People keep talking about “Federalizing the National Guard” and now you’ve got other States pledging their NG to Texas in defiance of the Supreme Court (see image).
So is this what CW2 looks like?
P.S. I’m a Brit
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“Fuck yeah, secession!” Says the Texan from the comfort of their lounge chair, beer in hand.
These people are too comfortable to ever be willing to die for their stupid ideals. All it took was one MAGA idiot to get blasted on Jan 6th and then they all scattered like roaches. As soon as their lives were on the line, it was no longer a matter of grave importance. They all firmly believed that democracy was at stake, but were unwilling to fight for it to the death because they somehow must have known that it was bullshit, somewhere in the back of their pea-sized brains, they knew.
By the time Texas starts asking people to show up to mustering fields, rifle in hand, the facade will fall apart. Biden doesn’t need to do anything. This sideshow of bluster and saber-rattling will fall apart on it’s own.
Also, millions of people living in Texas are not originally from Texas and have no particular allegiance to Texas.
Also millions of people in Texas and are FROM Texas don’t want this.
Also, as a native Texan that still lives here because it’s not feasible to leave, I feel no particular allegiance to Texas. This government doesn’t represent anything I stand for – it’s infuriating. Fuck Texas, and fuck proud Texans.
Can we just have a normal, boring year for once, please? I’m so tired…
I said this in another thread-
Most Americans aren’t interested or even capable of fighting in a civil war. When you live paycheck-to-paycheck, you’re not going to abandon your family to fight on the front lines.
And a huge percentage of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
Texas would have to have a draft.
Good luck with that.
You’re wrong though. The general public is more likely to engage in civil unrest when they’re struggling. The reality though is that while many Americans might be living paycheck to paycheck, they’re not poor and not struggling. They are just bad at managing their finances and they have a lot to lose.
If you have more to lose than to gain, you won’t participate in a civil war. But when you’re a slave working in a cotton field, you have nothing to lose, only something to gain.
The idea that your average American is so poor is just laughable.
I’m just imagining the sales of golf carts or those scooters going through the roof because Americans cant run a couple of miles during a civil war.
Ahaha! That’s a good one!
Highly unlikely this is what the civil war would be like. It’s not a state v state thing necessarily although that might be a small part of it. In the first civil war, the south unified and its people largely supported the war, except their slaves. It’s unlikely something like that will happen again. It’s not impossible but unlikely.
What is much more likely is rural v city. Even in red states, cities are blue and will often vote for blue policies. Rural areas are where things get dicey. They’ve been largely left behind by the surge in industry and general expansion of the capitalist economy we currently have (they’ve had a lot of businesses (including grocery stores) close because more people are leaving, and their rural towns are frequently having their hospitals close leaving large swaths of areas where the nearest hospital is an hour away). As such, they’ve got a grudge against the cities. What’s likely to happen is rural counties and their local governments trying to cut off their food supply, starving the cities to win the battle. There’s tons more possibilities, but this one I think is the one that’s got the highest likelihood.
Another possibility that is scary, but is highly dependent on the party of the people in power, is the government using their power to actually strike the cities, like in Syria where Assad bombed and used chemical weapons on his own people. Syria is actually a pretty good example of what more modern civil wars are like, or can be like. Governments v rebels and militias, and cities v rural (although there’s much less rural land in Syria).
If you’re interested, the podcast It Could Happen Here has a great first season where they go over possible disasters including a civil war and a pandemic (it was actually made in 2019 so before covid). It’s really helpful and can teach a lot, especially for an outsider from across the pond. It also does a lot better job giving an explanation and actual sources.
Hope this helps since it didn’t seem like you were getting a real answer.
Another thing the world ought to know is that the folks who are identified by “red” and “right” in America are in the minority.
Significantly so.
However our voting system uses geography / land as a modifier so while there are less of them they occupy a larger land mass and have an outsized vote strength because of that.
When total votes in a state can be split 45-55 but the delegates go 90-10 there is a problem
Another fun thing about that is that most folks who identify “red” or “right” actually aren’t paying enough attention to know that. Go ask them, they think people like them make up 70% or more of the country. If they do try to activate their little civil war they are going to find themselves very quickly surrounded by folks who do not like them at all, as their expected 200-million strong army ends up actually only being 1.5 million people spread out over 30,000+ square miles. Watching the realization dawn on them might actually even be fun if it weren’t a herald of Troubles for America.
Another thing the world ought to know is that the folks who are identified by “red” and “right” in America are in the minority.
Significantly so.
This isn’t accurate. In 2020, 29% of voters identified as Republican, 33% as Democrat, and 34% as independent. There certainly were more Democrats, but only by a 5% margin.
Playing up exaggerated differences between the number of Democrats and Republicans and emphasizing the “we outnumber you” rhetoric is extremist and should be avoided. It makes you a part of the problem.
Hm… I should get a gun. And a passport.
Skip the gun. No civilized country will let you have it.
Finland, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, etc.
The only thing is that they won’t allow you to import guns you already have. You have to buy new ones there
I mean, all a politician has to do is say “I will oppose Bidens open border policy” and they’ll win an election.
All Biden has to do is not allow an open border with Mexico, and he might have a chance of getting re-elected.
Republicans are literally torpedoing a bipartisan bill because they don’t want Biden to get any good news on the border
But let’s keep complaining how Biden isn’t doing anything
He claims this legislation will give him the authority he needs to do something. Do you really believe the president of the United States doesn’t have the authority to take action in securing our borders?
I’d like to see the text of this bill, because I don’t believe the White House is incapable of taking action and actually needs additional powers.
I think the President should be able to do ANYTHING HE wants! That’s EXACTLY what the Founders intended!
Eh. Something clearly needs to be done, and the concerns aren’t being addressed (and haven’t been for awhile). Congress and the senate haven’t done anything aside from attempt to impeach hunter Biden (from who knows what) or show off his dick.
Doubtful it’s any kind of civil war, but Texas (and other states) is being hit hard by the number of immigrants, and if the federal government can’t (or won’t?) do anything to curb it, makes sense that they will do something on their own.
but Texas (and other states) is being hit hard by the number of immigrants, and if the federal government can’t (or won’t?) do anything to curb it, makes sense that they will do something on their own.
That’s the thing though, they aren’t. Things aren’t worse than they were, this is a manufactured crisis because Republicans need some kind of tangible policy to lie about to their voters for the upcoming election. Just like the immigrant caravan which disappeared as suddenly as it appeared (as in it never existed) the previous election.
I don’t think this is an accurate view of the current border situation, but it’s a view that one might have consuming media from a different kind of media bubble than the Fox News kind.
There really is a situation with migrants who cross the river illegally and immediately turn themselves in and claim asylum. This isn’t a new situation, but the numbers have gotten worse over the last year.
The migrant caravans, plural, really did and do exist. What tends to happen is they gather into thousands strong mass marches in and around Tapachula, after crossing from Guatemala to Mexico. So these big marches start towards the US in southern Mexico, but they tend to break up and thin out over the 1800 mile journey to Texas.
If anyone could organize a mass foot march over the whole distance, that would be an extremely impressive feat of logistics. But that hasn’t happened yet.
Conclusions: this border situation is not completely made up. Many right wing conspiracies going around have some kind of kernel of truth to then.
And some mainstream media outlets (I have this experience with NPR in particular) have started to seemingly impose total blackouts on not just the conspiracy ideas, but also on the little nuggets of true news that get them started.
I appreciate hearing a differing view from my own here, genuinely.
I listen to NPR frequently and I have heard many segments about the border and especially asylum seekers.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/12/1212058889/migrants-u-s-southern-border-historic-numbers-why
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/22/1221006083/immigration-border-election-presidential
I see this a lot, “the liberal media doesn’t want you to know!” or “why isn’t anyone talking about this!” meanwhile everyone including the lefty sources are indeed talking about it.
The problem is, only one party wants to do anything to actually ease the crisis. Republicans are a half step away from suggesting land mines at the border because trying to escape to the land of the free for a better life is illegal, and that apparently should mean death for you.
Affirmative Asylum Processing with USCIS
To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status.
https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/obtaining-asylum-in-the-united-states
It’s not a totally unreasonable impression, but no, this will not turn into a second civil war. The Guard units of each state can be called up for federal duty. The National Guard is part of the US Department of Defense and thus ultimately answers to the DoD and the US president as commander in chief. The US military has multiple components, including regular services (eg the full time Army), reserve components (eg US Army Reserve) and National Guard components. The latter two are part-time military with one weekend per month training duty plus an annual training. Guards members and Reservists hold regular full time jobs.
The Guard units are deployable by the governors of their respective states, and so can be used in emergency situations like natural disasters. They have also been deployed against what have been perceived as riots that threaten lives and properties of the individual states.
However, they are subject to activation by order of the US president and they fall under the national command authority. Guard personnel take the same oath to the constitution as other military personnel, and cannot legally refuse federal activation. Guards personnel would be subject to courts martial and face potentially extreme penalties including being discharged from service under criminal conditions, being stripped of rank and benefits, and jail time in federal prison. This would be what we call a career limiting rule.
So, if push comes to shove, Biden can activate the NG and order them to stand down or to implement policies to maintain order. Thinking the NG units and in particular their commanders would disobey a presidential order because they just love their state governor and hate the president so much is getting into Turner Diaries levels of right wing apocalyptic fantasy.
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I think it’s possible that there will be resentment, but those with rank would be risking everything for zero gain. It would be determined by the people who wear the birds and the stars, and although there have certainly been high ranking officers who have engaged in conduct we might consider treasonous, it’s simply not going to be a common enough occurrence.
A Handmaid’s Tale scenario, where the US goes down the path of a Christian theocracy, is a possibility that concerns me,
.
You also have to factor in the fact that the military today is not a bunch of guys with rifles. It is carrier battle groups, fighter jets, sophisticated artillery systems, and other platforms that require massive supply chains to deploy and maintain. That’s just what modern warfare is. US aircraft carriers alone are crewed by 5000+ people.
Raytheon, Northrop, and Lockheed are not going to side with Ohio against the US government. The question is about civil war, not about a single military unit going rogue until the members are arrested or killed. Keeping planes in the air and tanks running requires a lot more than Ohio can do. The Feds spend about a trillion dollars per year on the military, and some Confederate missile battery is going to be in trouble once they run low on things to shoot and when their vehicles start to break down.
I’m not a fan of the military industrial complex, to say the least, but it’s an absolutely necessary part of warfare today.
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All of which misses a critical point:
The forming of the Confederacy wasn’t “legal” either.
We can handwave away concerns about mounting threats of violence by citing regulation and law, but none of that actually addresses the underlying issue that if these people want to start shit, they will find an avenue.
And let’s also not sit here, in 2024, and assume the institutions, norms, checks, and intended safeguards in our system will always work when they need to. We’ve seen far, far too many breakdowns and failures in our system over the last decade to believe otherwise.
That’s what frustrates me so much about the framing of the situation we’re in right now: most people - and the vast majority of major media organizations - are fully intent on presenting this as “normal”, but it’s very fucking clearly not. It’s assumed by so many that the rules will simply be followed… and then they turn around and cover Trump, whose whole bit is to not follow the rules because he doesn’t feel like it and wants to stay in power forever. It’s like being unconcerned about standing 3 feet away from an uncaged, unleashed siberian tiger because someone once told you at one point that it had been “trained”.
