I’ve head the phrase “Civil War II” bandied about on the internet a lot recently, from sources legit and not-so-legit. No one seems to think it’s actually going to happen but a lot of us are starting to think it’s possible.
As of right now, I’m putting the odds at 60/40 in favor of it happening. I think that if we don’t descend into Civil War II by the end of the Trump Regime, we’ll be less likely to see it happen in the next presidency, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. In other words, I see Trump as more likely to be POTUS when it happens than (og help us) Vance, but I still see it as a less-likely possibility post-Trump.
The Civil War in the 1860s was possible because the people on the seceding side were conveniently located in a geographical area which was contiguous, the Old South. Today’s political divide cuts across all areas of the country and in every one of the states. Each side may be united in purpose, but not united geogrpahically. That’s one of the problems Trump is facing with his roughshod military approach to achieving his domestic aims.
Yes, in the two Pit threads I started (one on the administration, the other on martial law in America), I’ve used rhetoric to the point that we are currently in a civil war. That’s rhetoric because basically it’s more of a class war than a civil war that Trump and his enablers are executing. The sad part is a large portion of his supporters happen to be in the class he’s warring against. It’s still bad, but it’s not an actual civil war.
Then there are other factors involved. Today’s professional military simpy isn’t going to line up and start shooting at other American soldiers as they did in the 1860s. Even if they had the inclination to do so, where would they get the supplies, the ammunition, the recruits to replace those lost in battle? The supply chain is nationwide and, for some things, international.
Next, the mobility of our society (people moving from state to state, region to region, for work, school, love, and so on), decreases the hometown/home state loyalty over national loyalty.
In short, we are tribal politically, not geographically. The conditions for an actual civil war just aren’t there.
I don’t know. But information needs to be put out there as to what such a conflict and its’ aftermath would actually entail. I’m suggesting that folks watch “The Postman”.
You have to define “civil war.” If you mean an armed conflict between 2 close-to-comparable military forces, I put the odds at ZERO. I have a very hard time imagining the armed forces changing their loyalty to anyone other than the federal government. Who would that be?
More likely (tho still unlikely) would be some sort of military rebellion, where large numbers of high-ranking military officials resist following orders.
We do appear to be somewhat on our way towards a “culture” or class war, either economically or on various social issues. I do not know what level of that sort of unrest would warrant the description of “civil war.” Most likely, I could imagine America slipping into accepting some degree of totalitarianism, and a much smaller role on the world stage.
This is exactly what I was going to say so instead I’ll make it about something else.
I think that this gerrymandering battle that Texas & California could lead to a further attack on voter rights in a state in the name of the big picture in DC. That could lead to a rebellion within a state if one group feels that it has gone too far.
The Right has all the military power, and the rest of society has little will to resist them; I put the odds as very low. A one-sided massacre isn’t a civil war. I expect that within a decade or two the US will have about half its present population - all white right-wingers - with the rest deported or dead, and with little in the way of violent opposition. And no successful opposition.
There are lots of different kinds of “civil war”. You’re right about the geographic and demographic differences from the 1860s, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a civil war. It will just change the nature of it. You’ll have a lot more local militias fighting each other in their own neighborhoods. The military will be called in to quell these fights, but that will lead to two things: 1) US troops killing US citizens, which will settle things locally (for a brief while), while inflaming passions everywhere else, and 2) These fights just moving to other places.
The military will wear itself out running from one brush fire war to another, putting them out in one place only to see them just pop up in another place. You don’t have the manpower needed to keep a lid on the entire country, and you won’t be able to recruit enough, when half the military age cohort is already out killing each other.
I don’t see any of that happening. The local militias really aren’t a thing today. There is the wingnut militia movement, but they’re negligible thankfully and certainly not a large enough movement to weigh in on either side decisively. Neighborhoods might tend towards one side or another but mostly the demographic pressure driving their makeup is not identifying with a political party. It’s more towards affordability along with other nonpolitical considerations.
My description above of why a shooting civil war won’t happen still remains true. The supply chain is a very real issue and that’s not a localized thing.
Then there’s another issue. Consider how the rebel army made it from the South to Gettysburg. There’s no way that could happen today. There is far better mobility, much better news coverage, and those who would support such an army are part of neighborhoods with people who would not support that army marching through.
All of this negates the possiblility of your brush fire scenario. You are correct thought that there is not enough manpower to militarize the country enough to have a shooting civil war.
What you can do is to federalize the state and territorial National Guard, and assign the military to domestic law enforcement. And we’re already seeing that and how it’s not working.
I give an actual civil war a possibility of exactly 0%.
Yeah, people who have fought this kind of war are familiar with this problem. When I spent some time in Croatia a few years ago, we were chatting with the locals, and more than one person told us that in the wake of Yugoslavia’s violent breakup, a lot of the munitions were spirited away from the battlefields and ended up being hidden in people’s cellars, because they wanted to be ready in case fighting broke out again. That was in 2020, and they were still keeping a wary eye on Serbia, which for some people, apparently, meant continuing to maintain arms caches. Now, they might have been yanking my chain, or just exaggerating, but I heard it more than once. The point is, if you wait until after the war starts to arm yourself, it’s too late.
Re the OP, I don’t see a civil war as being plausible, at least in the way it’s commonly understood. However, I do believe the United States is no longer tenable as a political entity, and the clock is ticking for some sort of dissolution. What that actually looks like, I don’t know. But it won’t be fun.
As my posts in this thread show, I don’t see a civil war as being possible. Our version of tribal is political alignment, not a geographic or large ethnic group absolutely running an area. I certainly don’t see the country falling apart due to various secessions. What I do see is other countries no longer trusting us to be a reliable partner. Actually, that’s already happening.
I think the ‘left’ is one hell of a lot stronger than you think. We certainly outnumber them in IQ, and many of us are armed. As has been said, there is no geographical divide. So that makes a confusing mess. Trumps ‘plan’ such as it is, is gonna screw over everyone. When the right comes to that realization (might take a while), it will be all of us against the federal gov.
Now the big problem here is that the right would prefer to go down with the ship as long as the left drowns too. We bail the boat, they drill holes in it.
They have most of the military. And who would they fight? It will just be a cluster.
I’m sure that Hegseth’s recent ‘meeting’ pissed most of them off. Many, or most may be right wing, but I assure you they are not all fools. Many are actually patriots.
Agreed. But when people speak of “civil war”, they don’t mean an actual civil war. What do they mean? No one knows, and that usually includes the speaker.
First question: is the “war” going to last for more than a week? If so, do fighters still go to the store to buy food? Do they go to work so they have money to buy food? They come home from work and pick up their rifle and go out to … do what? Shoot at people? Which people? Is everyone wearing a uniform? Do you have to buy that? Do you have to buy ammunition?
No one is going to organize a second army that supplies its soldiers with everything they need. So how is the “civil war” that people talk about supposed to work?
I see it as something akin to The Troubles – a years-long (or decades-long) period of intermittent violence. Car bombings, ambushes, sabotage, that sort of thing.
And they’ll be supplied the same way, people who aren’t fighters will support them on a local, ad hoc basis. They’ll donate food, clothing, money, and whatever else they can, when they can. It won’t be enough to fight the actual army, but then, they’ll only ever do that if they’ve really screwed up. They’ll attack targets of opportunity, when the army is elsewhere.
I picture uniquely American style attacks. We’ve seen how poorly US police respond to mass shootings committed by one person with an AR-15. Imagine if it were 10-20 guys with AR-15s. They pop out of moving trucks (as we’ve seen ICE and Proud Boys type do), half open fire on a crowd of people they hate (Gay night club, Mexican birthday party, Black BBQ, whatever) while the other half provide “security”, and gun down any cops who show up. Two minutes of hell, and then they take off, and go to ground in a safe house somewhere. Maybe the cops find them, maybe they don’t, maybe they don’t even try because some of the sops have been co-opted by the attackers.