I believe the vote is untrustworthy based upon factual evidence.
That is the system that I believe grinds on.
First time you and I have been on different pages, my friend.

Some people think we might have a bloody revolution like in days past. I just don't see how the little folks can pull it off considering the weapons at government disposal. We'd be squashed like little bugs on the sidewalk if governments decided to bring the full force of their capacity upon us.

This is a common misconception.

First, let me start with this, because we need to be on the same page to have these conversations at all. If there is a violent revolution, I do not believe it will begin with organized citizen militias declaring war on the United States of America and marching toward DC.

Here is how it may begin, I think. Say there is a protest following some tragic event - another extrajudicial murder, another economic crash, whatever. People are angry. Tensions are running high as protesters march through the streets. Suddenly, a fight starts - maybe someone decided to act out against police, maybe the police tried to cut off part of the march and kettle it, maybe it's a police agent - doesn't matter. Police swarm in and start grabbing people, maybe beating or pepper-spraying them - we saw this repeatedly with Occupy.

The difference is that someone has had just about enough of this shit, and counterattacks the cops. Now, I'm leaving "counterattack" a bit vague; maybe the first person is armed and intends to hurt or kill, maybe they're acting in defense of others, maybe they're just trying to resist arrest, maybe they're just trying to pull the cops away from someone. It doesn't matter because the march turns into a police riot.

The gloves come off, but no one knows who to hit. Maybe state police or the National Guard are brought in to enforce order (and perhaps a curfew or public assembly ban?) but this only raises tensions. Some police are shot and killed; a squad car is set on fire; anti-establishment graffiti appears like mushrooms.

Or, it may go rather differently. Suppose a large number of housing activists begin a rent strike. Predictably, the landlords file evictions; the Sheriff's office sends some officers around to enforce them. The activists were expecting this, and they've all texted each other and are showing up at contested property and they're refusing to leave or to be arrested peacefully. Now, in a case like this, police will generally back off and let the situation fizzle out. But maybe that doesn't happen. Landlords have powerful lobbies and allies in state and local government, and they may want to speed up the process. Some Sheriffs think they're badasses (e.g. Joe Arpaio) and may want to make a show of force.

However it starts, the rebellion catches fire across the nation. Sympathy protests appear; some peaceful, some not.

Tell me, in this situation, who does the military attack? Where does the military attack? This is exactly the kind of war the entire US military struggles to fight; it bogged us down in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there was far less land to control, populated by less people with less ways to communicate, travel, organize, and fight. Police and military have been training for a scenario like this for decades, but all the training in the world can't change the fact that we have them vastly outnumbered, the entire country is potentially hostile territory, and they will be reluctant to kill American citizens.

That last part may seem a bit unlikely to you. After all, Private Dan follows orders. If Private Dan is told to go to Boise and occupy it and that the rules of engagement authorize him to use lethal force, that's what he's going to do. Until he thinks about his friends and family back home, who live in the same country he's trying to pacify, and what's happening to them right now? What will happen to them if he neutralizes nine enemy combatants in the line of duty? Because that's just going to piss everyone off more.

The vast majority of our military's weapons systems are useless for ending civil unrest. No one, anywhere, is making a big Napoleonic line of riflemen that the Army can just drop a bomb on or run a tank through, and if you start massacring peaceful protesters just because they're conveniently grouped up, well, the optics on that are shit.

(Aside: proponents of peaceful protest often insist that by remaining peaceful, the unwarranted brutality of the police response will outrage the public and win sympathy for the protesters. Yet, we have repeatedly seen that police are able to deter or arrest protesters without using brutal tactics, and these same peaceful protesters categorically refuse to do anything that would provoke a more forceful response - so how exactly is this plan supposed to work? I don't know, and I don't think they do either.)

Alright. So, now that you know what I think violent revolution might look like, let's talk about the endgame. As you may imagine, this is not a sustainable society. Strikes, sabotage, disruption, and looting will cripple businesses. Police and military have to be paid. Both the government and the 1% will wish to restore order as soon as possible, but they won't be able to do it without the people's consent. And THIS is how the little people finally get a place, however temporary, at the bargaining table. Similar to the 1930s, the people will be able to articulate a vision and a set of demands and policy proposals that the rulers will have little choice but to accept. There's no need to actually organize armies and march on Washington - which means no one-sided showdowns with the US Armed Forces.

If they bargain quickly, we won't have much of a revolution - but we might get things we need, similar to the New Deal and decades of sorta-progressive leadership, and then it will be up to us to build on those gains rather than going back to sleep.

If they bargain slowly, then there will be more time for people to start creating alternate institutions - like, say, new people's governments. These are essentially coups at local or state level. The longer this process goes on, the more power the people arrogate to themselves directly and the less of a say the prior government - if it sticks around at all - will have in deciding what the new order will be. Of course, this could also break the union; I imagine that a number of states or state blocs might not want to restore the status of the federal government without making some changes first - for instance, populous liberal states might want the Jesusland states to have less representation in Congress, more appropriate to their populations.

If this all seems idealistic to you - and I never said it would be a picnic - then the alternative is simply death. Bereft of jobs, food, medicine, homes, etc. and forced to live under ever more squalid and unhealthy living conditions, people will just start dying in larger and larger numbers. (Some conspiracy theorists insist that this is actually what the elite want.) But the less people have to lose, the less they will worry about losing it, and sooner or later, the underclass is bound to turn on its masters.

which had it that Rome was destined to last 1200 years from the founding of the city (Ab Urbe Condita). During the early 5th century AD, there was occasional talk about it - but nobody took it seriously. But even by then the foundations were too rotten to salvage. http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Rome-FellMar95.htm (Note: this is a verbatim chapter from "How The Irish Saved Civilization".)