I agree with this wholeheartedly. A civil war would require far more effort than I would expect from enough Americans - not only to do the fighting, but to do the heavy lifting afterwards should they succeed. This fits firmly in the category of people proclaiming that, “Somebody should do something!”
Not that I think a civil war is imminent, but the last one wasn’t caused by hunger.
No. I’m just saying what I think it would take todays American citizens to collectively participate in one.
I can see the civil war as being a series of very limited engagements. Most of the population will stand back horrified, with about 50% routing for one side or the other.
Police attempt to put down a protest and are faced with armed resistance, not just a few rioters throwing rocks.
A national guard detachment protecting a state capital gets in a skirmish with local police who are supporting a demonstration against whoever is sitting in the capital.
Organized civilian militias attack (and on the other side defend) neighborhoods, corporations, institutions, or other things that upset them.
All small arms and improvised explosive type stuff, but lots of people definitely die.
At some point some of these organized armed groups, whether civilian militias, police, or even isolated military groups will get massacred by the military using their full capabilities. When that happens, whoever controls the bulk of the military, and is willing to use it domestically, will win.
When the leadership of one side is subject to execution by drone, things will collapse pretty quick.
A new survey finds that 77% of Americans will agree with just about anything a pollster puts to them, depending on what mood they’re in at the time.
I’d like to puff up my chest and say that I’m “locked and loaded,” but what’s really true is that I have snacks.
The main obstacle to a civil war - as others have pointed out many times - is a lack of clear borders or warring nations.
The 1860s Civil War had two pretty clearly defined nations - Union vs. Confederacy - going at it. It was pretty well delineated; north vs. south. And for the most part, the north was all connected together, and the south connected together. You didn’t have a blue pocket located in Georgia, or a grey pocket located in New York.
But today would be nothing like that. Blue and red are intermixed throughout the nation. The blue states on the west and east coast are far from each other. How do you fight a civil war effectively when your enemies are all around you, whether you’re fighting for Team Blue or Team Red? You wouldn’t even know which direction to advance your army towards. At least Lee knew he had to fight north, and Sherman south.
I was thinking about this earlier.
Since most blue urban areas are surrounded by red exurban/rural areas, you take the fight toward the cities … the population centers.
Which is where much of the means of production are centered.
And then – since you can’t necessarily just take over their roles – you make deals with some delightful mix of the Indians, the Russians, and the Chinese to run your economy for you.
Which is pretty dark and dystopian, but … y’know … there it is.
On one side you have Jan 6. On the other you have Capital Hill Occupied Protest. Neither one had any chance of spreading to anything larger. Geographically there are no large politically delineated zones of animosity where one side of a community is them and the other is us. Aside from a few nutcases, Texas isn’t going to convoy up and roll on California, or vice-versa.
CHOP could have been dismantled in hours by the national guard, or even the Seattle PD, but there was no reason to risk lives when letting them exhaust themselves was the easier and safer option.
Capital police had the Jan 6 crowd rolled up in 6 hours, give or take.
Short answer, ain’t happening.
This reminds me of the people on the SDMB and Twitter were deathly afraid the Russians were going to give the American Freedom Convoys guns and they were legitimately going to drive into Washington D.C. with guns blazing.
I’d argue the opposite. We have had two recent presidents who became president while losing the popular vote.
The myriad ways republicans are restricting voting across the US:
- 19 states enacted voting restrictions in 2021. What’s next?
- Here Are The Ways Republicans Are Trying To Restrict Voting Access
- How The Republican Push To Restrict Voting Could Affect Our Elections
Gerrymandering running amok.
The House of Representatives is far too small to be reflective of the population.
- Congress Needs to Be Way, Way Bigger
- How to Fix the House of Representatives in One Easy, Radical Step
And the senate is woefully lopsided giving a very small part of the population far too much power:
And some people called GWB a fascist. That isn’t evidence that 45 is not a fascist.
There are precedents where civil wars have not fallen neatly into two well-defined geographic areas; the English, Russian, and Spanish civil wars come to mind. Maps of these conflicts show multiple areas or nodes loyal to one faction or another. Over time, the maps show various areas coalescing into a geographic whole. Red states/Blue states is undoubtedly a bit oversimplified, but gives us some starting point when considering potential battle lines.
If there was a real ground war, I would expect an enormous amount of civilian displacement as people flee to political safety. I would very much expect the fascists to imprison, enslave, and torture civilians whom they identify as Not Us. In fact they appear to be champing at the bit to do so.
Or even to take anything but low-effort political action to prevent the undermining of democratic institutions. As long as they can keep their jobs and homes and take vacations and put fuel in their cars even if expensively, get their regular installment of Jesus or weed, and keep putting up banners saying either MAGA or BlackLivesMatter or Blue Line Flags or Pride Flags with little actual sweating, they’ll give a big “eh, whatevs” and maybe at best swing to the opposite sidewalk if passing the house of MAGA guy, and “let those other guys who are really into this knock themselves out”.
And like pkbites’ neighbor, many of those talking a big game now are going to crap themselves at the thought of having to go Guns of Brixton on The Man.
And that then inspires retaliation and you wind up with not quite a Civil War as too many people are stuck in understanding it, but aswas said, a sort of American Troubles that lasts until enough people with influence say “enough: we’ll take whoever gives us back peace and order” and then what echoreply wrote takes effect.
That was before we got our taste of real fascism, and understood that GWB was just a dimwitted conservative dickhead. GWB would be lined up against a wall with the rest of us.
I think Cheney was the evil one in that administration calling most of the shots.
Yes, of course. GWB was the ventriloquist’s dummy.
I doubt any rogue generals orchestrating a civil war are responding to surveys with, “Yes, sure, count me in.”
Has anybody heard from Kristol & Kagan and their Project for the New American Century lately? That was an astute reading of the tea leaves, no?