utopia is 100m people whose tech is rapidly breaking down, yes there are "shop guys", but those are individual artisans not an industrialized society. Where are your spare parts coming from? where are you pipes coming from? where are spools of wire coming from? where are new cars coming from? where is oil coming from?
The same place it came from in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Well, not geographically but...Breadbasket countries, historically have done this frequently in their histories. Not very smart, mind ye, and very painful but it can and has been done before.
Of course the idea is to never let it happen in the first place.
