Yeah, that’s just ridiculous. Yes, I know people believe it. But overall the union suffered from some political disruption while the south did not. But in terms of leadership, soldiers, supplies and logistics the Union was in better shape than the south.
It’s the main reasons that, after a certain point, the outcome of the war wasn’t in doubt. The south’s only means of winning was to break the north’s spirit. The north just had to wait it out and the south was finished.
Yep, and regarding the political disruption, I remember reading that General Lee had the problem of trusting what the equivalent of Fox news was then, some newspapers in the North (even late in the war) continued to harp constantly on the divisions that were on the north and criticizing the war. Unfortunately for Lee those divisions were grossly exaggerated and it was like believing in your own propaganda, it was one item that convinced Lee to invade the North again and ran into the Gettysburg disaster and more opposition than what he expected.
IMHO there are a lot of opinions on this subject that are based on lots of alternative media, the result for this hypothetical is not going to be pretty for all; but very, very ugly for the ones that swallow the extreme right propaganda.
Looking at all the postings, I am mainly inclined to agree with begbert2. But, let us read the question again (something we were told to do when taking an exam): essentially, it concerns what would happen in a civil war in the USA. Assuming it could happen, which I think highly unlikely, it would certainly not be a repeat of the 1861-5 war. There it involved clearly defined issues, and the areas were clearly delineated outside of the states caught in the middle (literally). I don’t see any states trying to secede, still less over any one guiding issue. Unless I am much mistaken, there isn’t one at the moment.
What seems more likely is some sort of local breakdown of the existing structures and extremist groups trying to take advantage of this for their own ends. Looking at this from the outside, I get the feeling that it is only the Reds, the right-wing and mainly white and largely rural groups, that would take action, I don’t really see any corresponding groups among the Blues. One issue that has not been mentioned here, as far as I can tell, is race. Would the main opponents and victims of the Reds be the people of color?
As stated several times, any such civil war would look very much like those we have seen in recent decades, in places like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and the main casualties would be civilians. The Balkans also highlighted the issue that one of the most destructive factors would be informal and relatively undisciplined irregular or paramilitary groups, mainly very right wing, who tended attack soft targets such as civilians with the aim of clearing out areas through the use of terror. The worst case is a an “everybody against everybody” situation that we have seen all too often in the Third World.
If it is not so much a civil war as an extended riot, albeit with armed gangs on a large scale and without geographical constraints, I think then that this would become a paramilitary police action involve police and soldiers. It would be largely defensive at first, with a view to protecting then population as a whole, and initially at least it would be largely urban. The rural areas would probably just hunker down and see off any outsiders / intruders with a shotgun or better, but not taking any action beyond self-protection. This means that the wild-eyed gun nuts won’t get the level of support they are expecting, those good ol’ boys will just be protecting themselves and their families - and mainly against the gun nuts.
If this hypothetical insurrection is not political, then the military will side with the government. The problem only arises if there is a political crisis in which there is a split, such as happened in 1861, or if the government is not viewed as legitimate. But in the latter case I think then military would be more concerned with maintaining a stable and peaceful situation so that the crisis could be resolved, rather than taking sides.
And the rest of the world would stand back, as happened in the 1860s. If need be, other countries would send in humanitarian aid, but not military aid. As if the USA would need that anyway.
In short, I don’t see that a civil war as such could happen, but perhaps some form of protest that turns increasingly violent, and which would be suppressed by the forces of law and order as a police action. Of course, we have all heard about how militarized the US police are.
i think it would end up like Somalia , pretty much devolve in millitias and warlords and mafias …… theres an series called into the sun or something like that on AMC that pretty much shows what life would be in that situation ……
@jack shuts off their Twitter accounts, game over.
There is not going to be a traditional civil war with a rebel government fielding an opposing military and all that.
A better model would be to look at Europe in the 1920’s and 1930’s. After the Bolshevik revolution, Communist movements gained power throughout Europe. That led in turn to the rise of a nationalist right opposing them. The opening rounds of the conflict first involved a lot of shouting and heated speeches. Then you got roving bands of Communists and brown shirted rightwing nationalists clashing in the streets. Then all it took was an economic push, and the next thing you know the Nazis were in power and the Communists were mercilessly attacked. In other countries it went the other way, with the Communists gaining the upper hand and attacking the right.
These kinds of splits were often within families and neighborhoods. Civil society starts to break down, which leads to a government that becomes even more authoritarian, whether it’s far right or far left.
Translated into modern America, if things get worse what you’re going to see is doxxing elevated to ‘find him and beat him’. You’ll see groups like Antifa grow, which in turn will further radicalize and grow right-wing militias or ‘public defence’ militias, which in turn will further radicalize the left. Street clashes between various groups will become more common, as will attempts to drive people off the internet who are part of the ‘other’.
If it gets really, really ugly, a civil war could break out, but it would be along the lines of Yugoslavia or the Spanish civil war, not the American civil war. For that to happen, I think you’d need to first have a heated, hyper-partisan situation as outlined above, and then a big shock to the system like a deep recession.
We are at the level of doxxing and calling for violence now. Even on this board. Look at the reaction to that kid wearing a hat.
But you are right about the violence being at the intra family level. That’s why this focus on California has this or Texas has that completely misses the scope of this form of warfare.
Not quite, but it does seem as though there are some that like to misrepresent and misinterpret and even just make things up in order to try to get us to that level.
And what reaction would that be? Can you actually cite any calls for doxxing or violence, or is it just your impression that such has been committed?
If your impression that such has been committed turns out to be false, does that not mean that the assumptions that you have chosen to operate under are increasing the tensions, rather than alleviating them?
The fact that this is at an intra family level is why we will not have the civil war that seems to be so anticipated. My family would certainly be on the “other” side of such a conflict, and so I have no desire to work towards precipitating one. Perhaps if more people tolerated different thoughts within their family and friends, and had more experience with diversity of opinion and thought and culture, they would not feel the need to promote their particular brand, and would be better able to get along with others without throwing out disgenous one liners in an attempt to make their political opponents angry, but rather, work to understand the differences and bridge the divide.
We all have a choice as to whether we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution. We can choose rhetoric that further divides and creates wedges between us, or we can choose to work to encourage cooperation.
Who wins if we have a Civil War? Putin, that’s who. Not a single US citizen comes out better.
Doxxing has happened on a related board. There is an ongoing thread at this board right now that is essentially a call to form an enemies list.
Link?
That may be so, but that is not this board, what octopus said is a bit on the slanderous side.
So… if you are going to call me a liar how about read some of the threads on this very board about this very subject? Do you now plan to “fact check” some actually existing hyperbolic statements directed at Republicans or conservatives? Or is your concern selective?
Not calling you a liar, only that you do need to point at where in this board a poster or posters did the doxxing of that MAGA kid.
You are correct. My mistake. I should have said advocated doxxing.
No problem then, one worry for me was that if that had taken place, then the SDMB would had been open to legal peril if a post like that was not identified and removed.
I’m going with the reds, just because I’m trying to think of casus belli that would cause a rebellious response that would lead to inflamed civil disobedience, followed by outright rebellion and ultimately a civil war that would split the population into warring red and blue factions. From the reds, the casus belli would be blatant discrimination and authoritarian repression causing a militant civil rights movement on the left. Action against the government would start as protests and strikes, followed by civil disobedience designed to shut down infrastructure and government bodies and agencies. The government would attempt to defend itself, deploying police to shut down the disobedience and military to guard installations. Violence would escalate and factionalism would increase. Factions would then start attacking each other, the government would be unable to suppress the violence, and civil war would ensue. The problem with the blue side in this scenario, is that unless they’ve stopped the actions against infrastructure and government installations, they’re in opposition to the police and military. When the violence escalates, the police and military are going to an active defence and respond. Even if the response is measured, the police and military are now on the red side. And they’re not going to switch sides to the group that’s throwing rocks and firing bullets at them, no matter the sentiments of individuals within the ranks. Once all out violence ensues, the guys organised and trained for violence are going to win.
A casus belli from the blue side would be a hard left government forcing a radical left ideology into law. Hypothesising a bit more than in the red scenario, the blues would begin by shutting down the coal industry including both coal mines and coal power plants, outlawing hate speech, and increasing social and welfare spending. Overall, American society would generally tolerate these moves. Next the hard-left faction in charge would move to outlaw meat, implement draconian gun controls, divert spending on the military into more social and welfare spending, and institute high carbon taxes. The meat prohibition, gun control, and the high cost of gasoline and heating would be hugely resisted and resented, with the backlash threatening to drive out the government via elections. To counteract the backlash, the government would start enacting further bread and circuses policies such as Universal Basic Income and free Internet, while enacting higher taxes in an attempt to pay for them. At the same time, they’d require all organisations to have government-appointed ‘social progress officers’ as a check against resistance to government policy. However, the resistance would increase, especially in red areas, and as above escalate into violence, factionalism, and civil war. The difference here is that the police and military would be subject to policies they dislike. They’d be dealing with resentment within their own ranks, and while they’d still have to deal with early attacks from the far-right fringe, in this scenario the violence starts later, after there’s been a hardening against government policies. In this case, the police and military would be centrist, which means to the right of the government. Their response to all-out violence would be to impose martial law, arrest the government, impose order, repeal the most unpopular laws and force new elections. There would be a block of centre-right populists candidate that they’d unofficially support, who would be elected, and again the blue side will have lost.
TLDR – in either a hard-red or hard-blue scenario, the reds are going to win.
I’m a longtime Wyomingite, and I laughed my ass off.
Move goalposts much? octopus claimed that it happened on this board. What is a related board? I know that there some long neck posters that frequent this board and another, are they doxxing over there? Are there other boards that SDMB posters sneak off to to doxx posters?
Is it just another board running similar software? What is this doxxing board, and how is it “related”?
“essentially” means: “Not at all, but just in my fevered imagination.”
You’ve never been convinced by anything in any thread, so I’m already done wasting my time on you in this one. You have an absolutely ipsy-pipsy perfect day, 'lil buckaroo.