# Is the U.S. about to have civil war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 21, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935 "2025-03-21T22:31:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/101 "2025-03-23T03:54:17Z")
That was my sense of things, too. That can, of course, be whipped into genocide (see: European anti-Semitism). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/102 "2025-03-23T05:20:52Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Can you provide the names of the people I should be listening to, then? Their hero, Adolf Hitler comes to mind. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > This doesn’t explain all the millionaires, billionaires and politicians who support Trump..donating billions to him. Backing his every plan. They are fools who think they can control the fascists. Which never works, but the wealthy are too stupid and arrogant to ever realize that before they start “falling out of windows”. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/103 "2025-03-23T13:11:16Z")
This is the key part many want to avoid. Fascism depends on segments of business and the wealthy for its success. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/104 "2025-03-23T19:09:42Z")
No; that’s what businesses and the wealthy _want_ to think, it’s their fantasy that they can control the fascists for profit. But once the fascists take power money no long _matters,_ only force does. The wealthy are just too stupid and arrogant to realize they are destroying the very system that gives them power. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/105 "2025-03-23T19:17:45Z")
Not discounting your concerns about the state of our democracy, but really do you think anything can repair, save us or change the tide? I think you need to go cold turkey and stop watching or reading political news. I worry for you. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/106 "2025-03-23T19:56:25Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I agree with **PhillyGuy** and **dolphinboy**. > > As I have said before, I feel the military would support Trump. They have better guns, combat training, secure communication channles, established logistics for moving food and supplies, and they already have leaders and a structure. > > They would destroy the rebels without breaking a sweat. I think a lot depends on what we mean by a civil war. If it’s a civil war as I’m thinking of it, I think there’s the strong possibility that an untold number of people in the active duty military and national guards desert the armed forces and try to set-up counter-militias. If this is a _real_ civil war, I don’t think it would be the U.S. military against progressives; I think it’s more likely to be pro-MAGA/right wing government forces versus anti-government militia forces, which might include people of various political leanings. Unfortunately, though, I would tend to agree that there are more pro-MAGA/right-wing forces within and outside the government with arms **and** a _willingness to use them_, but I think there _would_ be armed resistance, including various ranks of commanders who break from the regime on grounds they’re violating their oath. That’s just how I imagine it, though. I tend to think there’s really no way to fathom how it would play out in reality. The real winners in a civil conflict, which could last for weeks, months, or even longer, would be our adversaries. Our markets would tank, as investors both here and abroad would have their confidence in our political stability shattered into many bits and pieces. Russia would actually look like a safer haven by comparison. Adding insult to injury, our infrastructure would crumble. Energy/power would be weaponized by militarists against civilians, sending many back to the year 1850 nearly immediately. The social and political cleavages would likely be permanent, persisting long after the cessation of hostilities has officially been declared (see Reconstruction). Though taking some measure of satisfaction in the fact that we’re so distracted by our internal strife that we’re no longer in a position to disrupt the warp-speed movement toward a multipolar world, there would be from some intense anxiety even among adversaries as they watch a nuclear-tipped superpower descend into brutality inflicted against its own. While there’s no guarantee this bleak scenario is what would actually happen, hopefully people in various positions of power, on either side of the ideological spectrum, have considered long enough that it _could_, and that there are no winners. I’m going to assume that enough have, and that while sporadic violence is certainly in the cards, an all-out political forest fire is still a remote possibility. One hopes anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/107 "2025-03-23T20:04:45Z")
“Everything collapses” is probably the best case scenario at this point, since at least that’s not a unified fascist regime but a situation that, eventually, will allow _something_ to be built on the ruins. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Not discounting your concerns about the state of our democracy, but really do you think anything can repair, save us or change the tide? No. The time to do something about falling off a cliff is before you step over it; not when you’ve _already_ hit bottom and your bones are breaking from the impact. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/108 "2025-03-23T20:30:40Z")
No civil war. or even rebellion. There are not really red or blue states. The highly populated urban areas tend to vote blue. Oregon reliably votes blue, but most of the state is very red. If you lived here you would not see it as blue. Here is a county wide view of how the 2024 U S election voting went: [A Mostly Complete Map of Counties in the 2024 Presidential Election : r/MapPorn] ([Reddit - The heart of the internet](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1gl630u/a_mostly_complete_map_of_counties_in_the_2024/)) So who are you going to war with? I would like to remind all of you new freedom warriors that the popular vote went to Trump. Upset urbanites have really no path back to running the country. House of Representatives, red, Senate red, Executive branch, presidency red, Supreme Court mostly red. So where is this war or even rebellion, comming from? Delusional whining is all I see happening. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/109 "2025-03-23T20:40:52Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > So where is this war or even rebellion, comming from? Self defense, or at least an attempt to make it cost the Right when the Right comes to enslave and murder them. Anger when mass starvation begins. Anger at the end of democracy. It won’t _work,_ but people will lash out at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/110 "2025-03-23T20:52:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Self defense, or at least an attempt to make it cost the Right when the Right comes to enslave and murder them. Anger when mass starvation begins. Anger at the end of democracy. If you really think we are nearing that point there can be no real discussion, and I am sorry for you. Take your medications and try to just ride out the next 4 years. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/111 "2025-03-23T21:05:09Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > So who are you going to war with? I would like to remind all of you new freedom warriors that the popular vote went to Trump. Upset urbanites have really no path back to running the country. That doesn’t mean much, really. He won the popular vote by a very slim majority, not even with an outright majority of the total vote, IIRC (or if he did, just barely). I’m not so much delegitimizing his victory - he did win. But did he win because he had a mandate or because people are poorly informed and just lashing out at the establishment/elites? What did Trump supposedly win on? Inflation, which isn’t getting really any better, at least not in the near term. Don’t take comfort in the fact that democracy went off without a hitch. Look around you. Look at the anger. Look at how many people openly support vigilantes like Luigi Mangione as if his act of cold-blooded murder (which it most certainly is) is somehow a legitimate form of protest. Elections or no elections, people don’t murder CEOs of multibillion-dollar healthcare corporations and attract fanboys unless there’s something bubbling underneath the surface. You can dismiss it as the crazy, angry left, which it is, but the crazy, angry right had its moment on January 6th, 2021. This is exactly what pre-civil conflict looks like. Growing numbers of people on both sides losing faith in the outcome of elections, despite high participation in them. Growing numbers of people believing violence is necessary to neutralize the threat the other side represents. This is absolutely a massive warning sign. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/112 "2025-03-23T21:27:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The fascists have won, all that remains is the unfolding of the destruction of civilization. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “Everything collapses” is probably the best case scenario at this point > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Anger when mass starvation begins. Anger at the end of democracy. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The _goal_ is a world composed of two things: White Christian males, and their enslaved women. Which requires exterminating most of humanity. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I think you need to go cold turkey and stop watching or reading political news. I worry for you For once, I agree with Beck. This doomposting that you’re bringing into every single Trump-adjacent thread isn’t healthy. ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/113 "2025-03-23T21:39:12Z")
The US isn’t even remotely close to a civil war imho considering Trump is only a little less popular than when he was elected and more popular than when he was in his first term. Until there’s more “he’s hurting me now” life just carries on. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/114 "2025-03-23T21:39:53Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > I’m just pointing out that there are places where, in my experience, it’s working just fine. Half my family is in the trades, and they have good union jobs with pensions and mostly they complain about how much overtime they’re expected to work. These are “turn 18, do a 4 year apprenticeship, and make 100k” jobs and according to my family they have trouble filling the slots. My contractor constantly complains he can’t get workers. This can be true, while still being misleading. I’m in that boat as well - well-compensated, mostly good benefits, unionized. But while locally there may be a shortage, there is still only so many decent-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree. Or even ones that do, like registered nurses - many less education-heavy LVN positions are often in grim, underpaid jobs like lowest common denominator nursing homes. We can’t all be in the trades, as there is an absolute cap on just how many carpenters and electricians society needs. Also, not everyone can do it. The trades aren’t in competition for every person capable of working on an assembly line. They’re in competition for people with a higher level of base competency, like some of the people that head off to college. Are the trades a potentially good choice for someone that otherwise might wander aimlessly in college and come out the other end un- or under-employed? Sure. Are they an answer for the greater mass of folks working McJobs? Not really, no. Either the people searching are not good enough for one reason or another or the jobs just aren’t there locally and not enough of them to employ everyone. When I applied for my first entry-level, no direct experience needed, trainee/apprentice-level trades job I was a nineteen or twenty-year old college student. Over two thousand people applied and took the qualifying exam. They winnowed that to thirty-six people that passed. Thirty-six. I was shocked that I was one of them. They interviewed and ranked those thirty-six, then invited top scorers back for a second hiring interview and actually hired something like seven to ten that year (it was a combined list for two different but related jobs, so I’m not quite certain of the numbers). Three of those I know for certain ended up not making probation for one reason or another. One guy was let go on literally his last day of probation, after serving almost all of his one year. From over two thousand applications. In later years it was often two to four hires over the life of a one year to 18-month hiring list. At one point for about eight years they hired nobody. It’s just not a realistic option for most to say “just go get a job in the trades.” ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/115 "2025-03-23T22:08:47Z")
Thanks for this. The notion that “the trades” are teeming with jobs going vacant is a myth. Not without its truths, like any good myth, but a heck of a thing to bet the rent money on. It is also a lot easier being a teacher or whatever than a construction carpenter at age 60. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/116 "2025-03-23T22:23:35Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Take your medications and try to just ride out the next 4 years. The rest of the history of this nation, it’s more like. Nothing will get the Right out of power that doesn’t leave a wasteland of radioactive rubble behind afterwards. And I’m not on “medication”, nor could I afford it if I needed it. Also, that’s an obnoxious passive aggressive way of insulting me. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/117 "2025-03-24T01:47:07Z")
Moderating: > [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > If you really think we are nearing that point there can be no real discussion, and I am sorry for you. _Take your medications_ and try to just ride out the next 4 years. Emphasis mine. This is an attack on a poster, not the poster’s position. If you don’t yet understand this is against our rules, it’s time to learn it. You have had difficulty with this concept in the past. I’ve made a note that if I see you do it again, it’ll be a formal Warning. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/118 "2025-03-24T03:32:12Z")
I’m not claiming they do. I’m just saying that the average Trump supporter isn’t necessarily as blindly hateful as some around here claim. There’s more to it than that, and failing to recognize it is a fatal flaw in Democratic strategies. I first read this nearly 25 years ago, and it rang just as true back then as it does today; that’s the America that I grew up in and that my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc… all are or were part of. [**The Jacksonian Tradition.** _Walter Russell Mead._](https://pmachala.people.amherst.edu/Current%20Politics/Case%20Studies%20in%20American%20Diplomacy%20-The%20Readings%20FOR%20the%20FIRST%20and%20SECOND%20Class/Mead,%20The%20Jacksonian%20Tradition.htm) Those are the people who are voting for Trump. And it makes sense when you read the article- Democrats are way out of touch with that segment of America. Those people may not necessarily _love_ Trump, but they feel he’s more in tune with them than the Democrats are, and decades of propaganda that does understand them and resonates with them has even further turned them toward Trump. The Democratic party really needs to read that article and _understand_ that segment of America, and figure out how to fight the Republicans on their own ground there, and not say a bunch of stutff about LGBTQ, minorities, equity, or anything else while doing so. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/119 "2025-03-24T03:41:38Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m not claiming they do. I’m just saying that the average Trump supporter isn’t necessarily as blindly hateful as some around here claim. There’s more to it than that, and failing to recognize it is a fatal flaw in Democratic strategies. The paragraph above seems to directly contradict the paragraph below, > [@bump](#): > > The Democratic party really needs to read that article and _understand_ that segment of America, and figure out how to fight the Republicans on their own ground there, **and not say a bunch of stutff about LGBTQ, minorities, equity, or anything else while doing so.** _The average Nazi isn’t necessarily as blindly hateful of Jews as some around here claim, just don’t say anything that supports Jews around them._ ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935/120 "2025-03-24T03:43:53Z")
There’s a difference between not agreeing with or condoning some things, and being actively hateful and trying to persecute people. And failing to recognize that difference is part of the reason the Democratic party is where it is today. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-u-s-about-to-have-civil-war/1015935.md?page=7)