(Imagine profuse cursing here reflecting monumental frustration with the current political order. There, that feels better!)
The US is coming apart. There are too many parts that don’t work at this point, too much with which the population is dissatisfied, for things to remain the same. The system simply needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. The country is now divided between sane Liberals and moderates and nutjob Trumpers/QAnoners, and we’re all at each other throats. Our Constitution is out of date and has always made significant political change difficult. Now, with the current level of polarization, it’s impossible. The existence of the Senate and the Electoral College give the minority outsized power. The Supreme Court has been stacked by the radical minority.
To quote the late great Jim Steinman, “We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks.”
But wait. The Supreme Court just went ahead and threw a stick of lit dynamite in the mofo. The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the “bonus” decision about guns are going to blow this country apart. And I don’t think it’s even going to take that long.
In January of this year (2022), The Guardian published this: The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it. I agree that we have been in a cold Civil War for some time now. But now it’s gonna get hot.
Not hot, however, with guns and bullets–though they may play a role. Hot in that we’re going to have powerful entities and institutions beginning simply to defy the political order.
Here’s stuff that I think could happen (in some cases, already happening):
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The blue and red states are going to go to war over abortion. This is already happening. Blue states are planning on flying people in from red states and just straight up paying for their abortions. Doctors/women subject to legal consequences in red states are, I speculate, going to be given sanctuary in blue states. Meanwhile, red states are trying to control women by coming up with laws that don’t let people leave to get an abortion. This is going to be a monumental fucking mess, and here is where I can see a states, either red or blue, beginning to defy the federal government as it tries to sort things out.
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Once that defiance begins, it will spread like wildfire. I can imagine states refusing to give up undocumented immigrants (this is already happening with “sanctuary cities.” I can see blue cities in red states defying state government power. I can see blue states starting to regulate guns in defiance of the 2nd Amendment.
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Parts of states more red or blue than the whole are going to want to secede. I can see blue cities in red states wanting to form their own Blue Exclave Superstate. Meanwhile, as the Texas moron Republicans recently indicated, states or populations therein are going to want to secede from the union.
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Extreme defiance by an entity will cause a standoff, eventually one involving raw police and military power. My guess, however, is that, if it is perceived that an actual war is about to begin, then the side attempting to subjugate the defiant party (probably the federal government against a state) will back down. I.e., Russia will not invade Ukraine. Once that happens, the Berlin wall is down, and we will have a political free-for-all. Lacking respect, legitimacy, and power, the Union will have collapsed.
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Meanwhile, corporations will exert a lot of power and influence. Look at how US corporations have dealt with Russia. I find it amusing that people like those who want to form a new Confederacy think that corporations will be neutral on the matter. Of course not–most will choose to leave the Red Pariah and focus on Blue Sanity, if only out of their own self-interest. Those that try to appease both sides will lose Side Blue. Those that explicitly choose Side Red will be expurgated (which is why I think Elon Musk will end up destroying Tesla).
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I think the new political order will be something akin to the Holy Roman Empire (it pretty much is now, but it will be explicit then). I think that, when things shake out, we will have some shell analogous to the federal government (especially since the military is not an easily divisible entity) and many, many political entities that are more or less free to rule as they please. Some will be big and powerful, as Prussia was, and some will simply be “free cities.”
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I think a New Confederacy will form, but it will be forced to accept the existence of Liberal free cities in it, which may themselves form a kind of state or union (as I speculated above).
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I have no doubt that some areas bordering Canada will want to join it, and they will be accepted. Hell, I could imagine half the country doing that (though Canada will not want to be taken over by the US, even the Liberal side of the US).
I thought Trump winning in 2020 would start the above scenario immediately. If he somehow wins in 2024, um, yeah, this country will implode within weeks. But I don’t actually think we’re going to make it to 2024 intact. The midterms, regardless of the result, will probably accelerate implosion.
There’s no way–no way–the US can make it another five years in its current form. We might as well get used to this fact now. Thoughts?