Is the U.S. about to have civil war?

Politics & Elections
41

These comments ring especially true to me:

…though many point to television “bringing the Vietnam War into Americans’ living rooms” as a spur to civil unrest partly driven by opposition to that war. (Of course, that was when everyone watched the same three networks, and not much else to watch or interact with electronically, thus fewer “bubbles”).

There is some truth to the quote below. Biden left us with an excellent economy overall, which gave Trump the freedom to fuck things up more (up to a point, as Smapti noted) than if we were already in a recession:

42

There’s not going to be a Civil War as we understand it unless the military splits.

Now, widespread clashes between local armed gangs? Maybe. But it’s not clear if there are any anti-MAGA forces with the weapons, training, and cohesiveness to form any kind of militia.

Everything depends on which way the US military breaks. It seems to me the weak point in the current moment is how deeply careerism is woven into everything - public sector, private sector, military. Everyone’s trying to keep their promotions, grade, pensions, so they don’t resist Trump in any meaningful way.

It’s been an open secret for a long time that the officer corps of the Army has become pathetically risk-averse due to careerism, so I expect that the military will meekly knuckle under to Trump’s whims. This implies a lot of really bad things are coming, but not a civil war as we understand it.

43

I think the maelstrom of Trump/Musk actions was never meant to take more than about a year to “accomplish.” Their idea was to do so much, so fast (partly as “man of action” performance, partly as real, permanent change from the Project 2025 goals), that opposition couldn’t keep up. I don’t think they’ll care much if they lose the House in 2026 (surely you meant to write this, not 2028). Most of their changes will have been made. They won’t even mind if some of the changes are undone. MAGA voters will continue to be happy with how Trump “successfully” kept his promises, and acted viciously and manfully against those awful immigrants/educated elites/libtards.

The horrific changes being enacted now will have long-lasting, often permanent effects on millions of innocent people and institutions, and our global reputation is shot forever. But the period of enacting these changes is/will be much shorter. I don’t think losing the House will “kneecap” their plans – again, because 1. most of the changes will have already been made (like Alexander the Great, they’re already running out of Federal programs to eviscerate, and we’re only two months in!); 2. many of the changes are effectively permanent, whomever takes power in the future; 3. the performative goals will have been accomplished already.

This might make civil war or major unrest rather less likely, as the period of awful actions to spur a reaction will be short, even if the period of awful consequences – the suffering, and the corrosive culture, the demise of civil dsicourse – is much longer.

44

Hey. You’re either a high rolling patrician crackin’ a near half dozen every morning with your toast and coffee; or a lowly plebeian, making best-do without them tasty, tasty sunnyside ups.

I don’t choose the rules. I’m just glad to be in a real country, one that enables me to satiate my egg addition.

45

This. That’s why the only remotely plausible path to a genuine civil war, IMHO, starts with some states choosing to secede.

But what happens next? If California and the other West Coast states, for example, were to secede, or maybe New York and the New England states, would the MAGAts be angry about that, or would their general attitude be, “don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya”? I really figure it would be the latter, especially if Oregon and Washington didn’t fuss if everything east of the Cascades decided to stay in the U.S.

I’m sure Trump would make noises about sending in the military, but if he realized his own core supporters didn’t give a damn whether the seceding states stayed or left, he’d probably issue some more executive orders and leave it at that.

46

I’m lousy at predictions, so I generally tend to avoid them.

What I have made reference to, in the past, however, is an element of human nature that we should never lose sight of:

“The Third Wave was an experimental social movement created by California high school history teacher Ron Jones in 1967 to explain how the German population could accept the actions of the Nazi regime during the Second World War.”

Did a History Teacher’s ‘Third Wave’ Nazi Social Experiment Go Too Far?

There was also:

and

Last,

“The fundamental principle of all propaganda was the repetition of effective arguments; but those arguments must not be too refined – there was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be the man in the street. Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not to the intellect. Truth was unimportant, and entirely subordinate to the tactics and psychology, but convenient lies (“poetic truth”, as he once called them) must always be made credible.”

–Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian, paraphrasing Joseph Goebbels, WWII German Propaganda Minister

Evolution crawls along at a snail’s pace. While DNA isn’t destiny, it’s not hard to pay attention and see what lies just beneath the surface, and the relative ease with which it’s tapped.

How much similarity is there between these bits and the events of Right Now? Much more than I’m comfortable with.

47

Thank you for this thoughtful post.

48

There are some things I am wlling to die for.Preventing America from becoming a fascist dictatorship is one of them. However, I am not willing to die for any cause unless my death will actually make a difference. At this point, I don’t know a way to fight that would actually make a difference let alone a way to fight to the death that will make a difference.

49

I think this is unlikely to hit the whole country at once, but a version that seems likely to me is:

Major storm system causes widespread destruction & floooding. Government is unable to muster a response; people go hungry. Guns get involved.

I don’t think this administration can solve problems. Most things will just get slightly less functional, but there is a tipping point, and a hurricane could do it.

Re: civil war, I think the people who assume state vs state are wrong. You’re thinking of the first Civil War. This would be Republicans vs Roundheads. I can’t see the Democrats taking up arms, though. Their response to flagrantly illegal moves and ridiculous power grabs seems to be sitting quietly and hoping the Republicans change their minds. But if the federal government is eviscerated and ineffective, someone or someones will rise to fill the vacuum, and conflict seems quite possible. Right now people are too stunned to fill it, but that won’t last.

50

One of the big problems we have these days in media and politics is creating exactly the sort of sense of false balance that you just engaged in. It leads to a lot of “enlightened centrism”, both sides are equally bad, let’s not think too much about any of this type of politics.

Republicans act as you describe. Democrats do not. You have a cult on one side and on the other, you can’t even get people to like their party’s candidate, let alone worship them. It’s far more like herding cats.

Liberals and conservatives aren’t the way they are because they were assigned a team at birth. There are differences in the way they think that bring them to their positions and group identity. There are different values. They are not the same kind of people, they do not approach every situation in the same way, their values aren’t the same and aren’t inherently equally good.

Democrats do not celebrate anytime their side wins. They would never cheer on a Trump equivalent. When Trump decided Canada was the enemy, republican opinion on Canada moved like 40 points. If a democrat decided Canada is the enemy, not a single democrat would suddenly dislike Canada, no one would get on board that train, and you’d have criticism and resistance from every democrat.

When you frame flaws of the conservative mindset or the republican party as “politics these days…” like you just did, you are doing PR work for the bad guy. You are normalizing the republican cult. You are implicitly blaming democrats for being just as bad when they aren’t. You’re dismissing the importance of politics and encouraging cynicism and disinterest.

It is not “balanced” to be equally critical of both sides and always imply they’re all the same. If a ref calls 10 penalties on both sides, is that fair reffing? You’d say yes – of course, both teams were called for 10 penalties, perfectly balanced. What if one side actually committed 50 penalties and the other committed 2? Still fair? Still balanced?

51

Yes, 2026 is what I meant.

I understand what you are saying about them doing as much as quickly as possible. However, there is also a strong desire to completely destroy the Democratic Party and keep liberals out of power forever.

Plus losing is something DJT can’t stand. There would be plenty a D controlled House would be likely to do that would piss off MAGA and they will not cede ANY power easily.

52

What you just said.

53

I didn’t mention centrism or both sides being wrong.

To the extent that I would, I would point out that the current administration is violating the Constitution in about 5-6 different ways, but the left is more concerned about potential shutdowns of government services and doesn’t seem to care about those.

Likewise, during Trump’s first term, he violated and attacked the Constitution and the integrity of the Union several times and none of those ever lead to calls for impeachment.

There may be no equality of malevolence nor equality of willingness to break the law (at this given moment, under the current set of leadership), but if one side is saying we need to starve ourselves when the aliens come (hint: there are no aliens) and the other side’s concern is that a sudden shift in food production will throw off the eco balance of the globe - and not to point out that there aren’t any aliens - neither side looks worth respecting.

Idiot hippies might be better than Klan members, that doesn’t mean that either group is anything but a group of idiots.

54

I wonder when the NRA is going to get involved to save us from tyranny.

55

I have a go-to saying about that:

One of the many ironies of the last few years: the strongest 2nd Amendment supporters in America are the ones who voted in the absolute textbook definition of the kind of government that they’ve been so worried about: Trump.

56

I used to think in terms of Civil War 2.0, though I did not think such a thing was likely and still do not. In light of Trump 2.0, I think it’s even less likely while thinking that a revolution is more and more likely.

The reasons are pretty simple. First, what Sage_Rat said. What separates downscale people in this country, regardless of “race,” ethnicity, religion, etc., is the team they have picked. But MAGA has no core ideology; it is precisely about turning “race,” ethnicity, religion, etc., into differences in order to stoke downscale white rage for the benefit of Trump and his cronies. That’s it.

Second, what unites downscale people is quite a lot:

  • The global affordability crisis (not just the US!).
  • The selling out of the US manufacturing base starting in the 1980s.
  • Massive and still growing wealth inequality.
  • Resentment of the rich.
  • Hatred of bullshit jobs.
  • Frustration with sclerotic, do-nothing government.

The economy isn’t working well for average people, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Trump sure isn’t trying to change it, and Dems can’t change it beyond trying to make a bad system work a bit better. There’s not a country in the world that can truly show what best practices are; no country is truly working great.

So Trump comes in and is fucking around with all kinds of shit that is going to 1) hurt people, 2) kill people, 3) impoverish people, and he is not giving a fuck whether it’s “teh libz” or his own MAGA morons that suffer. Not content just to fuck with the poor, he is also fucking with the rich and their stock portfolios. Probably not a good combo.

Meanwhile, Leon Nazi Musk is despised by the whole world, serving as the poster child for the Punchable Face and Punchable Everything Oligarch, and the Tesla Takedown is in full swing. Remember Occupy Wall St.?! Great fun. The Tesla Takedown is like that, but it actually gets results. We get to fuck shit up. We get to fucking flex and show the rat fucking oligarch bastards who’s actually in control.

Tell me, do you see MAGAs decrying the Tesla Takedown? I’m not talking about Fox Talking Heads, I mean the common wo/man. Not I. And there’s your revolution, or the thin end of the wedge of it. It could easily turn into a storming of the Bastille or the taking down of the Berlin Wall. This country is a powder keg, peopple are fucking pissed, and voting for Trump again hasn’t been the catharsis the morons thought it would be.

The whole thing could spontaneously combust, and the system could be torched overnight. Or the resentment could finally be channeled into something concrete like the Tesla Takedown, with more boycotts, strikes, and demonstrations to follow. I don’t know. All I know is that, when everyone hates the fucking system, the path of least resistance is for the system to go bye bye.

57

Yeah, why is the ‘’‘left’‘’ more concerned about the homelessness that’s going to be caused by SS not sending out a check this month, or hunger because they’ve gutted SNAP, or folks dying because they’ve eliminated Medicaid and they can’t get medical treatment or medication when the Constitution is being violated?

58

Agreed. Not civil war; revolution.

59

What I see happening is some kind of regression to “how things should be” according to them, which is going to be a roll back of most progressive policies concerning race, sexuality, and gender that give any sort of special treatment/equality/equity.

What they want is the sort of equality where everyone’s in the pot, and the “best” people come out ahead, regardless of whatever sort of institutional/cultural hindrances they have going in. Which means that basically white men will tend to come out ahead. We already see this with the designation of English as the national language and the discontinuation of government business in other languages.

I don’t see any persecution beyond that, save maybe in the case of LGBTQ people, where certain forms of expression may be judged obscene or something like that, and banned.

60

I’m neither of those.

You’re very insulting.
I’m a proud American who lives in a country that has been taken over by idiots, not due to Me.

I think you might be a bit less hurtful and insulting to people in such a situation.

Did you stand by the fence at a concentration camp, eating cake and taunting as they starved in your past life?