People keep saying this and I personally don’t really believe it, I think there could be a couple riots, but not like a full on civil war. What does everyone think?
I think the drug addiction crisis that they have is somehow preventing/delaying this to happen. But the elements for a civil war are there: weapons access, ideological intolerance, economical imbalance, ever-differing state and federal law and policies, corruption in government and the probable rise of a political group that lost the presidency causing the Capitol Attack out of resentment, between others.
Democracy in the USA feels like holding with pins. I see the country as conservative to far-right with very few space for other political ideologies.
Could it happen? Yes. There is a lot of anger in America. Will it happen in the near (10-15 years) future? No. Why? Watch any and all of the January 6th 2021 videos of the Capitol Riots. That looked like a bunch of alcoholic, mentally ill tailgate partiers tried to take over a nation. It got out of hand and went very, very bad. The only reason they did as much damage as they did, was because actual law enforcement reinforcements were not called in on time. They are just violent idiots who are old, out of shape, delusional about their abilities, and they did not have an actual plan. Civil war is not the immediate threat we face in the USA, it’s the fascism of christianity from within our government that needs to be destroyed. We need a return back to sanity, back to a secular government.
The only reason they did as much damage as they did, was because actual law enforcement reinforcements were not called in on time.
Let’s be clear about this: law enforcement was minimal to begin with, and reinforcements were deliberately refused, because the people in charge of them were trying to help the coup succeed.
I heard he was too busy watching television news coverage to be bothered with all that.
I think that the US is primed to have a civil war. Ever since Reagan fucked the fairness doctrine in 1987, we’ve been getting more and more divided. Gonna sound like an old fogey here, but it used to be that everybody tuned into the same news, and watched the same anchors deliver the same updates about the same world events. We had differing opinions on world events, but we all agreed on what was and what was not reality.
We don’t have that now. It’s like two completely separate universes occupy the same physical space. In one universe, climate change is fueled by anthropogenic forces and is causing more and more catastrophic damage, viruses are real and vaccines are effective tools to combat them, and thousands of traitors tried to overthrow the government because their cult leader lost an election. In the other? Climate change isn’t real, and also the Democrats have secret hurricane machines that they are using to punish Florida for being a red state, COVID isn’t real, and also it’s a super virus concocted in a lab in Wuhan at the request of Hillary Clinton, vaccines don’t work, and also vaccines are secretly a government tool to kill people, and Jan 6th was a peaceful protest of patriots, and also it was a violent insurrection by Antifa.
We don’t share the same reality with each other. In one reality, Democrats are basically similar to milquetoast conservatives from any other first world nation, and they care much more about maintaining the status quo than they do about making progress. In the other reality? Democrats are evil incarnate, and they’re waging an active campaign to round up all of the patriots and send them to concentration camps, and they’re also pedophiles and Marxists. In that reality, it’s far more preferable to vote for a dead pimp than it is to vote for a standard, run-of-the-mill Democrat.
And it’s not just the whole two-realities thing. Ever since Obama became president, the brains of a huge chunk of people in this country just broke. Some of the nicest-seeming people you’d ever met instantly turned into vile, hate-spewing racists, and started mass subscribing to every single conspiracy theory feed out there. That was 16 years ago. Their rhetoric has been getting more violent every year since. That’s to say nothing of the huge increase in terrorist incidents since then - according to the CSIS:
The number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined
So yeah. I think that this country is primed for organized, mass violence. At this point, all that it’s lacking is the organization. Thankfully, Donald Trump is an incredibly stupid man. I don’t think he’d be capable of organizing people to that level. He can stoke their hatred, for sure. He can inspire the craziest among them to firebomb a mosque or shoot up a Democrat’s office… but he ain’t built to lead people. If someone who had even 1/10th of his prowess as a cult leader, but who was actually intelligent and had a tactical mind came along… hoo boy.
Having two different realities is not good. I’m not sure what is to be done about it though. Some people will always choose to believe the easy lie over the difficult truth.
Ignoring Fox and the crazies for a moment, how often have mainstream networks given equal time to climate change deniers and actual scientists, pretending there was a debate where there wasn’t one.
I want to push back a little on “we all agreed on what was and what was not reality.” When there were three TV stations, did any of them highlight police brutality? Overincarceration? The military industrial complex? Anything that would hurt their sponsor’s bottom lines?
The news networks we have today are all owned by large media conglomerates. They range from pro-corporate to pro-fascist. I’m glad that there are enough independent voices that we can hear from people who don’t profit off of the status quo. It’s unfortunate that right wing media is so prevalent and well funded, but if there is an answer to that, it’s not going back to the days when Walter Cronkite, CBS, and Gulf+Western would tell us “That’s the way it is”.
When there were three TV stations, did any of them highlight police brutality? Overincarceration? The military industrial complex?
This is a very fair point. True, having very limited news options didn’t allow for a lot of deviation in agreement on observable reality, but to your point, it could also easily paper over a lot of very ugly parts of the actual reality. Chomsky writes quite a lot about this in his book “Manufacturing Consent”, which basically is a dive into how media organizations can be used as the propaganda arm of the government. Everything from choosing what you show to choosing how you talk about things goes towards bolstering an underlying narrative that you want to project.
I’m not sure what a solution would look like, if one is even possible. But solution or no, the narrative divergence in this country has primed us to detest each other, which is the first crucial step towards mass violence.
That is what I try to communicate to folks who are freaking out about Trump. You have to worry about the next guy, and the next guy, and the next guy. You can’t just keep voting Democrat, you actually have to get organized if you want to stop fascism, because Trump isn’t the font that fascism springs from, he is an inept conman who is riding the wave.
True, but have you looked at the “intelligentsia” of the Republican party? They’ve got nobody. Just grifters and sycophants. It’s one more small mercy. Obviously, this situation can’t be counted on to continue indefinitely, but once Trump is gone, the only thing ready to take his place is Trump-based nostalgia, and people looking to profit off same.
The “intelligentsia” of the Republican Party are dyed-in-the-wool fascist complete monsters like Roger Stone and Steven Miller. They are cunning, dangerous and should not be underestimated.
I’m more worried about democrats having triangulated into fascism in the medium term tbh. Like competent diet fascism vs incompetent blood and soil fascism
I’m less worried about that, not because there aren’t evil people among the Democrats, but because the Democrats are positioning themselves as the anti-fascist party at the moment. Starting up a fascist movement of their own at the moment would be bad business.
Long term, though? 100% agree. Can’t trust none of these fucks. Hopefully, the Interstate Popular Vote Compact kicks off before that happens, and we can do away with the EC. Won’t completely solve the problem, but it will help.
I’m less worried about that, not because there aren’t evil people among the Democrats, but because the Democrats are positioning themselves as the anti-fascist party at the moment. Starting up a fascist movement of their own at the moment would be bad business.
Their rhetoric sure is, but if you look at their actual policies they’re continuing and escalating some of the worst things Trump did. Migrant concentration camps, massive police funding increases, worsening security and surveillance laws, the whole nine yards.
Also, fascism is the reassertion of the dominance of financial capital over the system and the democrats take money from the banks just as much as the Republicans.
Of course it could happen. Do I think it will happen in the next two months as we get through election season? Nah.
I also don’t think a civil war in modern days would look anything like it did in the 1860s. Aside from the obvious advance in weapons and tactics, there’s no convenient clear line between one half and the other like there was with North/South. It would look more like civil wars do in other countries in the 21st century.
Modern civil war happens when a domestic terrorist group starts to act agains the government.
For a full on civil war the army would habe to break apart in factions too, and I don’t thinl that’s probable in the us
Short answer: yes
Longer answer: I would argue we’ve already had a few civil wars since the “War Between the States” in the 1860s. Reconstruction was arguably another civil war. The labor rights war of the early twentieth century included federal troops attacking organizing coal miners and federal agents along with private security forces attacking striking workers elsewhere. The violence of the civil rights movement (remember: the president had to call in the national guard to enforce integration) would also qualify as a civil war by some standards.
Listen to the first limited series of the podcast It Could Happen Here for an idea of how a more involved civil war could start. The idea is that there would not be clear battle lines drawn up because our divide now is more urban vs rural, and people in rural areas have opportunities to attack infrastructure that would have significant impacts on urban areas.
So I talked to a PhD who’s work covered civil wars across the world, and asked about this. Turns out there are several signs you need to see which makes a civil war more likely. Most of which we haven’t even gotten close to, because many of them are economic related and right now the US is still the single largest economy in the world where peoples standard of living is still very comfortable.
I asked ChatGPT to describe this and these are the highlights, in order of historical priority?
- Political instability and weak governance are present.
- There are deep ethnic, religious, or sectarian tensions.
- The economy is declining with high inequality.
- Persistent social unrest and widespread protests occur.
- External powers are interfering or supporting different factions.
- There is significant resource scarcity and competition.
- Militarization and proliferation of arms increase.
- Systematic human rights violations and repression take place.
- Society experiences strong ideological polarization.
- Demographic pressures such as rapid population growth or urbanization exist.
- The rule of law and justice systems are breaking down.
- Historical grievances and unresolved conflicts resurface.
Note that the US does have some of these, but not to the evident level that you saw in Rwanda, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Syria, Burundi, Eritrea, Somalia, Libya, Myanmar, Haiti, and others. In short, if you look at the indicators, although the US is indeed troubled, it’s not troubled enough for people to hot the streets with more than riotous intent.
Let’s go point by point:
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Political instability and weak governance are present.
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No
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There are deep ethnic, religious, or sectarian tensions.
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Yes
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The economy is declining with high inequality.
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Economy: not declining - Inequality: high
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Persistent social unrest and widespread protests occur.
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Might happen if Trump loses or steals the presidency
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External powers are interfering or supporting different factions.
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Yes, big time
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There is significant resource scarcity and competition.
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Not yet, but global warming might make this happen
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Militarization and proliferation of arms increase.
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Well, it’s the USA
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Systematic human rights violations and repression take place.
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Might happen under Trump
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Society experiences strong ideological polarization.
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Yes
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Demographic pressures such as rapid population growth or urbanization exist.
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No
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The rule of law and justice systems are breaking down.
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No
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Historical grievances and unresolved conflicts resurface.
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No
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I am actually quite alarmed by this. It seems like all it is going to take is for a couple of years of drought to dry up the waterways and crop yields.
And we have seen the start of this already, with the water level of the Mississippi dropping to the point of preventing boats to go through
Every person is three meals away from being radicalized. Not my quote, not sure who it’s attributed to, but I’ve seen it on the internet over the years.
I agree, shit will really hit the fan when people can’t find food/water anymore, or at least have it not be readily available. Personally, I think it’s coming sooner than people are expecting just because climate change will compound on itself year over year, and we’re doing damn near nothing to mitigate any damage (still pumping ground water up like it’s an instantly renewable resource to water golf courses in the dessert, for example).
But radical people tend to be desperate for change, and most people get desperate when they start to actually get hungry.
Alternate question…
What the fuck is a ‘battleground’ state, and why does the media even have the nerve to use that term? I mean I know what it basically means, they should stick with ‘swing’ state, instead of putting the word ‘battle’ into nutjob’s heads just before an election.
I don’t care what people’s political opinions are, but we already have enough gun nuts out there, and at least a couple attempts on the former president’s life.
You can’t even feel safe sending your kids to school in numerous areas, and can’t even always feel safe in a Walmart these days.
Are you sure we’re not already in a civil war?
Our culture phrases damn near everything in metaphors of war. The war on drugs. The battle of the bands. Bob lost his battle with cancer. It’s absolutely pervasive, to the point it’s almost as invisible as the air.
You do have a point, though in terms of common everyday language, that’s a bit disappointing.
I guess if we’re going to keep using war and conflict terms you could say we’re in a cold civil war.
We might as well call schools “sporadic shooting galleries” the way we’ve been treating the issue… It’s absolutely absurd :(
Something I talked about earlier in political discussions was that the Usa has a problem of neighborhoods not being as social as they used to be.
Fewer bars, ymca, gatherings. Neighbors stay inside more. Children do not play in the street so much. Very few adults walk in the streets ( compared to Europe). Religious attendance is down .
That makes grassroots and revolutionary fever hard except on the internet. And the internet is showing it sort of sucks doing that, getting people outdoors, regardless of their creed, religious or political beliefs.
All that show up are usually elites , and some people in cities.
If you look at any modern revolution, there are healthy neighborhood dynamics driving it allowing a parallel bottom up growth
In the USA, People will probably have heated comments on social media, except in some small areas of cities, with only a few casualties
It’s crazy how literally every problem in the US is, at its root, a zoning problem.
I don’t see how you’d have enough parity between two sides, whichever side the military picks would just be the overt over dog and maaaaaaybe you could have some kind of armed mountain resistance or something, but it would be more a rebellion than a civil war.
Veteran here. Speculation - take it for what’s it’s worth (not shit). There’s a weird notion that the military is always just going to default to red, and while the total count definitely does lean red (cuz, y’know… most of us are fuckin dumbasses who vote against out own interests…) there IS a split… maybe… idk, 60-40? Point is there’s a lot more blue in the military than we’re typically painted as.
So, civil war. First off, not gonna happen cuz we don’t have the spine for it. We’ll just continue to bitch at eachother from the comfort of our couches; and while that bitching will probably get louder and we’ll probably see some increase in domestic terrorism, it will not get to the point of actual war. But if we did… the military isn’t going to just pick a side; it’ll turn into the world’s largest shitshow of infighting. Then once we’ve sufficiently hamstrung ourselves, we’re going to get our asses handed to us by the enemies across the globe we’ve been collecting like fucking pokemon via our shitty foreign policy.
Tldr, the sides of our civil war are basically two yipping lapdogs that will bark louder and louder at eachother until we eventually prompt our pissed off neighbor to come over with a shotgun. The actual war that happens will kill both dogs well before we get to the point of a civil war.
I was in a medical unit. Almost entirely democrats, except the motor pool.
Why do you think the military wouldn’t fracture as well?
That’s what I’m getting at - it would. Maybe not officially, but the infighting would be intense.
Nah… Americans may hate each other, but ultimately, unless there’s a major irreconciliable internal struggle between two major social movements on
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economic system and material conditions
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foreign policy
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Stability of gov’t to maintain liberal rule
and its resulting instability…
I don’t think there’s gonna be another one
I don’t think people who say it will happen really understand how inconvenient war is. And I use that wording to be laughable, because these are people who couldn’t wear a mask because they needed haircuts. They are quite literally the people who would starve to death if they were cut off from Walmart, who are fully dependent on oil to move their cars. They are so attached to American society they wouldn’t be able to maintain actual efforts for more than a couple of weeks.
Who i actually worry about are the few (I’ll call them) cells who could hold out for longer, who really do think it’s war. It wouldnt be full scale, but those unhinged lunatics who hoard weapons just are frothing at the mouth to hurt people.
From an ML perspective… what is to be done?
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Sure, it can. But if it doesn’t happen right after the election, or on January 6th, it’s not happening anytime soon.
Any country can experience civil war but it requires certain material developments. The US would require a substantial breakdown in shared interests for that to happen. Not just partisan frustrations, there would need to be a fundamental economic split so severe that it pitted states or regions against one another and they could actually act on that. This would almost certainly have to coincide with a weakening of the federal government as well, where the states/regions in question need to push against the federal in order to go in their own direction, for their own interests.
The US Civil War had a material basis like this. The South of course sought to maintain slavery and this was the primary issue, but why was it such a sticking point and conflict in the first place? One clue is to look at what happened to production after the South lost (hell yeah): their plantations were bought up by Northern capitalists and run at a profit. The landless poor, which included basically every freed slave, were forced to work there for very little pay while now needing to pay their new landlords for housing. They became the most abused of the proletariat and racism was kept alive for their marginalization in this market. The ascendant northern capitalists had been doing this kind of thing in bits and pieces and by supporting the halt in any new slave states. The Southern planter ruling class knew their days were numbered and, seeing existential crisis, attempted to carve out a country for themselves to prevent that extinction.
You can imagine that sort of thing developing again during prolonged crisis. Some states and regions may develop very different economies and their ruling class interests may become so at odds that it leads to land grabs, assertions of independence, etc. But that would be a prolonged crisis that changed fundamental regional economics and national economics. It’s not necessarily unlikely but it would take decades.
Yup, it can happen anywhere. The only question is if it will, and if so, when.
It won’t be like people think it would be, but it’s entirely possible.
No. For practical reasons. Who is your enemy? Are we going shirts and skins? With the American civil war and most wars it’s easy to determine who your enemy is. Everyone who lives south of that river.
The friend of certainty is time. One day perhaps then we won’t even call ourselves Americans. I doubt the 1860s will happen again anytime soon. Maybe something closer in scale to Blair Mountain.
Look to history. We’ve had two. Look at the words explaining the necessity of independence in the declaration of independence. Those were not hollow words but detailed a long series of abuses. Then look to the causes of the Civil War. A perfidious institution anathematic to the very core ideal of the nation, that all men are created equal.
Our times doubtless have our problems but the do not meet nearly the standard set in the past.
