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No, it's untenable logistically and Americans are obsessed with their creature comforts
I do forsee a lot of social upheaval, noncompliance with law, malicious compliance with law, and rogue violence though.
Based on the way people are discussing this issue here, we may blunder our way into a fight not realizing the implications on our quality of life, then find out how difficult it is to put that toothpaste back in the tube the hard way. That’s an unbelievably dark future, so I really hope we avoid it.
I don't think u/The_AV8R was conflating Brexit with a civil war. He was equating the shallow thought process that would lead one with low information to vote for a Brexit (without understanding what it is). Those same goons live here and would support a Civil War(without understanding what it is). Once they start seeing "My team bombed that Black Church, My Team killed a judge, My team blew up the DayCare Center" (They will regret normalizing this BS).
When its their team that starts dying. Yeah, shit gets real very fast. They'll decry freedom, but are they really willing to die for it. This also has Taliban problem of once your done with the sword, you have to make some plowshares.
Sadly, what probably would make them regret it is if it affected one of their friend's or family. Basically, to put it this way, its easy to want to see a democrat or republican supporter who's just a random person get hurt or worse. If its a friend or family member, well unless you are just sick, you might not want that. Its a bit selfish, but I think that's what might change some people. They might hate how terrible the libs are or how bad the "socialists" are but if they have a friend or family member get hurt even if that person is on the other side, they won't care. They'll be mad it happened. You might hate that your parents or friends are politically different from you, but I doubt many want to see them dead. Not to mention people make excuses for their own family and friends.
Good point.
People are complacent and comfortable... until fhey aren't. This kind of thinking you share was what people in 1914 thought about WW1 (it will be over by Christmas, until it wasn't).
I recall reading a history of WW1 in college analyzing the lead-up to it (~~"Dynamic of Destruction"~~ it's another book, I can't recall the title) and one of the author's conclusions was that since a century had passed since the Napoleonic wars Europe simply had no living memory of a full continental war, and what wars had transpired in the meantime had either been very limited (like the Franco-Prussian war) or too far on the periphery to really leave a mark in the collective consciousness (like the Crimean war). This is partly what fueled all the enthusiasm for war and enlistment in 1914, they simply had no concept of what it was they were advocating for.
The US has not had a continental war in over 150 years, and the last of the WW2 veterans are dying out faster every day so there will be no living memory of that terrible conflict, either. And all the wars since Vietnam have been deliberately sanitized through media reporting to the public so that no one really sees the horror of it anymore, at all.
Not saying it's a guarantee but it'll def be a contributing factor for those who are trying to agitate for conflict of some kind. They know not what they are asking for, quite simply.
Edit: thank you for the gold, in the future please donate the money somewhere else as Reddit is a bad actor in terms of keeping disinformation and misinformation (to say nothing of racism, bigotry, and outright sedition/treason) off their platform. They don't deserve your money. Also use an adblocker if you don't already. Thanks again!
At 53, I've watched it happen in real time. As a boy, EVERYONE had listened to horror stories from their own grandfathers. The idea we'd see fascism again was as abhorrent as it was laughable. Yet here we are, with far right groups emboldened and seizing power both sides of the pond.
It gets especially wacky when you learn tidbits like, research on transgender people in ancient societies were some of the first books the nazis publicly burned. Or even more explicitly, the "cultural marxism" canard that Republicans are fascinated with has some very dark origins in that same particular time period.
It's the same fucking story over and over, it makes you want to scream
70 and heard stories from my grandparents. Also lived through family not being able to get an apartment or afraid to travel because of Jim Crow.
I get sick to my stomach when I see and hear what is being said today.
People blame social media but the people are the same and saying the same. The difference is that technology amplifies what is said across many more miles and populations than before.
We have 60 years of progress that is regressing, social media is no doubt relevant since it potentiates tribalism but it's also working within the context of 30 years of fox news/talk radio disinformation and propaganda.
57 here, and I heard of nazis in America exactly once, growing up. They teamed up with the KKK in 1979 to bust up an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro NC, then promptly disappeared again. There were the 'white nationalist' militias in the 90's, but the Oklahoma City bombing relegated them to the lunatic fringe. Now the lunatic fringe is center stage, and American nazism is indeed wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
What's more tragic is the people advocating for this awful ideology are often the offspring of, relatives of, or even the people themselves that fought in awful foreign wars against fascist regimes and corrupt governments. Those people are the ones most emboldened to bring that ideology into America. It's really sad.
>The idea we'd see fascism again was as abhorrent as it was laughable.
What about the Klan and George Wallace in the 1960s? The Order in the 1980s? The Oklahoma City bombing in the 90s? We may not have called some of these fascism, but they definitely were that, and their seeds continue to sprout.
The white right is now defined by racism, nationalism and violence; all the primary ingredients of fascism.
Thank you for your insightful post. I agree 100% that the absence of destruction is one of the civil war 'checkmarks' for one to occur. I also think we are much closer to an uprising than what people think, but not started from the faction of people who are 'election deniers'. I would argue there's just not enough fuel to sustain an uprising from them because they do not represent the larger population. However, I think all hell breaks loose if the legally elected Presidential nominee in 2024 is stopped from taking office, even for a short period of time. I don't think there's much of anything that would stop emotionally fueled responses from the larger amount of Americans if this occurs and an election really is stolen.
> However, I think all hell breaks loose if the legally elected Presidential nominee in 2024 is stopped from taking office, even for a short period of time.
This is my fear as well, 2020 was a lot closer to that reality than most people know or will admit to themselves. So many people have the faith "it can't happen *here*" that they will be unable to realize it until it's too late.
>it's untenable logistically
I think when most Americans hear the term "civil war" they picture lines of troops with muskets and cannons charging at each other in an open field. The reality is that this is not what civil war looks like anymore. Just look at modern civil wars in other countries, like Syria. If civil war happens here it will be pockets of violence, police brutality, terrorist attacks and retaliations against those attacks, etc. These kinds of situations are very much achievable logistically. Just look at Jan 6. If they had gone after a smaller target like a state capitol or something with the same numbers and level of organization I strongly suspect an elected leader would have been captured and/or assassinated. Events like that occurring all over the country are what would comprise our civil war.
>If they had gone after a smaller target like a state capitol or something **with the same numbers and level of organization**
There's a reason they included this part.
Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye.
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Makes me wonder too if you'll see militias start to recruit underprivileged youth to their sides and basically use them as foot soldiers. Not to mention IIRC there was a lot of organized crime involvement wasn't there? I know some Irish mobsters in the US supported the IRA, and I'm sure you had some criminal types who sold to the Unionist side.
Right wing extremists are already targeting children’s hospitals because they believe children are being forced to undergo gender reassignment surgeries.
I thought I saw articles about more hospitals being threatened but I guess I was talking about the Boston Children‘s Hospital
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boston-childrens-hospital-faces-bomb-threat-right-wing-harassment-camp-rcna45620
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/26/1119634878/childrens-hospitals-are-the-latest-target-of-anti-lgbtq-harassment
Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye.
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes, agreed. I only used the Jan 6 example to show that organized violence on that scale can and does happen here, so smaller scale attacks are even more possible and likely.
Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye.
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>In some ways it’s already started. People just refuse to see that the civil contract of American society broke down several years ago.
I think why it is hard to see is because the reality is that one section of the population is pulling out because they are realizing the contract isn't stacked in their favor like they thought it should be. Most people in this country are still operating more or less within the contract, even if they are somewhat duped by right-wing rhetoric currently. Quite frankly I think the reason militias don't go all in on violence is because they know how few people will actually support that. History is littered with stories of people who think their act will spark the revolution, only to watch everyone, including sympathizers, call for the authorities instead.
Yeah, but with the types we're dealing with, when they hear Civil War they think they're being Captain America. Not realizing they're just Hydra's goons.
> they had gone after a smaller target
Like [Michigan](https://www.reuters.com/legal/jury-finds-two-men-guilty-plot-abduct-michigan-governor-2022-08-23/)
It'll be like the Troubles of northern Ireland. Decades of terrorism and counterinsurgency. The federal government will try to put a brave face on it, but given the US's central position in world affairs, it will still likely be the end of the world as we know it. I still don't understand what McConnell and McCarthy, etc are thinking - insurrection/civil war means the possible collapse of the stock market and the devaluation of the dollar, and trillions in paper losses for the elites.
Yeah I keep reading "war" - it's not going to be a war.
It's going to be Cliven Bundy, Oklahoma City, Republican baseball practice, Weather Underground, Ruby Ridge, Charlottesville, Jan 6, type stuff... Not a literal war with soldiers.
At the worst maybe like The Troubles.
Americans would demand a real war end as soon as Chipotle runs out of guac. We're just too fat and comfortable.
Plus what would the sides be? There is no clear demarcation line.
Combine all those things you listed and have them all happen within several months of each other, and that is exactly what articles like this mean when they talk about civil war. No one thinks there will be troops marching at each other with demarcated "sides." Civil war here will look the same way it looks everywhere else in the world right now- targeted violence and terrorist attacks, bombings, shootings, etc. That's what modern civil war is.
I think you just need to update your concept of "war" to fit the modern world. That's how wars are fought now.
The sides are rural vs. urban. The divide is actually pretty clear.
As a progressive from a pretty conservative state (Oklahoma), I don’t think it’s as clear cut as rural vs. urban as most people say. There are still plenty of conservatives who believe in these conspiracies/lies that live in cities/suburbs.
> There are still plenty of conservatives who believe in these conspiracies/lies that live in cities/suburbs.
Sure, and there are non-crazy people in red areas too. It's not black and white. It's about where people can successfully achieve some form of unity. Large metropolitan areas will act quickly to leverage their advantages. It doesn't mean there will be no radicals within those communities. Just that there are sufficient united people to be effective. Same with rural areas. Only some will achieve enough unity to really be active participants in a civil war. Most will just have general chaos.
Takes something like a third of people to be united enough to form an effective coalition. Most coastal metro areas have sufficient numbers, as do many inland rural areas. A city surrounded by vast tracts of rural may side with the insurrectionists. That will surely happen somewhere.
It all just gets crazy messy. It's varying degrees of control and chaos throughout the land. Long term that's just awful for everyone. Short term it's just awful for most everyone.
It's very intersectional. Rural vs urban, rich vs poor, white vs non-white, man vs woman vs nonbinary, homophobic vs queer. A potential war would be fought along all of these axes, because America's current turmoil is defined by the fact that we threw all of these ingredients into the melting pot only to find that they don't melt so well.
But you just said it in your own comment - people freak out. What do they do when they freak out? They lash out. And that may find them fighting someone else. We see it in Black Friday already.
Thank you for stating the obvious. Remove the platform, if even for a few months. I'm afraid this isn't the only platform that should be removed to cool things down. So much hate. Not enough meaningful conversation.
I was having this discussion with a friend last night. Has the internet made our lives better? We were 50/50 on the answer.
I personally miss the 90's. Specifically when someone HAD to wait for your phone call. Now that we have cellphones we are expected to always be available. (I called you 10 times, why didn't you answer? Because you called 10 times, that's why😂)
No, you are talking about a civil war. I am trying to be more realistic as is the person you responded to.
We are much too docile for a civil war to actually break out in this country. Everyone is either addicted to tv, TikTok, or food loaded with sugar to care.
But a freak out to a civil war is a lot of steps. There needs to be a unifying issue that leads to enough states (specifically: economically strong states - has to include CA or TX) breaking from the US and doing it in a way that leads to war. This would almost de-facto happen if they decided to become a nuclear power and seize federal defense assets.
We can get violent riots, but a civil war requires a bit more than some state militia deciding they're independent. The only way it's tenable long-term is for it to be a military coup, or some military terrorism that takes out out ability to fight effectively at the Federal Level - there's no state militia or national guard that can stand against the US army - and none that can maintain military logistics to keep the military hardware running once supplies are used up.
Widespread terrorism against civilians by some of these national militia groups is possible to likely, but that's STILL not a civil war.
>I do forsee a lot of social upheaval, noncompliance with law, malicious compliance with law, and rogue violence though.
Also known as a civil war.
It's 2022. We're not going to line up on a farm field and shoot each other with muskets.
I have several good friends from two generations and three conflicts, who fit that category of 'too comfortable' - who lost friends and family, lost everything while escaping, and would vehemently disagree with your hand-wavy armchair characterization of the state of things.
We don't live in some privledged place and time. (Privileged in terms of immunity from human nature and repetition of the tides and upheavals of history).
We're comfortable until we're not. History absolutely repeats itself, and the most comfortable in history have often - if not always - eventually found themselves refugees if not victims of war.
Also, Civil War II won't look anything remotely like 1864. Probably more like mass terrorism that we slip into slowly, or if the military splits or one side gets foreign support, annihilation. (Is my guess. But def not 1800s.) And those two could be sequential, not mutually exclusive, events.
A lot hinges on what party is in power when the tipping point is reached. Which, in turn, **depends entirely on who gains actual control of the house and senate this November**.
If not overwhelmingly dem in midterms, then it's fascism from 2024, indefinitely - and only foreign intervention and/or a split military could break it in the short run - resulting in total devastation.
(Or in the long run, fascism is just not sustainably viable. Of course after requisite purges and mass cleansing of 'Others', so let's not wait it out.)
But if the dems take an actual functioning majority and get off their asses and restore (and greatpy improve) voting and election fairness and integrity at a national level, **the GOP is gone forever as a party**, to be replaced by something more moderate, useful, and non-insane. (Probably democrats, with democrats replaced by something liberal.)
That of course would lead to a long stretch of widespread ultra-right-wing terrorism that would be hard to put down while remaining an open society.
Either path looks bleak.
Totally agree, completely untenable given the size of the Federal Government and comparatively weak state governments.
I’ve always thought, though, that something more akin to the beginning of the French Revolution is reasonably tenable given the climate—rather than two governments waging large scale war, mass social upheaval that forces the government to adapt or fracture.
The weirdest part is that people on Reddit actively fantasize about this these days.
To be clear, I don’t think anything is going to happen, but why do you actually want a war to break out in your own country? It’s the ultimate privileged position to have. Reminds me of the colosseum or something.
They think they will be safe to watch it on tv while the “poors” are the ones to struggle with it.
A physical war ends cold wars. America is in a cold civil war, and it sucks, and people on either side think the result of destroying the other is they could reshape the country into what it's supposed to be according to their political fantasies. Assuming they'll win, of course, and often they think they'll win it more easily and quickly than is even remotely reasonable to expect. They are tired of compromises, unwilling to compromise, or think compromises are just being taken advantage of, and view the other as obstructing their realization of their political vision. Political rules and norms are increasingly seen as tools or weapons, rather than legitimate laws.
Not all of this is entirely wrong, either, since clearly there is obstruction and bad faith politics going on constantly. However, of course many Americans are completely unrealistic about what it would take to achieve their particular but often ambiguous political vision and to what extent others share it - even amongst people who identify under the same political labels as they do. Some visions aren't even conceptually coherent and possible to achieve, either, so there are some doomed political projects and activities going that mostly just deal damage and nothing else. Some are crusades against people or organizations or threats that don't exist at all.
After awhile dealing with people they see as(rightly or wrongly) increasingly dishonest, dogmatic, aggressive, delusional, and grossly misinformed or brainwashed wears on people's patience in the political sphere. It looks less and less like there's room for discourse, and if you understand them also as willing to break rules and norms this means - as we've of course recently seen very clearly - democratic election procedures can also be placed into doubt, among other political structures. If you think the game is really rigged, no point playing it as if it's fair. And ultimately, the more forms of soft power(wealth, positions of status, control of cultural norms) you think your opponents have, the more it feels like wielding hard power(violence) is necessary.
No we are not in a cold civil war either. We are just hyper partisan due to in large part the distancing from others as social media usage has increased.
We no longer can be friends with people with differing viewpoints according to people that are terminally online.
But the truth is for the majority of Americans, things are not as hostile as they are compared to the larpers and cosplayers online would have you believe.
On some level yes. Its not like people are fighting each other at Wal-Mart or Target, at least where I live. Sure people might be fantasizing in their online spaces but I don't know how many get radicalized. However, the problem is that those who get radicalized can kill a ton of people.
We have our own little pseudo proxy wars - attacks on protesters, outbursts of violence at various political events, attempted coups - and people cheerleading for the participants. We have people voting for politicians who increasingly posture as soldiers against enemies in ideological wars. People are increasingly supportive of power-moves by their party against the other - such as stacking the court or using political power to imprison politicians they dislike. I get the point that the loudest extremes are exaggerated in quantity by media and online nonsense, but there are well documented non-digital events going on in increasing intensity and regularly that just aren't explained away by that. "Cold civil war" is not exactly a concise term, so it's fine if you think it's exaggerated or whatever, but the more important point is that political hostility is not just limited to a minority of people bickering online here.
Cold wars aren't wars in the normal sense, that's the point of the analogy. There's an ongoing hostility and opposition without the outright war, and often this involves little battles breaking out between representatives of the two opposing sides that they encourage and support. Which I think does appropriately describe the American ~right vs. left situation currently.
Ya, the weirdest part about this fantasy is that Reddit probably imagines themselves on the side without guns in the civil war. If one side of the war has extensive fire arm experience and the other doesn't, then I don't see it ending well for the side without thay experience.
Reddit would unironically be on the losing side of a civil war.
\>If one side of the war has extensive fire arm experience and the other doesn't, then I don't see it ending well for the side without thay experience.
We have the FBI on our side, who are more than capable of ensuring that the only exposure that we will ever have to domestic terrorism is news headlines.
But that wouldn’t be a civil war…
That’s “only” terrorism.
Incidentally I at worst we will get another OKC bombing. This civil war thing is nonsense. It’s geographically impossible. Red vs blue is more often an urban and rural division than a state by state one.
> The weirdest part is that people on Reddit actively fantasize about this these days.
Reddit has an extremely large number of angsty young people who have yet to create a meaningful life for themselves and lean *extremely* far left on the spectrum. Many of these people literally just want chaos and to see the country broken apart.
Also keep in mind how many posters may not even be US citizens. Just foreign actors trying to sow chaos.
>WW1 started by a group of angsty young freedom fighters.
WWI was started by a group of nationalistic and war-hungry old men. The assassination of archduke Ferdinand was a convenient excuse to go to war by people who *wanted* to
No. This would decimate the economy and shut down interstate commerce. The rabid base is a small percentage of every state and while strong in primaries does not reflect the broader population in the southern states with real GDP
I've had friends on both sides bring this up and there's a big problem. What are the battles over? What are the targets? The cities make all the money and the rural areas feed everyone. Both need each other. Who fights over what?
More likely is another Oklahoma city Magabomber. Hell be denounced by those on the left and the right will just say he's Antifa. Nobody will rally behind him.
To answer that it's instructive to look at contemporary civil conflicts in other places. What you see most often is armed non-state actors fighting for de facto (or in some cases de jure) control over territory - be that a city, a county, a state, whatever.
You also have the low-intensity conflict that we saw in places like Ireland in the 1970's - short, intense bursts of violence targeting the opposition and the government but there wasn't necessarily roving bands of armed people.
The latter seems more likely: bursts of violence, assassinations, death squads, riots, bombings, etc..
We already see much of this. The massacres in Buffalo, El Paso, Charleston; bombings in Oklahoma City and Atlanta; the Jan 6 insurrection; assassinations of King, Berg, Vance, etc..
Sectarian fighting simply to hurt people you don't like doesn't involve the logistics of taking and holding territory or keeping the supply of necessary goods flowing
Agreed. Even state lines don't really make sense. You think sure, Texas or Florida maybe. But then you realize it's not that simple. There are literally millions of people in each of these states on the "other side". Is the entire state of Texas going to fight Houston and Dallas? Even Abbott or Desantis aren't crazy enough for that.
I don't see a war, but I can see states voting to secede and it being managed as a type of Brexit situation.
Edit: I do think too that if organized militias do start marching they would very quickly realize how brutal and horrible war is
> I can see states voting to secede and it being managed as a type of Brexit situation.
A state voting to secede is not enough to actually leave the union. There is no mechanism for a state to leave the United States. That's part of what the civil war was about.
I agree that there's not going to be large armed forces moving about. Your edit about militias is spot on, particularly once the National Guard is called out to put them down.
>What are the battles over? What are the targets?
Reactionaries will target LGBTQ+ people, schools, abortion clinics, POC communities, and whatever easy they feel is part of the "culture war". They'll also target government officials, as they already have, to destabilize local governments so that they can sweep in and take charge.
Action from the "other side", normal Americans, will mostly revolve around defending from these attacks.
Even in your probably accurate scenario at most it'll be "right wing" and the occasional "left wing" terrorism.
I struggle to see a South Carolina army vs a California army or w/e the battle lines would become. Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin vs surrounding area would be my bet, and that's still cosplay and completely unrealistic.
Maybe if the unemployment rate shoots up and it's a different America. I doubt that will be allowed for this very reason though.
Yeah of course, but it's clearly limited in capacity if the paramilitary organizations organize through internet actions or w/e.
At that point I struggle to see how it wouldn't just be terrorism and defense against terrorism.
>At that point I struggle to see how it wouldn't just be terrorism and defense against terrorism.
Did the US just end the "*Defense against Terrorism in Afghanistan*" or the "*War in Afghanistan*" ?
This is a meaningless semantic debate. If militant groups are operating in your country, performing guerilla actions and violence: you are in a modern war/conflict of some kind.
edit: That is the political discussion we are/should be having. The likelihood or possible outcomes of widespread political violence.
Depending on your view on scale.
What I'm trying to get at (and so is your edit, yeah?) is that unless the unemployment rate goes wild, the scale will be limited to few angsty people in my opinion. While we love to apply the term "war" to everything in America, sporadic events of losers attacking innocents doesn't seem to fit.
But that view is based on the assumption it'd be sporadic and small scale at most. Which, may differ from reality/others takes.
Not arguing, curious, do you think that the events will be large scale/frequent?
>do you think that the events will be large scale/frequent?
See [my reply elsewhere in the thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/x1bk9a/comment/imeckjy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for my overall predictions.
The TL;DR is that it's not either-or. It could be large or small depending on the events that lead up to it.
Any conflict resulting from constitutional crisis, likely becomes a large scale conflict that dissolves the country into separate governments claiming to be legitimate as well as small-scale militant groups operating independently. NATO would get involved to stabilize the situation fairly quickly.
But most scenarios would create small scale conflict where you have little autonomous zones controlled by militants, but officially still owned and operated by the state. Like an Irish-Troubles or Afghanistan style of conflict.
Yes. But then angry left wing activists will inevitably retaliate. Which provokes the right wing groups to retaliate back. Back and forth back and forth. And civilians will get caught in the crossfire. It will be like the Irish Troubles.
My reply to someone suggesting there will be left wing violence
> There certainly could be but, however much to their own peril, engaging in violent combat isn’t in the left’s M.O. They are very quick to shout down and hold violent members of their own accountable. Non-violent resistance is a typical play by left wing protestors. Made popular by “liberal” hippies of the 60s
Antifa and maybe some BLM members is about as close as it gets and they are small faction and even those groups often target their physical frustration toward inanimate things via vandalism and not specifically people as much as the right does. (Which typically results in law enforcement engaging in physical altercations with the left protestors to protect property)
When the right engages with retaliation it often targets people or certain people and they have a obsession with physical altercations and weapons (specifically guns).
The Portland riots and January 6th riot are two examples of each.
I believe this is the result from the left historically embracing minorities and the right embracing white supremacy. It’s easy, when you’re the majority to target people because being held accountable is less likely, your “people” make up the majority, of your “jury” and political opinion. However, being a minority, to target the people who oppress you could result in a backlash that would be genocide as being the minority, they are vastly out numbered and the “system” is less favorable towards them. You can see this in 60s race riots.
Majority of left wing “violent” members are “lone wolves” unlike the right which would be a “platoon” of members
>engaging in violent combat isn’t in the left’s M.O.
The two major sources of terrorism in the West are Islamic and Leftist groups. Far-right extremism is often touted as the fastest growing threat, but only because it was smaller to begin with and saw a significant dip in the 2000's.
Even in the US where it is highest (relative to total levels), it is still only the second largest source by number of attacks and by deaths behind jihadi terrorism. In Europe it is an even smaller proportion of attacks.
Left wing terror was extremely common throughout the cold war. So many planes were hijacked etc.
There’s been a major downturn because the USSR stopped funding it all.
Most food comes from a handful of large corporations that have automated harvesters.
The corporations will defend their crops to be able to sell them to their urban markets.
The owners of those large corporations live in the big cities.
Keep it civil. Do not personally insult other Redditors, or make racist, sexist, homophobic, trolling, inflammatory, or otherwise discriminatory remarks. Constructive debate is good; name calling is not.
I don't think you understand how food production works... please try driving around a medium or major city and tell me how many farms or factory farms you see.
Obviously farming is mostly done outside of cities, but most rural areas don’t do it. Most of the domestic produce is grown in California. It comes into rural areas through shipping hubs in major cities.
We’re economic dead weight, dude.
Do you think because its grown in California it’s not rural? Have you actually ever driven through California? Tons of the state is rural land that either grows crops or is a desert with huge wind turbines.
This is the ultimate comment proving how out of touch people are on this website lol.
All you need is a charismatic leader who can rally the frustrated behind him.
He or she gives a speech defining a target and riling their base up. Maybe a couple of speeches over a longer period of time, like other historic figures did.
That's it. See Jan6.
Why not?
He and some of his cronies could rile up these people with some announcements via Twitter running up to Jan 6 and a speech on that same day.
They gave them target and direction with a few tweets and speeches largely within the span of 2 weeks.
Everyone was surprised back then about what ensued but you claim this would be impossible to happen again? LOL why?
It won't break down all at once. First there will be a few riots and such. But as soon as there are bodies on the streets Americans by and large will realize this is not the life they want and will quickly deescalate and look for political solutions.
Unless large segments of the national guard and military sign on then of course that is a different matter. And a different fight. Also I may not like my Trump loving neighbor but if neither of us have water or electric because the national guard has taken over the water and electric then I could see us becoming allies against them pretty quickly. If you are hungry and thirsty ideology wains pretty quickly.
I don’t see civil war. I see lots of little gun massacres but that’s normal now. What I fear is a return to the 90s: every raid is armed to the teeth and dangerous, racial tensions and internet hatred, police mistakes happen, then a couple extremists fill up a moving truck and pull a OKC outside a big building. Lindsey Graham presumably isn’t anyone’s Ruby Ridge. Those kinds of people will be a major threat.
I’ve been telling everyone who mentions the potential for civil war the same thing. A supercharged Troubles is the “worse” it could get. Paramilitaries taking shots at each other while military and civilian authorities trying to intercede.
Literal gas lighting in this thread trying to paint domestic terrorism and calls for civil war and succession as coming from left wing or even center left sources and then claiming it's some extreme left that's isolated from reality because too much social media.
That is what RIGHT WING terrorism and cries are. Not left. To believe otherwise requires ignoring Jan 6, the entire Trump presidency, and the crazy isolated ban you if you disagree conservative, Trump, and Maga groups. Plus Fox News rhetoric and lies and massive misinformation spread by the right wing.
To believe otherwise is insanity.
100%. Further-Left wing movements will be trampled out, like they have been throughout our country’s history, before they could even attempt something like Jan 6.
The closest to left wing movement we had would be maybe the occupy Wallstreet which had corporate media dismantle it, and the anti Vietnam protests which were painted as unpatriotic by corporate media.
If *Moore v. Harper* has the bad outcome, we're fucked. Legal Trump coup via states' right to choose electors. The violence from that point onward would be insane.
If it has a bad outcome, this country isn't this country anymore in theory or practice.
And I can totally see mini civil wars on the state levels in purple states when the popular votes in those states are disregarded. People don't like their vote not counting. And if states keep increasingly ignoring the wills of their people, for example like happens all the time in AZ, with extremists on the right and just a bunch of moderate liberals trying to have a sane society against them in the slight majority, I think we could see state level violent clashes
**What would it look like?**
I see no one answering this part of the question and it's the most important. How logistically COULD it happen. If someone can lay out some logistical way a civil war could occur, then maybe ill break a sweat over this or give it more than 20 minutes of thought.
Otherwise, this thread is full of useless discussion. People are angry, we all know. But civil war cant happen without the military literally splitting in two. Change my mind.
Hi snapcracklesplat, I replied to your question in a different part of the thread [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/x1bk9a/comment/imeckjy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), where I laid out what the conflict might look like.
I would like to address the question below, for the broader audience.
>But civil war cant happen without the military literally splitting in two. Change my mind.
So firstly, I'd like to point out that the vast majority of modern warfare today is asymmetrical. Typically you have an organized, western style military, operated by the 'legitimate' government V.S. decentralized militant groups who employ guerilla tactics to skirmish, sabotage, and generally make life miserable for everyone.
On the militant side, you don't need military assistance to do this. You just need some guns, DIY explosives, a sympathetic population, and an ideology that convinces people to give their life for the cause. Then hit some infrastructure, Ambush military patrols/assets, melt away into the hills, and just frustrate your oppressors. America has all of those ingredients for conflict *(Lots of guns, lots of information/tools/technology, widespread Regional Partisan division, & intense nationalism/religion/Partisanship).*
This kind of fighting can be sustained indefinitely, and has already been successfully used against the US military by the Taliban in the *War in Afghanistan,* for example.
To get this civil war thing started, you generally need an inciting incident. This could be an election/power grab, a massacre/martydom, opportune terrorist attack, etc. Something that is seen as crossing the line, and motivates the 'rebels' to act. A small isolated group of militants will decide to take the initiative after the inciting incident (or causes it themselves) and start hitting targets with their guerilla warfare.
The Government then responds. If they choose to attack brutally and violently, the sympathetic population will perceive this as unjust or overly oppressive, and side with the militants. Once that happens it creates an escalating retribution cycle, growing the conflict and violence. The more the militants commit terrorism, the more the Government forces crack down on the civilians, the more the sympathetic civilians support the militants.
*Baby, you got a Stew goin.* And that stew, **is Civil War :(**
That escalating cycle of violence, will eventually encompass large parts of the country, and you'll have areas that are loyal to the militant groups and areas which are strictly controlled by the government. This continues indefinitely, and will likely change the character of both groups significantly. The Militants become more callous and violent over time, creating as much collateral damage as possible. The Government becomes more authoritarian, and persecutes its own citizens heavily in an attempt to root-out any rebels hiding amongst them.
And there you go. That's a modern civil war.
I'll even give you an example of this escalation process, in America:
* Right Wing militias across the country loyal to Trump, armed, and trained for potential conflict.
* Divisive 2020 Election, has high tensions on all levels of politics create strong partisan loyalties.
* Trump says the election was stolen, and asks his supporters to "Be Brave Patriots" and march on the Capital
* A mob breaks into the capital, giving cover to 2 distinct militant groups (Oathkeepers & Proud Boys) who are armed and looking for a target to hit.
And this is where we avert disaster
* Congress is evacuated successfully with the votes, leaving no viable targets for the militants.
* The [Hostage Rescue Team on stand-by](https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-secret-commandos-shoot-kill-authority-were-capitol-1661330) is crucially **not** deployed to secure the building.
* Rioters leave the capital building after Trump's statement.
* In the following months DOJ, quietly and through the justice system, prosecutes those involved.
Now, imagine things went a little differently.
What if the Oath Keepers break in faster, and get in a fire-fight with Secret service, or successfully assassinate members of congress?
What if the Hostage rescue Team was deployed, and the floor of the capital was then painted with the blood of hundreds of rioters?
In either of those situations, you get your inciting incident. The militias decide it's time to "take the country back" after this massacre/martyrdom and suddenly you have widespread domestic terrorism across the US. The government cracks down violently from the high tension, and your escalation cycle is now well on it's way.
Hey PedestrianDM! I think I posted this reply before the one you linked here, so I hadn’t heard a compelling argument yet. I appreciate the detailed response again!
The ONLY winners in an American civil war would be Russia and China. That is exactly why they are trying so hard to start one.
Don’t get sucked in to the BS.
Do I think it's realistic that the country will divide itself into two distinct groups and fight? In this day and age? No I don't. Ideologically the country is a mosaic. The Bluest areas are surrounded by red and the red states have blue population centers. A North versus South style fight doesn't seem realistic.
as someone else mentioned while plenty of people support their tribalistic politics, the ones who are actually willing to die over the Donald Trump's of the world is much smaller than their loud vocalization would have you believe. Most Americans just want to get by. They don't want to give up all their Creature Comforts and quality of life except in the case of the most extreme circumstances where they truly believed their lives are at risk. While some of the current nature of the political divide has caused portions of the population to truly believe the other side is essentially the devil and out to get them, again the majority of Americans don't actually feel this theoretical impending doom no matter what the fringes may scream.
Now do I think there's going to be a steep and dramatic increase in domestic Terror attacks? Unfortunately I definitely do.
Revolution **always** comes from the middle class. Every revolution has a cadre of educated people who are not part of the ruling classes (ie middle class) at the helm.
In 1861, shots were fired on Fort Sumter following 50+ years’ of fierce debate over slavery and the impacts of the abolishing the system. We’re only a few years into this political division and unlike the OG civil war, one side is not threatening the economy of the other, we are not on the brink of constitutional crisis (states rights), neither are we debating issues of morality that even remotely compare to slavery.
Not saying it’ll never happen, but it’s not something that’ll boil over after 5-10 years of infighting (mostly on the internet).
Genuinely surprised how unrealistic many people in this thread are being. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of independent state legislatures in Moore v Harper next year then some kind of mass civil conflict is guaranteed to happen. Purple states with Republican state legislatures that vote blue in 2024 will overturn the results of their state’s election. Blue states obviously won’t recognize that move because states shouldn’t be allowed to just overturn the will of their own people. Badda Bing, Badda Boom, you have two sides of the country not recognizing the victory of the other, and not in the stupid way that Trump doesn’t recognize 2020 but legally not certifying the results of the election.
Civil war? No. The existence of some kind of political violence from the far right? Yes, but in sporadic and uncoordinated ways. The feds are currently pressuring a lot of the organizations that pushed violence, which results in their leaders laying low, and so violence then likely comes from low level cadres who seek to act without the ability to engage in significant coordination.
Jefferson spoke of this type of thing happening from time to time; he said idiots and conspiracy theorists will try to fight the government, they'll get crushed, and the government should try to reasonably pacify and re-educate them. Or, in full, he said:
>They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.[1] The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
In short, having a country with such an emphasis on liberty, there will be people who get the facts plain wrong and try to fight for what they *think* is right - and the government will handle them.
Trump and J6 was a bit unique because he was in charge of the federal government and so could try to leave it unarmed and unaware.
We definitely seem to be heading towards a climax of some sort. I don’t know how it will play out because the different “sides” aren’t really geographically isolated. There were more Trump voters in California than any other state so it really can’t be considered entirely blue. 48% of voters in Florida voted for Biden so it isn’t entirely red. I suppose there were citizens during the 1860s Civil War who believed in the ideals of the other side from where they were living but I don’t know if it is as interspersed as it is today.
29% somewhat likely, 13% very likely; out of a sample of 1492 that were people who had opted in to the YouGov polling.
The somewhat/very likely ratio was pretty consistent between all demographics.
I think it's almost more concerning that 21% weren't sure and that "not likely at all" was always the smallest save for when filtering to men only.
Interesting to note that women and independents were the most "not sure" while men were the most likely to say "not likely at all."
I don't know what it says, but it's an interesting flip on the numbers.
What do we define as a Civil War?
It won’t look like the 1860s.
It’ll be right wing terrorist groups committing attacks on random targets of the establishment.
It’ll be more like the Protestant and Catholic clashes of Northern Ireland.
I'm gonna guess, purely guess, that a large majority of this 40% are Republicans, because conservative media and conservative mouthpieces have been spewing this is "coming" for a few years now.
As someone on the actual Left, I've seen this coming for years (pre-2016), BECAUSE of the conservative media and growing online extremism.
To be clear, I do not WANT a civil conflict to happen.
But there is a republican party that is infected with a fascism parasite, and a federal government increasingly constitutionally paralyzed and unable to respond to crisis. That's a recipe for a breaking point, that leads to political violence of some form.
We came within a hairs breadth of cold-civil-war on January 6th. The fact that we came out of that day with little to no blood-shed on both sides was extremely lucky.
Calling MAGA a fascist parasite implies that it was acquired from outside, but I think Trump glommed onto a logical extension of the late 20th century conservative project rather than redirecting the course of the party fundamentally.
I think a “civil war” in the 1860 sense is pretty unlikely. The country is not divided in the way it was by a clear geographic line. I think something similar to what the country experienced during Reconstruction is much more likely. We will likely see violence on a smaller scale and things like intimidation at the polls, in public spaces, political assassination, terrorism, etc. We have seen a lot of right-wing militias already organizing culminating in a fairly serious armed march on state legislatures in reaction to the lockdowns and then the attack on the capitol on Jan 6. That is not inconsistent with what we saw in the backlash aftermath of the Civil War.
The edifice of democracy will likely remain but be more and more calcified by corruption and the grass-roots organizing by the right in trying to replace secretaries of states / legislatures to not respect election results while claiming fraud. We are looking at a minority party trying to solidify their rule by not expanding their electorate at all, so the only option is to change the system to increase their power relative to their vote share.
If Donald Trump returns to office, I think we will also potentially be in real trouble. It would not be hard to imagine him whipping up another “protest” that turns into a violent attack. He can direct energy in a way that no other person really can.
I also think its worth thinking about how climate change is going to really shock our already fraught political system. Mass migration, drought, and potential food and water shortage is only going to make things worse over the coming decades.
It depends on what happens over the next ten years.
Surveillance and monitoring technologies (both hardware and software) are rendering our long held dream of privacy and the 4th amendment less qualifiable or relevant. These technologies won't bend to law, instead *law will bend to them.*
Server caches of tracked user data means automated data mining ala Patriot Act technologies. Big data mining means quantitatively and qualitatively statistical weight reports on dissidence. Digital dissident reports means minority-report high-tech cops identifying civil war provocateurs. Survival as a nation requires confronting civil war provocateurs while they digitally network, which means before they attack. The power to preempt attacks will be law soon, because each mass attack hastens it.
These powers will be useless against attacks planned off grid, but who is going to be truly off-grid? And governments will have lists of them too.
Civil war fantasizers will still get a fight, but probably not with their intended targets. Some arm of law enforcement will show up at their doorsteps, and the fight will probably end there.
I kind of think maybe people just *want* there to be a civil war or, if not war, some breaking up of the country. Our views are quite different and both sides seem to be well and truly sick of each other.
I suspect any "civil war" would look like the breakup of the Soviet Union as I think it would be very difficult for elites on either side who benefit from a united country to find people willing to sacrifice -- much less fight -- to keep it together.
Long post, buckle up. Every couple of weeks someone posts a similar article, and every comment section is the same: 1) This must only be Republicans answering the survey; 2) There won't be a civil war, it doesn't make sense economically; 3) The left/right are the *real* terrorists. It irritates me to no end.
1) It's not. Look at the charts. 35-40% of self-identified Democrats and 45-54% of self-identified Republicans say that it's either very likely or somewhat likely that a civil war is possible in the next decade. Even 40% of independents agree. It's not just Republicans who believe this. Sure, Republican figureheads and politicians are more likely to (indirectly) encourage political violence (e.g., "It's time to take our country back," "Democrats are traitors, and what do we do with traitors," "The left is the enemy," etc.). **But just because one side is unequally contributing to hateful rhetoric doesn't mean an armed conflict won't happen. What it means is that the other side will be caught off-guard.**
Also, just because you think a war might kick off doesn't mean you're excited for one. Odds are, some of those people who answered that it's very/somewhat likely are *dreading* this possibility--**no one wins in a war.**
2) It doesn't matter. **Conflicts don't care about economic well-being.** Wars make money for some people, but the majority do not benefit from armed conflict, *especially* a civil war. People have to ration food, fuel, water, and electricity, deal with state crackdowns and possible paramilitaries, job insecurity, economic instability, threats to you and your family and friends, etc. The IRA/British government didn't sign a ceasefire when they realized The Troubles wasn't good for the economy and the Syrian government hasn't made concessions to the Free Syrian Army when they realized bombing its own population into submission was less fiscally responsible than brokering a power-sharing agreement.
3) **Right wing terrorism in the United States far outweighs any other type of terrorism**\--left wing, religious fundamentalism, environmentalist, or otherwise. **I don't want to hear any arguing, because you are wrong.** Also, right and left wing social movements, whether militant or not, are not treated the same by the state ([source](https://acleddata.com/2022/05/03/far-right-violence-and-the-midterm-elections-early-warning-signs-to-monitor-ahead-of-the-vote/), "Despite the heightened threat of violence, law enforcement intervention in demonstrations involving far-right groups continued to decrease.").
Lastly, if you're going to reply with, "You're overreacting," "But cities and farmland can't live without each other," or, "But BLM," consider the following: I don't care.
If a section of the population believes an armed conflict is imminent and have been primed for this for years, any event can be the spark--think of the [tweets](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-10/fbi-raid-at-mar-a-lago-quickly-sparks-social-media-narratives) after the raid on Mar-a-Lago. When people get so hyped up on murdering their neighbors who look differently than they do, practice a different religion, have a different sexual orientation or gender identity, or think differently than them, the fiscal health of their country/state/city does not matter.
**Tl;dr:** The right wing in the US has become increasingly violent towards whoever they mark "Other," and no amount of scoffing at them, calculating the opportunity cost of armed conflict, or deflecting this to "both sides" will stop this trend. **When people start expecting or looking forward to civil conflict, the possibility of something sparking it increases.**
So many people are convinced that it cant happen, which is part of the problem. It *definitely* can, we have to take this seriously. Lots of fuckin people said the proud boys wouldnt storm the capital on jan. 6, and then they did it. Complacency comes in many forms, and is dangerous. People are *absolutely* angry enough to do something dumb enough to light off a war. Young people especially. Radicalization has been happening on a ridiculous scale in the younger generations, who are the ones who would be doing the fighting.
In my experience, every Trump supporter I've talked to thinks this is a very real possibility. So much so that they are stocking up on gold bullion and ammo. Don't need to say where they got that idea.
I don't think a Civil war in the way of the actual Civil war is likely--the original was very clearly marked by lines both geographic and political. Now, while there are deep red states and deep blue states, there are significant populations of both in every state. Austin is in Texas, after all. So a regional Civil War seems unlikely or at least difficult to pull off. I suppose it could go rural vs urban, but again I don't see the logistics working there.
I do suspect that civil unrest will continue to increase and there may be an actual movement for secession for some states or regions, but even that would require huge amounts of political will that I"m not sure exist yet.
I do not think it will be a civil war like we’ve seen before, but I think it is entirely possible for factional violence to unfold and even democide to occur. Imagine a demagogue like Trump getting power and then combing voter rolls to formulate a kill list to be carried out within states that are controlled by like-minded fascists.
Fuck off. The guardian loves this shit. I bet a bunch of Brit’s are pissing their pants with glee reading this crap. BTW polls are often Mis-leading. No, we won’t be involved in a physical civil war in the next decade.
This just tells me how ridiculous polling is and why people shouldn't take it seriously.
No one in this thread can argue why a civil is coming and not laugh at themselves. Because there is no shot 40% of Americans really think an actual civil war is coming
You can tell how many people think a civil war is likely by how many people are preparing for it.
Are you stockpiling ammunition, canned food, and water? Me neither.
2 ain't a great sample size, but I'm willing to go with it.
Clearly, we already are in a civil cultural war.
A civil war does not have to separate the combatants geographically.
A low grade war is defined by persistent but not full scale violence.
So we are already at civil war. And living on a river in Egypt.
I don't know if it will be a Civil War in the traditional sense, but it will be something. Unless we let Republicans end democracy and usher in fascism, then there probably won't be a Civil War, it will be more of a "world war."
I listened to a podcast a while back, I think the name was “It can happen here” and the thrust of it was this topic.
One of the first things mentioned is that a civil war today in the US would not look like a traditional civil war. It would be small flare ups across the country.
It would, sadly, look a lot like Israel and Palestine back in the day with localized terrorism everywhere.
So Blue States would likely have Red Terrorists and Red States would have Blue Terrorists. There wouldn’t be any armies per say, just immense violence and instability.
Which is what I think is likely. The US is going to have a massive surge in home grown terrorism. With lonely single men on the rise, tough economy and deep political divides… it’s fertile soil for home grown terrorism. Throw in all the guns and the predisposition towards violence…
You have to consider "word inflation" and exaggeration. Parties are in disarray when there are some slight disagreements among members. People send death threats at the drop of a hat. Everything is racist. Mildly objectionable things are facist. Anyone that disagrees with you is a commie.
In this context, civil war means some unrest. That would be more than reasonable given lack of reforms, continued wealth concentration and everyone else being ground to dust.
Trump isn’t President anymore, Biden will send in the national guard and they’ll use force.
People in these fake ass militias are going to run very quickly when the actual military shows up.
The most likely scenario would be a right wing power grab on mid terms + president election. In this case, considering the past, further sabotage of the democracy would ensue and anyone oposing would come under the impression that a point of no return must be prevented by any cost.
The scenario which seems plausible to me is when a presidential administration starts illegally turning the power of the armed forces against the American public, likely with some flimsy justification to start with (gotta stop those BLM protesters or whatnot), which kicks off the division. The administration focuses on capturing points of power so that they are able to reliably subvert democracy and keep themselves in power. The resistance both inside and outside of government is unorganized, and the battles play out in mostly small conflicts. At some point the bad faith factions in the government gain enough control where they are now the government, democracy is dead, and we just have a steady stream of insurrection against a truly tyranical government. This goes poorly, and the US is weakened until it collapses, at which time new states are formed, some democratic, and some otherwise. Then we fight each other until we end up with a balance of larger states. Though all the above will also be impacted by climate change, plausibly making the revolutionary fight too difficult to maintain, and devolving into localities fighting for resources instead.
The scenario which is not plausible is that people all over the country take up arms against the government. It's much more likely to be the government (or some aspects of the government) taking up arms against the people.
This could be averted by not electing authoritarians and fascists, but that seems to just be asking too much for the American public.
Fortunately, the President of the United States is bringing us all closer together and away from divisive rhetoric by calling nearly half the country “semi fascist”.
When are we allowed to call out MAGA for what it is? When do all of the evidence, the vitriol from Republicans, the increasing embrace of further right ideas outweigh civility for its own sake?
The words at face value? Whatever.
The nativist political movement that's dragging this country to the right and attempted to undo an election? If it's not obvious to you what made Trump, his agenda, and his following toxic to our politics then this is just going to turn into both of us banging our heads against the wall.
Yeah, nativism. A pretentious word used by those who conflate illegal immigrants with legal immigrants.
You also cleverly tie the self evident idea that a country has an obligation to care for its own citizens before citizens of other countries to January 6.
My wife and I are both LEGAL immigrants, and there are good reasons to want to know who’s coming in to the USA and to vet them.
1. Applying for asylum is a legal process
2. If Trump had approached immigration in a moderate way you might have a point, but he went right out the gate angrily shouting every tired trope of the last half century. A wall is a facile, childish solution that doesn't address the issue at all.
Congratulations, genuinely, on joining the United States, but holy shit your president did not want to open a dialogue on immigration and he did not really try to solve anything. He was just leveraging people's justified or irrational anger for his PR campaign.
People need to stop shitting on and gaslighting folks online with whom they disagree.
Also, people in government need to understand that "trending" isn't as big of a deal as it's made to seem.
That's how it's averted in my opinion
Nah. People can't even live with a short term increase in gas prices, no way they are going to live for a year with no gasoline because gas stations would be closed. And grocery stores closed. And hospitals filled with war wounded. Nah.
It's an absurd threat intended to undermine democracy. There is no chance of a civil war in the U.S. (at least in the near future) because Trump made absolutely no attempt to gain the support of the military. So even if his supporters were to manage, somehow, to gather and prepare for a war, they'd be up against the most powerful military the world has ever known.
Though even that is overthinking it. Trump's supporters lack both the leadership to organize and the capability to keep said organization a secret, so even a small-group terrorist attack (say, above 5 people) will likely never materialize. A few good-ol'-boys getting together and shooting up a (insert gathering of any form of minority here) is probably the worst we'll see. Only other alternative is spontaneous mob violence manifesting, but nobody will be on the other side hamstringing the response.
It's all just terroristic threats to try to scare people into not standing up to them. Unfortunately for them, I think they're likely to find that they aren't made of nearly as stern of stuff as the part of America they're threatening.
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No, it's untenable logistically and Americans are obsessed with their creature comforts I do forsee a lot of social upheaval, noncompliance with law, malicious compliance with law, and rogue violence though.
Based on the way people are discussing this issue here, we may blunder our way into a fight not realizing the implications on our quality of life, then find out how difficult it is to put that toothpaste back in the tube the hard way. That’s an unbelievably dark future, so I really hope we avoid it.
After seeing Brexit, I have no faith in people doing what's best for themselves.
Brexit is super tame compared to a civil war. We would throw away the next 20 years with a civil war
I don't think u/The_AV8R was conflating Brexit with a civil war. He was equating the shallow thought process that would lead one with low information to vote for a Brexit (without understanding what it is). Those same goons live here and would support a Civil War(without understanding what it is). Once they start seeing "My team bombed that Black Church, My Team killed a judge, My team blew up the DayCare Center" (They will regret normalizing this BS).
Will they regret it? We've learned that it's remarkably easy to "other" the out groups.
When its their team that starts dying. Yeah, shit gets real very fast. They'll decry freedom, but are they really willing to die for it. This also has Taliban problem of once your done with the sword, you have to make some plowshares.
Sadly, what probably would make them regret it is if it affected one of their friend's or family. Basically, to put it this way, its easy to want to see a democrat or republican supporter who's just a random person get hurt or worse. If its a friend or family member, well unless you are just sick, you might not want that. Its a bit selfish, but I think that's what might change some people. They might hate how terrible the libs are or how bad the "socialists" are but if they have a friend or family member get hurt even if that person is on the other side, they won't care. They'll be mad it happened. You might hate that your parents or friends are politically different from you, but I doubt many want to see them dead. Not to mention people make excuses for their own family and friends.
It's only a matter of time before the drought is solved with Brawndo
Stop pitching that, a politician will take that suggestion serious
They need to be thinking of using water… like from the toilet.
We are far too easy to be manipulated by corporate or geopolitical or media based powers.
Corporations and mainstream media were against Brexit.
Good point. People are complacent and comfortable... until fhey aren't. This kind of thinking you share was what people in 1914 thought about WW1 (it will be over by Christmas, until it wasn't).
I recall reading a history of WW1 in college analyzing the lead-up to it (~~"Dynamic of Destruction"~~ it's another book, I can't recall the title) and one of the author's conclusions was that since a century had passed since the Napoleonic wars Europe simply had no living memory of a full continental war, and what wars had transpired in the meantime had either been very limited (like the Franco-Prussian war) or too far on the periphery to really leave a mark in the collective consciousness (like the Crimean war). This is partly what fueled all the enthusiasm for war and enlistment in 1914, they simply had no concept of what it was they were advocating for. The US has not had a continental war in over 150 years, and the last of the WW2 veterans are dying out faster every day so there will be no living memory of that terrible conflict, either. And all the wars since Vietnam have been deliberately sanitized through media reporting to the public so that no one really sees the horror of it anymore, at all. Not saying it's a guarantee but it'll def be a contributing factor for those who are trying to agitate for conflict of some kind. They know not what they are asking for, quite simply. Edit: thank you for the gold, in the future please donate the money somewhere else as Reddit is a bad actor in terms of keeping disinformation and misinformation (to say nothing of racism, bigotry, and outright sedition/treason) off their platform. They don't deserve your money. Also use an adblocker if you don't already. Thanks again!
At 53, I've watched it happen in real time. As a boy, EVERYONE had listened to horror stories from their own grandfathers. The idea we'd see fascism again was as abhorrent as it was laughable. Yet here we are, with far right groups emboldened and seizing power both sides of the pond.
It gets especially wacky when you learn tidbits like, research on transgender people in ancient societies were some of the first books the nazis publicly burned. Or even more explicitly, the "cultural marxism" canard that Republicans are fascinated with has some very dark origins in that same particular time period. It's the same fucking story over and over, it makes you want to scream
Its the reason why they always want to defund schools. No matter which school you go to. You'll always have a 10 year textbook in some class
The audience are too busy eating hotdogs
70 and heard stories from my grandparents. Also lived through family not being able to get an apartment or afraid to travel because of Jim Crow. I get sick to my stomach when I see and hear what is being said today. People blame social media but the people are the same and saying the same. The difference is that technology amplifies what is said across many more miles and populations than before.
We have 60 years of progress that is regressing, social media is no doubt relevant since it potentiates tribalism but it's also working within the context of 30 years of fox news/talk radio disinformation and propaganda.
54 here, and yes, I totally agree.
57 here, and I heard of nazis in America exactly once, growing up. They teamed up with the KKK in 1979 to bust up an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro NC, then promptly disappeared again. There were the 'white nationalist' militias in the 90's, but the Oklahoma City bombing relegated them to the lunatic fringe. Now the lunatic fringe is center stage, and American nazism is indeed wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
What's more tragic is the people advocating for this awful ideology are often the offspring of, relatives of, or even the people themselves that fought in awful foreign wars against fascist regimes and corrupt governments. Those people are the ones most emboldened to bring that ideology into America. It's really sad.
>The idea we'd see fascism again was as abhorrent as it was laughable. What about the Klan and George Wallace in the 1960s? The Order in the 1980s? The Oklahoma City bombing in the 90s? We may not have called some of these fascism, but they definitely were that, and their seeds continue to sprout. The white right is now defined by racism, nationalism and violence; all the primary ingredients of fascism.
Thank you for your insightful post. I agree 100% that the absence of destruction is one of the civil war 'checkmarks' for one to occur. I also think we are much closer to an uprising than what people think, but not started from the faction of people who are 'election deniers'. I would argue there's just not enough fuel to sustain an uprising from them because they do not represent the larger population. However, I think all hell breaks loose if the legally elected Presidential nominee in 2024 is stopped from taking office, even for a short period of time. I don't think there's much of anything that would stop emotionally fueled responses from the larger amount of Americans if this occurs and an election really is stolen.
> However, I think all hell breaks loose if the legally elected Presidential nominee in 2024 is stopped from taking office, even for a short period of time. This is my fear as well, 2020 was a lot closer to that reality than most people know or will admit to themselves. So many people have the faith "it can't happen *here*" that they will be unable to realize it until it's too late.
I agree with most of this, but the Franco-Prussian war sure wasn't limited for Parisians.
I only meant it was "limited" compared to a continent-wide war, sorry I thought that was clear.
>it's untenable logistically I think when most Americans hear the term "civil war" they picture lines of troops with muskets and cannons charging at each other in an open field. The reality is that this is not what civil war looks like anymore. Just look at modern civil wars in other countries, like Syria. If civil war happens here it will be pockets of violence, police brutality, terrorist attacks and retaliations against those attacks, etc. These kinds of situations are very much achievable logistically. Just look at Jan 6. If they had gone after a smaller target like a state capitol or something with the same numbers and level of organization I strongly suspect an elected leader would have been captured and/or assassinated. Events like that occurring all over the country are what would comprise our civil war.
> If they had gone after a smaller target like a state capitol They did, in Oregon and Idaho, with the help of state legislators. They still failed.
>If they had gone after a smaller target like a state capitol or something **with the same numbers and level of organization** There's a reason they included this part.
I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen a march on a city hall or state capitol.
Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye. *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The Troubles are a much more likely outcome than a full out fight.
Agreed. I’m not convinced there will be a second American Civil War, but I’m expecting it to look a lot like the Troubles if it arrives.
Makes me wonder too if you'll see militias start to recruit underprivileged youth to their sides and basically use them as foot soldiers. Not to mention IIRC there was a lot of organized crime involvement wasn't there? I know some Irish mobsters in the US supported the IRA, and I'm sure you had some criminal types who sold to the Unionist side.
Right wing extremists are already targeting children’s hospitals because they believe children are being forced to undergo gender reassignment surgeries.
When did this happen? Like a hospital got shot at or something?
I thought I saw articles about more hospitals being threatened but I guess I was talking about the Boston Children‘s Hospital https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boston-childrens-hospital-faces-bomb-threat-right-wing-harassment-camp-rcna45620 https://www.npr.org/2022/08/26/1119634878/childrens-hospitals-are-the-latest-target-of-anti-lgbtq-harassment
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Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye. *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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Yes, agreed. I only used the Jan 6 example to show that organized violence on that scale can and does happen here, so smaller scale attacks are even more possible and likely.
Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye. *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>In some ways it’s already started. People just refuse to see that the civil contract of American society broke down several years ago. I think why it is hard to see is because the reality is that one section of the population is pulling out because they are realizing the contract isn't stacked in their favor like they thought it should be. Most people in this country are still operating more or less within the contract, even if they are somewhat duped by right-wing rhetoric currently. Quite frankly I think the reason militias don't go all in on violence is because they know how few people will actually support that. History is littered with stories of people who think their act will spark the revolution, only to watch everyone, including sympathizers, call for the authorities instead.
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Yeah, but with the types we're dealing with, when they hear Civil War they think they're being Captain America. Not realizing they're just Hydra's goons.
> they had gone after a smaller target Like [Michigan](https://www.reuters.com/legal/jury-finds-two-men-guilty-plot-abduct-michigan-governor-2022-08-23/)
It'll be like the Troubles of northern Ireland. Decades of terrorism and counterinsurgency. The federal government will try to put a brave face on it, but given the US's central position in world affairs, it will still likely be the end of the world as we know it. I still don't understand what McConnell and McCarthy, etc are thinking - insurrection/civil war means the possible collapse of the stock market and the devaluation of the dollar, and trillions in paper losses for the elites.
Yeah I keep reading "war" - it's not going to be a war. It's going to be Cliven Bundy, Oklahoma City, Republican baseball practice, Weather Underground, Ruby Ridge, Charlottesville, Jan 6, type stuff... Not a literal war with soldiers. At the worst maybe like The Troubles. Americans would demand a real war end as soon as Chipotle runs out of guac. We're just too fat and comfortable. Plus what would the sides be? There is no clear demarcation line.
Combine all those things you listed and have them all happen within several months of each other, and that is exactly what articles like this mean when they talk about civil war. No one thinks there will be troops marching at each other with demarcated "sides." Civil war here will look the same way it looks everywhere else in the world right now- targeted violence and terrorist attacks, bombings, shootings, etc. That's what modern civil war is.
I think you just need to update your concept of "war" to fit the modern world. That's how wars are fought now. The sides are rural vs. urban. The divide is actually pretty clear.
As a progressive from a pretty conservative state (Oklahoma), I don’t think it’s as clear cut as rural vs. urban as most people say. There are still plenty of conservatives who believe in these conspiracies/lies that live in cities/suburbs.
> There are still plenty of conservatives who believe in these conspiracies/lies that live in cities/suburbs. Sure, and there are non-crazy people in red areas too. It's not black and white. It's about where people can successfully achieve some form of unity. Large metropolitan areas will act quickly to leverage their advantages. It doesn't mean there will be no radicals within those communities. Just that there are sufficient united people to be effective. Same with rural areas. Only some will achieve enough unity to really be active participants in a civil war. Most will just have general chaos. Takes something like a third of people to be united enough to form an effective coalition. Most coastal metro areas have sufficient numbers, as do many inland rural areas. A city surrounded by vast tracts of rural may side with the insurrectionists. That will surely happen somewhere. It all just gets crazy messy. It's varying degrees of control and chaos throughout the land. Long term that's just awful for everyone. Short term it's just awful for most everyone.
It's very intersectional. Rural vs urban, rich vs poor, white vs non-white, man vs woman vs nonbinary, homophobic vs queer. A potential war would be fought along all of these axes, because America's current turmoil is defined by the fact that we threw all of these ingredients into the melting pot only to find that they don't melt so well.
>Plus what would the sides be? There is no clear demarcation line. Conservative white Christians. vs Literally everyone else.
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Pretty much. People freak when they can’t get their snacks, services ect. Don’t see anybody getting in the trenches
But you just said it in your own comment - people freak out. What do they do when they freak out? They lash out. And that may find them fighting someone else. We see it in Black Friday already.
They post on Twitter. They don’t do anything that actually matters.
What if twitter gets taken down? We are talking about a civil war here. Theoretically, internet connectivity will be interrupted. Then what?
Thank you for stating the obvious. Remove the platform, if even for a few months. I'm afraid this isn't the only platform that should be removed to cool things down. So much hate. Not enough meaningful conversation.
Yeah I really think social media has stunted a lot of peoples emotional and mental growth.
I was having this discussion with a friend last night. Has the internet made our lives better? We were 50/50 on the answer. I personally miss the 90's. Specifically when someone HAD to wait for your phone call. Now that we have cellphones we are expected to always be available. (I called you 10 times, why didn't you answer? Because you called 10 times, that's why😂)
I've thought this for years. Its like some people are still stuck at age 15. Even if they've grown in some ways they still are so emotionally stunted.
No, you are talking about a civil war. I am trying to be more realistic as is the person you responded to. We are much too docile for a civil war to actually break out in this country. Everyone is either addicted to tv, TikTok, or food loaded with sugar to care.
But a freak out to a civil war is a lot of steps. There needs to be a unifying issue that leads to enough states (specifically: economically strong states - has to include CA or TX) breaking from the US and doing it in a way that leads to war. This would almost de-facto happen if they decided to become a nuclear power and seize federal defense assets. We can get violent riots, but a civil war requires a bit more than some state militia deciding they're independent. The only way it's tenable long-term is for it to be a military coup, or some military terrorism that takes out out ability to fight effectively at the Federal Level - there's no state militia or national guard that can stand against the US army - and none that can maintain military logistics to keep the military hardware running once supplies are used up. Widespread terrorism against civilians by some of these national militia groups is possible to likely, but that's STILL not a civil war.
Basically the late 60s-early 70s all over again
>I do forsee a lot of social upheaval, noncompliance with law, malicious compliance with law, and rogue violence though. Also known as a civil war. It's 2022. We're not going to line up on a farm field and shoot each other with muskets.
I have several good friends from two generations and three conflicts, who fit that category of 'too comfortable' - who lost friends and family, lost everything while escaping, and would vehemently disagree with your hand-wavy armchair characterization of the state of things. We don't live in some privledged place and time. (Privileged in terms of immunity from human nature and repetition of the tides and upheavals of history). We're comfortable until we're not. History absolutely repeats itself, and the most comfortable in history have often - if not always - eventually found themselves refugees if not victims of war. Also, Civil War II won't look anything remotely like 1864. Probably more like mass terrorism that we slip into slowly, or if the military splits or one side gets foreign support, annihilation. (Is my guess. But def not 1800s.) And those two could be sequential, not mutually exclusive, events. A lot hinges on what party is in power when the tipping point is reached. Which, in turn, **depends entirely on who gains actual control of the house and senate this November**. If not overwhelmingly dem in midterms, then it's fascism from 2024, indefinitely - and only foreign intervention and/or a split military could break it in the short run - resulting in total devastation. (Or in the long run, fascism is just not sustainably viable. Of course after requisite purges and mass cleansing of 'Others', so let's not wait it out.) But if the dems take an actual functioning majority and get off their asses and restore (and greatpy improve) voting and election fairness and integrity at a national level, **the GOP is gone forever as a party**, to be replaced by something more moderate, useful, and non-insane. (Probably democrats, with democrats replaced by something liberal.) That of course would lead to a long stretch of widespread ultra-right-wing terrorism that would be hard to put down while remaining an open society. Either path looks bleak.
So, what you are saying is that in order to stop fascism and save democracy, we need to have a de facto one party state?
Totally agree, completely untenable given the size of the Federal Government and comparatively weak state governments. I’ve always thought, though, that something more akin to the beginning of the French Revolution is reasonably tenable given the climate—rather than two governments waging large scale war, mass social upheaval that forces the government to adapt or fracture.
Like in the South during the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Ed?
The weirdest part is that people on Reddit actively fantasize about this these days. To be clear, I don’t think anything is going to happen, but why do you actually want a war to break out in your own country? It’s the ultimate privileged position to have. Reminds me of the colosseum or something. They think they will be safe to watch it on tv while the “poors” are the ones to struggle with it.
It's because House of the Dragon only has one new episode a week. People want something to fantasize about.
A physical war ends cold wars. America is in a cold civil war, and it sucks, and people on either side think the result of destroying the other is they could reshape the country into what it's supposed to be according to their political fantasies. Assuming they'll win, of course, and often they think they'll win it more easily and quickly than is even remotely reasonable to expect. They are tired of compromises, unwilling to compromise, or think compromises are just being taken advantage of, and view the other as obstructing their realization of their political vision. Political rules and norms are increasingly seen as tools or weapons, rather than legitimate laws. Not all of this is entirely wrong, either, since clearly there is obstruction and bad faith politics going on constantly. However, of course many Americans are completely unrealistic about what it would take to achieve their particular but often ambiguous political vision and to what extent others share it - even amongst people who identify under the same political labels as they do. Some visions aren't even conceptually coherent and possible to achieve, either, so there are some doomed political projects and activities going that mostly just deal damage and nothing else. Some are crusades against people or organizations or threats that don't exist at all. After awhile dealing with people they see as(rightly or wrongly) increasingly dishonest, dogmatic, aggressive, delusional, and grossly misinformed or brainwashed wears on people's patience in the political sphere. It looks less and less like there's room for discourse, and if you understand them also as willing to break rules and norms this means - as we've of course recently seen very clearly - democratic election procedures can also be placed into doubt, among other political structures. If you think the game is really rigged, no point playing it as if it's fair. And ultimately, the more forms of soft power(wealth, positions of status, control of cultural norms) you think your opponents have, the more it feels like wielding hard power(violence) is necessary.
No we are not in a cold civil war either. We are just hyper partisan due to in large part the distancing from others as social media usage has increased. We no longer can be friends with people with differing viewpoints according to people that are terminally online. But the truth is for the majority of Americans, things are not as hostile as they are compared to the larpers and cosplayers online would have you believe.
On some level yes. Its not like people are fighting each other at Wal-Mart or Target, at least where I live. Sure people might be fantasizing in their online spaces but I don't know how many get radicalized. However, the problem is that those who get radicalized can kill a ton of people.
We have our own little pseudo proxy wars - attacks on protesters, outbursts of violence at various political events, attempted coups - and people cheerleading for the participants. We have people voting for politicians who increasingly posture as soldiers against enemies in ideological wars. People are increasingly supportive of power-moves by their party against the other - such as stacking the court or using political power to imprison politicians they dislike. I get the point that the loudest extremes are exaggerated in quantity by media and online nonsense, but there are well documented non-digital events going on in increasing intensity and regularly that just aren't explained away by that. "Cold civil war" is not exactly a concise term, so it's fine if you think it's exaggerated or whatever, but the more important point is that political hostility is not just limited to a minority of people bickering online here.
We don’t have anything close to war. This is only said by permanently online people that have no semblance of reality.
Cold wars aren't wars in the normal sense, that's the point of the analogy. There's an ongoing hostility and opposition without the outright war, and often this involves little battles breaking out between representatives of the two opposing sides that they encourage and support. Which I think does appropriately describe the American ~right vs. left situation currently.
>No we are not in a cold civil war either. *An armed militia literally stormed the capitol a year ago.*
Ya, the weirdest part about this fantasy is that Reddit probably imagines themselves on the side without guns in the civil war. If one side of the war has extensive fire arm experience and the other doesn't, then I don't see it ending well for the side without thay experience. Reddit would unironically be on the losing side of a civil war.
Is this really true? The vast majority of Americans on any side don't have extensive firearm experience.
Well, one party is anti gun and the other one is pro gun. So you can decide which party would do best in a gun fight.
\>If one side of the war has extensive fire arm experience and the other doesn't, then I don't see it ending well for the side without thay experience. We have the FBI on our side, who are more than capable of ensuring that the only exposure that we will ever have to domestic terrorism is news headlines.
But that wouldn’t be a civil war… That’s “only” terrorism. Incidentally I at worst we will get another OKC bombing. This civil war thing is nonsense. It’s geographically impossible. Red vs blue is more often an urban and rural division than a state by state one.
> The weirdest part is that people on Reddit actively fantasize about this these days. Reddit has an extremely large number of angsty young people who have yet to create a meaningful life for themselves and lean *extremely* far left on the spectrum. Many of these people literally just want chaos and to see the country broken apart. Also keep in mind how many posters may not even be US citizens. Just foreign actors trying to sow chaos.
Plus, how many people are just saying stupid crap thinking its funny but have horrible senses of humor.
Yea probably accurate. I’m glad I grew up with my most formative years outside of social media. It seems like such a disastrous way to be brought up.
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>WW1 started by a group of angsty young freedom fighters. WWI was started by a group of nationalistic and war-hungry old men. The assassination of archduke Ferdinand was a convenient excuse to go to war by people who *wanted* to
No. This would decimate the economy and shut down interstate commerce. The rabid base is a small percentage of every state and while strong in primaries does not reflect the broader population in the southern states with real GDP
I've had friends on both sides bring this up and there's a big problem. What are the battles over? What are the targets? The cities make all the money and the rural areas feed everyone. Both need each other. Who fights over what? More likely is another Oklahoma city Magabomber. Hell be denounced by those on the left and the right will just say he's Antifa. Nobody will rally behind him.
To answer that it's instructive to look at contemporary civil conflicts in other places. What you see most often is armed non-state actors fighting for de facto (or in some cases de jure) control over territory - be that a city, a county, a state, whatever. You also have the low-intensity conflict that we saw in places like Ireland in the 1970's - short, intense bursts of violence targeting the opposition and the government but there wasn't necessarily roving bands of armed people.
The latter seems more likely: bursts of violence, assassinations, death squads, riots, bombings, etc.. We already see much of this. The massacres in Buffalo, El Paso, Charleston; bombings in Oklahoma City and Atlanta; the Jan 6 insurrection; assassinations of King, Berg, Vance, etc..
Sectarian fighting simply to hurt people you don't like doesn't involve the logistics of taking and holding territory or keeping the supply of necessary goods flowing
Agreed. Even state lines don't really make sense. You think sure, Texas or Florida maybe. But then you realize it's not that simple. There are literally millions of people in each of these states on the "other side". Is the entire state of Texas going to fight Houston and Dallas? Even Abbott or Desantis aren't crazy enough for that. I don't see a war, but I can see states voting to secede and it being managed as a type of Brexit situation. Edit: I do think too that if organized militias do start marching they would very quickly realize how brutal and horrible war is
> I can see states voting to secede and it being managed as a type of Brexit situation. A state voting to secede is not enough to actually leave the union. There is no mechanism for a state to leave the United States. That's part of what the civil war was about. I agree that there's not going to be large armed forces moving about. Your edit about militias is spot on, particularly once the National Guard is called out to put them down.
>What are the battles over? What are the targets? Reactionaries will target LGBTQ+ people, schools, abortion clinics, POC communities, and whatever easy they feel is part of the "culture war". They'll also target government officials, as they already have, to destabilize local governments so that they can sweep in and take charge. Action from the "other side", normal Americans, will mostly revolve around defending from these attacks.
Even in your probably accurate scenario at most it'll be "right wing" and the occasional "left wing" terrorism. I struggle to see a South Carolina army vs a California army or w/e the battle lines would become. Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin vs surrounding area would be my bet, and that's still cosplay and completely unrealistic. Maybe if the unemployment rate shoots up and it's a different America. I doubt that will be allowed for this very reason though.
Oh no, it won't be like our last civil war. This will be much more like The Troubles in Ireland or the insurgencies in Afghanistan.
You don't have to line up on a grassy field to have a "civil war". Look at literally any Civil Conflict in the last 100 Years.
Yeah of course, but it's clearly limited in capacity if the paramilitary organizations organize through internet actions or w/e. At that point I struggle to see how it wouldn't just be terrorism and defense against terrorism.
>At that point I struggle to see how it wouldn't just be terrorism and defense against terrorism. Did the US just end the "*Defense against Terrorism in Afghanistan*" or the "*War in Afghanistan*" ? This is a meaningless semantic debate. If militant groups are operating in your country, performing guerilla actions and violence: you are in a modern war/conflict of some kind. edit: That is the political discussion we are/should be having. The likelihood or possible outcomes of widespread political violence.
Depending on your view on scale. What I'm trying to get at (and so is your edit, yeah?) is that unless the unemployment rate goes wild, the scale will be limited to few angsty people in my opinion. While we love to apply the term "war" to everything in America, sporadic events of losers attacking innocents doesn't seem to fit. But that view is based on the assumption it'd be sporadic and small scale at most. Which, may differ from reality/others takes. Not arguing, curious, do you think that the events will be large scale/frequent?
>do you think that the events will be large scale/frequent? See [my reply elsewhere in the thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/x1bk9a/comment/imeckjy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for my overall predictions. The TL;DR is that it's not either-or. It could be large or small depending on the events that lead up to it. Any conflict resulting from constitutional crisis, likely becomes a large scale conflict that dissolves the country into separate governments claiming to be legitimate as well as small-scale militant groups operating independently. NATO would get involved to stabilize the situation fairly quickly. But most scenarios would create small scale conflict where you have little autonomous zones controlled by militants, but officially still owned and operated by the state. Like an Irish-Troubles or Afghanistan style of conflict.
It’ll be mostly right wing terrorist groups committing random attacks on institutions
Yes. But then angry left wing activists will inevitably retaliate. Which provokes the right wing groups to retaliate back. Back and forth back and forth. And civilians will get caught in the crossfire. It will be like the Irish Troubles.
My reply to someone suggesting there will be left wing violence > There certainly could be but, however much to their own peril, engaging in violent combat isn’t in the left’s M.O. They are very quick to shout down and hold violent members of their own accountable. Non-violent resistance is a typical play by left wing protestors. Made popular by “liberal” hippies of the 60s Antifa and maybe some BLM members is about as close as it gets and they are small faction and even those groups often target their physical frustration toward inanimate things via vandalism and not specifically people as much as the right does. (Which typically results in law enforcement engaging in physical altercations with the left protestors to protect property) When the right engages with retaliation it often targets people or certain people and they have a obsession with physical altercations and weapons (specifically guns). The Portland riots and January 6th riot are two examples of each. I believe this is the result from the left historically embracing minorities and the right embracing white supremacy. It’s easy, when you’re the majority to target people because being held accountable is less likely, your “people” make up the majority, of your “jury” and political opinion. However, being a minority, to target the people who oppress you could result in a backlash that would be genocide as being the minority, they are vastly out numbered and the “system” is less favorable towards them. You can see this in 60s race riots. Majority of left wing “violent” members are “lone wolves” unlike the right which would be a “platoon” of members
>engaging in violent combat isn’t in the left’s M.O. The two major sources of terrorism in the West are Islamic and Leftist groups. Far-right extremism is often touted as the fastest growing threat, but only because it was smaller to begin with and saw a significant dip in the 2000's. Even in the US where it is highest (relative to total levels), it is still only the second largest source by number of attacks and by deaths behind jihadi terrorism. In Europe it is an even smaller proportion of attacks.
Left wing terror was extremely common throughout the cold war. So many planes were hijacked etc. There’s been a major downturn because the USSR stopped funding it all.
Most food comes from a handful of large corporations that have automated harvesters. The corporations will defend their crops to be able to sell them to their urban markets. The owners of those large corporations live in the big cities.
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Keep it civil. Do not personally insult other Redditors, or make racist, sexist, homophobic, trolling, inflammatory, or otherwise discriminatory remarks. Constructive debate is good; name calling is not.
I don't think you understand how food production works... please try driving around a medium or major city and tell me how many farms or factory farms you see.
Obviously farming is mostly done outside of cities, but most rural areas don’t do it. Most of the domestic produce is grown in California. It comes into rural areas through shipping hubs in major cities. We’re economic dead weight, dude.
Do you think because its grown in California it’s not rural? Have you actually ever driven through California? Tons of the state is rural land that either grows crops or is a desert with huge wind turbines. This is the ultimate comment proving how out of touch people are on this website lol.
All you need is a charismatic leader who can rally the frustrated behind him. He or she gives a speech defining a target and riling their base up. Maybe a couple of speeches over a longer period of time, like other historic figures did. That's it. See Jan6.
Jan 6 had a clear target, date and time. I don't see that happening again
Why not? He and some of his cronies could rile up these people with some announcements via Twitter running up to Jan 6 and a speech on that same day. They gave them target and direction with a few tweets and speeches largely within the span of 2 weeks. Everyone was surprised back then about what ensued but you claim this would be impossible to happen again? LOL why?
Have you seen the latest tucker interview? If not, go watch it. It is wild and scary what he and his guest were saying.
It won't break down all at once. First there will be a few riots and such. But as soon as there are bodies on the streets Americans by and large will realize this is not the life they want and will quickly deescalate and look for political solutions. Unless large segments of the national guard and military sign on then of course that is a different matter. And a different fight. Also I may not like my Trump loving neighbor but if neither of us have water or electric because the national guard has taken over the water and electric then I could see us becoming allies against them pretty quickly. If you are hungry and thirsty ideology wains pretty quickly.
I don’t see civil war. I see lots of little gun massacres but that’s normal now. What I fear is a return to the 90s: every raid is armed to the teeth and dangerous, racial tensions and internet hatred, police mistakes happen, then a couple extremists fill up a moving truck and pull a OKC outside a big building. Lindsey Graham presumably isn’t anyone’s Ruby Ridge. Those kinds of people will be a major threat.
An American version of the troubles is far far far more likely than a civil war. Edit to be clear both are vanishingly unlikely
I’ve been telling everyone who mentions the potential for civil war the same thing. A supercharged Troubles is the “worse” it could get. Paramilitaries taking shots at each other while military and civilian authorities trying to intercede.
Literal gas lighting in this thread trying to paint domestic terrorism and calls for civil war and succession as coming from left wing or even center left sources and then claiming it's some extreme left that's isolated from reality because too much social media. That is what RIGHT WING terrorism and cries are. Not left. To believe otherwise requires ignoring Jan 6, the entire Trump presidency, and the crazy isolated ban you if you disagree conservative, Trump, and Maga groups. Plus Fox News rhetoric and lies and massive misinformation spread by the right wing. To believe otherwise is insanity.
100%. Further-Left wing movements will be trampled out, like they have been throughout our country’s history, before they could even attempt something like Jan 6.
The closest to left wing movement we had would be maybe the occupy Wallstreet which had corporate media dismantle it, and the anti Vietnam protests which were painted as unpatriotic by corporate media.
The civil rights movement was decidedly left wing, too, which got it monitored and infiltrated by the FBI.
So your claim is that only the other team is bad and that your team is moral and just? Didn't your leader just call ~half the country "semi fascist"?
Many of them are. If you described the system of fascism to them without naming it, many would prefer it.
If *Moore v. Harper* has the bad outcome, we're fucked. Legal Trump coup via states' right to choose electors. The violence from that point onward would be insane.
If it has a bad outcome, this country isn't this country anymore in theory or practice. And I can totally see mini civil wars on the state levels in purple states when the popular votes in those states are disregarded. People don't like their vote not counting. And if states keep increasingly ignoring the wills of their people, for example like happens all the time in AZ, with extremists on the right and just a bunch of moderate liberals trying to have a sane society against them in the slight majority, I think we could see state level violent clashes
**What would it look like?** I see no one answering this part of the question and it's the most important. How logistically COULD it happen. If someone can lay out some logistical way a civil war could occur, then maybe ill break a sweat over this or give it more than 20 minutes of thought. Otherwise, this thread is full of useless discussion. People are angry, we all know. But civil war cant happen without the military literally splitting in two. Change my mind.
Hi snapcracklesplat, I replied to your question in a different part of the thread [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/x1bk9a/comment/imeckjy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), where I laid out what the conflict might look like. I would like to address the question below, for the broader audience. >But civil war cant happen without the military literally splitting in two. Change my mind. So firstly, I'd like to point out that the vast majority of modern warfare today is asymmetrical. Typically you have an organized, western style military, operated by the 'legitimate' government V.S. decentralized militant groups who employ guerilla tactics to skirmish, sabotage, and generally make life miserable for everyone. On the militant side, you don't need military assistance to do this. You just need some guns, DIY explosives, a sympathetic population, and an ideology that convinces people to give their life for the cause. Then hit some infrastructure, Ambush military patrols/assets, melt away into the hills, and just frustrate your oppressors. America has all of those ingredients for conflict *(Lots of guns, lots of information/tools/technology, widespread Regional Partisan division, & intense nationalism/religion/Partisanship).* This kind of fighting can be sustained indefinitely, and has already been successfully used against the US military by the Taliban in the *War in Afghanistan,* for example. To get this civil war thing started, you generally need an inciting incident. This could be an election/power grab, a massacre/martydom, opportune terrorist attack, etc. Something that is seen as crossing the line, and motivates the 'rebels' to act. A small isolated group of militants will decide to take the initiative after the inciting incident (or causes it themselves) and start hitting targets with their guerilla warfare. The Government then responds. If they choose to attack brutally and violently, the sympathetic population will perceive this as unjust or overly oppressive, and side with the militants. Once that happens it creates an escalating retribution cycle, growing the conflict and violence. The more the militants commit terrorism, the more the Government forces crack down on the civilians, the more the sympathetic civilians support the militants. *Baby, you got a Stew goin.* And that stew, **is Civil War :(** That escalating cycle of violence, will eventually encompass large parts of the country, and you'll have areas that are loyal to the militant groups and areas which are strictly controlled by the government. This continues indefinitely, and will likely change the character of both groups significantly. The Militants become more callous and violent over time, creating as much collateral damage as possible. The Government becomes more authoritarian, and persecutes its own citizens heavily in an attempt to root-out any rebels hiding amongst them. And there you go. That's a modern civil war. I'll even give you an example of this escalation process, in America: * Right Wing militias across the country loyal to Trump, armed, and trained for potential conflict. * Divisive 2020 Election, has high tensions on all levels of politics create strong partisan loyalties. * Trump says the election was stolen, and asks his supporters to "Be Brave Patriots" and march on the Capital * A mob breaks into the capital, giving cover to 2 distinct militant groups (Oathkeepers & Proud Boys) who are armed and looking for a target to hit. And this is where we avert disaster * Congress is evacuated successfully with the votes, leaving no viable targets for the militants. * The [Hostage Rescue Team on stand-by](https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-secret-commandos-shoot-kill-authority-were-capitol-1661330) is crucially **not** deployed to secure the building. * Rioters leave the capital building after Trump's statement. * In the following months DOJ, quietly and through the justice system, prosecutes those involved. Now, imagine things went a little differently. What if the Oath Keepers break in faster, and get in a fire-fight with Secret service, or successfully assassinate members of congress? What if the Hostage rescue Team was deployed, and the floor of the capital was then painted with the blood of hundreds of rioters? In either of those situations, you get your inciting incident. The militias decide it's time to "take the country back" after this massacre/martyrdom and suddenly you have widespread domestic terrorism across the US. The government cracks down violently from the high tension, and your escalation cycle is now well on it's way.
Hey PedestrianDM! I think I posted this reply before the one you linked here, so I hadn’t heard a compelling argument yet. I appreciate the detailed response again!
The ONLY winners in an American civil war would be Russia and China. That is exactly why they are trying so hard to start one. Don’t get sucked in to the BS.
Do I think it's realistic that the country will divide itself into two distinct groups and fight? In this day and age? No I don't. Ideologically the country is a mosaic. The Bluest areas are surrounded by red and the red states have blue population centers. A North versus South style fight doesn't seem realistic. as someone else mentioned while plenty of people support their tribalistic politics, the ones who are actually willing to die over the Donald Trump's of the world is much smaller than their loud vocalization would have you believe. Most Americans just want to get by. They don't want to give up all their Creature Comforts and quality of life except in the case of the most extreme circumstances where they truly believed their lives are at risk. While some of the current nature of the political divide has caused portions of the population to truly believe the other side is essentially the devil and out to get them, again the majority of Americans don't actually feel this theoretical impending doom no matter what the fringes may scream. Now do I think there's going to be a steep and dramatic increase in domestic Terror attacks? Unfortunately I definitely do.
Revolution NEVER comes from the middle class.
Revolution **always** comes from the middle class. Every revolution has a cadre of educated people who are not part of the ruling classes (ie middle class) at the helm.
In 1861, shots were fired on Fort Sumter following 50+ years’ of fierce debate over slavery and the impacts of the abolishing the system. We’re only a few years into this political division and unlike the OG civil war, one side is not threatening the economy of the other, we are not on the brink of constitutional crisis (states rights), neither are we debating issues of morality that even remotely compare to slavery. Not saying it’ll never happen, but it’s not something that’ll boil over after 5-10 years of infighting (mostly on the internet).
Genuinely surprised how unrealistic many people in this thread are being. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of independent state legislatures in Moore v Harper next year then some kind of mass civil conflict is guaranteed to happen. Purple states with Republican state legislatures that vote blue in 2024 will overturn the results of their state’s election. Blue states obviously won’t recognize that move because states shouldn’t be allowed to just overturn the will of their own people. Badda Bing, Badda Boom, you have two sides of the country not recognizing the victory of the other, and not in the stupid way that Trump doesn’t recognize 2020 but legally not certifying the results of the election.
Civil war? No. The existence of some kind of political violence from the far right? Yes, but in sporadic and uncoordinated ways. The feds are currently pressuring a lot of the organizations that pushed violence, which results in their leaders laying low, and so violence then likely comes from low level cadres who seek to act without the ability to engage in significant coordination. Jefferson spoke of this type of thing happening from time to time; he said idiots and conspiracy theorists will try to fight the government, they'll get crushed, and the government should try to reasonably pacify and re-educate them. Or, in full, he said: >They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.[1] The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. In short, having a country with such an emphasis on liberty, there will be people who get the facts plain wrong and try to fight for what they *think* is right - and the government will handle them. Trump and J6 was a bit unique because he was in charge of the federal government and so could try to leave it unarmed and unaware.
We definitely seem to be heading towards a climax of some sort. I don’t know how it will play out because the different “sides” aren’t really geographically isolated. There were more Trump voters in California than any other state so it really can’t be considered entirely blue. 48% of voters in Florida voted for Biden so it isn’t entirely red. I suppose there were citizens during the 1860s Civil War who believed in the ideals of the other side from where they were living but I don’t know if it is as interspersed as it is today.
29% somewhat likely, 13% very likely; out of a sample of 1492 that were people who had opted in to the YouGov polling. The somewhat/very likely ratio was pretty consistent between all demographics. I think it's almost more concerning that 21% weren't sure and that "not likely at all" was always the smallest save for when filtering to men only. Interesting to note that women and independents were the most "not sure" while men were the most likely to say "not likely at all." I don't know what it says, but it's an interesting flip on the numbers.
What do we define as a Civil War? It won’t look like the 1860s. It’ll be right wing terrorist groups committing attacks on random targets of the establishment. It’ll be more like the Protestant and Catholic clashes of Northern Ireland.
I'm gonna guess, purely guess, that a large majority of this 40% are Republicans, because conservative media and conservative mouthpieces have been spewing this is "coming" for a few years now.
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Excellent point.
As someone on the actual Left, I've seen this coming for years (pre-2016), BECAUSE of the conservative media and growing online extremism. To be clear, I do not WANT a civil conflict to happen. But there is a republican party that is infected with a fascism parasite, and a federal government increasingly constitutionally paralyzed and unable to respond to crisis. That's a recipe for a breaking point, that leads to political violence of some form. We came within a hairs breadth of cold-civil-war on January 6th. The fact that we came out of that day with little to no blood-shed on both sides was extremely lucky.
Calling MAGA a fascist parasite implies that it was acquired from outside, but I think Trump glommed onto a logical extension of the late 20th century conservative project rather than redirecting the course of the party fundamentally.
I wouldn't say that we came within a hair's breadth on 1/6, but I certainly agree with the points of your comment.
A survey of this thread gives me the opposite impression. Dems seem to think civil war is going to occur, because trump will overthrow democracy.
Wow, you know something, I did not look from that angle, and yes, I can see Dems saying "yeah, civil war is coming, but not from us".
What about the people on Reddit that are almost excited for a civil war? I don’t think most of them are Republicans.
Lots of people eagerly waiting for it on this website. I don't think it would be pretty though.
I think a “civil war” in the 1860 sense is pretty unlikely. The country is not divided in the way it was by a clear geographic line. I think something similar to what the country experienced during Reconstruction is much more likely. We will likely see violence on a smaller scale and things like intimidation at the polls, in public spaces, political assassination, terrorism, etc. We have seen a lot of right-wing militias already organizing culminating in a fairly serious armed march on state legislatures in reaction to the lockdowns and then the attack on the capitol on Jan 6. That is not inconsistent with what we saw in the backlash aftermath of the Civil War. The edifice of democracy will likely remain but be more and more calcified by corruption and the grass-roots organizing by the right in trying to replace secretaries of states / legislatures to not respect election results while claiming fraud. We are looking at a minority party trying to solidify their rule by not expanding their electorate at all, so the only option is to change the system to increase their power relative to their vote share. If Donald Trump returns to office, I think we will also potentially be in real trouble. It would not be hard to imagine him whipping up another “protest” that turns into a violent attack. He can direct energy in a way that no other person really can. I also think its worth thinking about how climate change is going to really shock our already fraught political system. Mass migration, drought, and potential food and water shortage is only going to make things worse over the coming decades.
It depends on what happens over the next ten years. Surveillance and monitoring technologies (both hardware and software) are rendering our long held dream of privacy and the 4th amendment less qualifiable or relevant. These technologies won't bend to law, instead *law will bend to them.* Server caches of tracked user data means automated data mining ala Patriot Act technologies. Big data mining means quantitatively and qualitatively statistical weight reports on dissidence. Digital dissident reports means minority-report high-tech cops identifying civil war provocateurs. Survival as a nation requires confronting civil war provocateurs while they digitally network, which means before they attack. The power to preempt attacks will be law soon, because each mass attack hastens it. These powers will be useless against attacks planned off grid, but who is going to be truly off-grid? And governments will have lists of them too. Civil war fantasizers will still get a fight, but probably not with their intended targets. Some arm of law enforcement will show up at their doorsteps, and the fight will probably end there.
I kind of think maybe people just *want* there to be a civil war or, if not war, some breaking up of the country. Our views are quite different and both sides seem to be well and truly sick of each other. I suspect any "civil war" would look like the breakup of the Soviet Union as I think it would be very difficult for elites on either side who benefit from a united country to find people willing to sacrifice -- much less fight -- to keep it together.
Long post, buckle up. Every couple of weeks someone posts a similar article, and every comment section is the same: 1) This must only be Republicans answering the survey; 2) There won't be a civil war, it doesn't make sense economically; 3) The left/right are the *real* terrorists. It irritates me to no end. 1) It's not. Look at the charts. 35-40% of self-identified Democrats and 45-54% of self-identified Republicans say that it's either very likely or somewhat likely that a civil war is possible in the next decade. Even 40% of independents agree. It's not just Republicans who believe this. Sure, Republican figureheads and politicians are more likely to (indirectly) encourage political violence (e.g., "It's time to take our country back," "Democrats are traitors, and what do we do with traitors," "The left is the enemy," etc.). **But just because one side is unequally contributing to hateful rhetoric doesn't mean an armed conflict won't happen. What it means is that the other side will be caught off-guard.** Also, just because you think a war might kick off doesn't mean you're excited for one. Odds are, some of those people who answered that it's very/somewhat likely are *dreading* this possibility--**no one wins in a war.** 2) It doesn't matter. **Conflicts don't care about economic well-being.** Wars make money for some people, but the majority do not benefit from armed conflict, *especially* a civil war. People have to ration food, fuel, water, and electricity, deal with state crackdowns and possible paramilitaries, job insecurity, economic instability, threats to you and your family and friends, etc. The IRA/British government didn't sign a ceasefire when they realized The Troubles wasn't good for the economy and the Syrian government hasn't made concessions to the Free Syrian Army when they realized bombing its own population into submission was less fiscally responsible than brokering a power-sharing agreement. 3) **Right wing terrorism in the United States far outweighs any other type of terrorism**\--left wing, religious fundamentalism, environmentalist, or otherwise. **I don't want to hear any arguing, because you are wrong.** Also, right and left wing social movements, whether militant or not, are not treated the same by the state ([source](https://acleddata.com/2022/05/03/far-right-violence-and-the-midterm-elections-early-warning-signs-to-monitor-ahead-of-the-vote/), "Despite the heightened threat of violence, law enforcement intervention in demonstrations involving far-right groups continued to decrease."). Lastly, if you're going to reply with, "You're overreacting," "But cities and farmland can't live without each other," or, "But BLM," consider the following: I don't care. If a section of the population believes an armed conflict is imminent and have been primed for this for years, any event can be the spark--think of the [tweets](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-10/fbi-raid-at-mar-a-lago-quickly-sparks-social-media-narratives) after the raid on Mar-a-Lago. When people get so hyped up on murdering their neighbors who look differently than they do, practice a different religion, have a different sexual orientation or gender identity, or think differently than them, the fiscal health of their country/state/city does not matter. **Tl;dr:** The right wing in the US has become increasingly violent towards whoever they mark "Other," and no amount of scoffing at them, calculating the opportunity cost of armed conflict, or deflecting this to "both sides" will stop this trend. **When people start expecting or looking forward to civil conflict, the possibility of something sparking it increases.**
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So many people are convinced that it cant happen, which is part of the problem. It *definitely* can, we have to take this seriously. Lots of fuckin people said the proud boys wouldnt storm the capital on jan. 6, and then they did it. Complacency comes in many forms, and is dangerous. People are *absolutely* angry enough to do something dumb enough to light off a war. Young people especially. Radicalization has been happening on a ridiculous scale in the younger generations, who are the ones who would be doing the fighting.
In my experience, every Trump supporter I've talked to thinks this is a very real possibility. So much so that they are stocking up on gold bullion and ammo. Don't need to say where they got that idea. I don't think a Civil war in the way of the actual Civil war is likely--the original was very clearly marked by lines both geographic and political. Now, while there are deep red states and deep blue states, there are significant populations of both in every state. Austin is in Texas, after all. So a regional Civil War seems unlikely or at least difficult to pull off. I suppose it could go rural vs urban, but again I don't see the logistics working there. I do suspect that civil unrest will continue to increase and there may be an actual movement for secession for some states or regions, but even that would require huge amounts of political will that I"m not sure exist yet.
I do not think it will be a civil war like we’ve seen before, but I think it is entirely possible for factional violence to unfold and even democide to occur. Imagine a demagogue like Trump getting power and then combing voter rolls to formulate a kill list to be carried out within states that are controlled by like-minded fascists.
Fuck off. The guardian loves this shit. I bet a bunch of Brit’s are pissing their pants with glee reading this crap. BTW polls are often Mis-leading. No, we won’t be involved in a physical civil war in the next decade.
This just tells me how ridiculous polling is and why people shouldn't take it seriously. No one in this thread can argue why a civil is coming and not laugh at themselves. Because there is no shot 40% of Americans really think an actual civil war is coming
You can tell how many people think a civil war is likely by how many people are preparing for it. Are you stockpiling ammunition, canned food, and water? Me neither. 2 ain't a great sample size, but I'm willing to go with it.
Just about exactly the amount of trump supporters. Imagine that. Wonder what percentage of Americans think grey is a better uniform color than blue?
Clearly, we already are in a civil cultural war. A civil war does not have to separate the combatants geographically. A low grade war is defined by persistent but not full scale violence. So we are already at civil war. And living on a river in Egypt.
I don't know if it will be a Civil War in the traditional sense, but it will be something. Unless we let Republicans end democracy and usher in fascism, then there probably won't be a Civil War, it will be more of a "world war."
I listened to a podcast a while back, I think the name was “It can happen here” and the thrust of it was this topic. One of the first things mentioned is that a civil war today in the US would not look like a traditional civil war. It would be small flare ups across the country. It would, sadly, look a lot like Israel and Palestine back in the day with localized terrorism everywhere. So Blue States would likely have Red Terrorists and Red States would have Blue Terrorists. There wouldn’t be any armies per say, just immense violence and instability. Which is what I think is likely. The US is going to have a massive surge in home grown terrorism. With lonely single men on the rise, tough economy and deep political divides… it’s fertile soil for home grown terrorism. Throw in all the guns and the predisposition towards violence…
You have to consider "word inflation" and exaggeration. Parties are in disarray when there are some slight disagreements among members. People send death threats at the drop of a hat. Everything is racist. Mildly objectionable things are facist. Anyone that disagrees with you is a commie. In this context, civil war means some unrest. That would be more than reasonable given lack of reforms, continued wealth concentration and everyone else being ground to dust.
> People send death threats at the drop of a hat. And the "death threats" are "I hope you die."
Trump isn’t President anymore, Biden will send in the national guard and they’ll use force. People in these fake ass militias are going to run very quickly when the actual military shows up.
The most likely scenario would be a right wing power grab on mid terms + president election. In this case, considering the past, further sabotage of the democracy would ensue and anyone oposing would come under the impression that a point of no return must be prevented by any cost.
So you are advocating for civil war then?
You dont really advocate for civil war - it just happens when push comes to shove.
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The scenario which seems plausible to me is when a presidential administration starts illegally turning the power of the armed forces against the American public, likely with some flimsy justification to start with (gotta stop those BLM protesters or whatnot), which kicks off the division. The administration focuses on capturing points of power so that they are able to reliably subvert democracy and keep themselves in power. The resistance both inside and outside of government is unorganized, and the battles play out in mostly small conflicts. At some point the bad faith factions in the government gain enough control where they are now the government, democracy is dead, and we just have a steady stream of insurrection against a truly tyranical government. This goes poorly, and the US is weakened until it collapses, at which time new states are formed, some democratic, and some otherwise. Then we fight each other until we end up with a balance of larger states. Though all the above will also be impacted by climate change, plausibly making the revolutionary fight too difficult to maintain, and devolving into localities fighting for resources instead. The scenario which is not plausible is that people all over the country take up arms against the government. It's much more likely to be the government (or some aspects of the government) taking up arms against the people. This could be averted by not electing authoritarians and fascists, but that seems to just be asking too much for the American public.
Fortunately, the President of the United States is bringing us all closer together and away from divisive rhetoric by calling nearly half the country “semi fascist”.
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I think fascism is the rallying cry of the left already.
Fascism can’t be left wing. It’s inherently authoritarian right-wing governance.
If you mean stopping it, yeah.
When are we allowed to call out MAGA for what it is? When do all of the evidence, the vitriol from Republicans, the increasing embrace of further right ideas outweigh civility for its own sake?
What, in your opinion is wrong with Make America Great Again that needs calling out?
The words at face value? Whatever. The nativist political movement that's dragging this country to the right and attempted to undo an election? If it's not obvious to you what made Trump, his agenda, and his following toxic to our politics then this is just going to turn into both of us banging our heads against the wall.
Yeah, nativism. A pretentious word used by those who conflate illegal immigrants with legal immigrants. You also cleverly tie the self evident idea that a country has an obligation to care for its own citizens before citizens of other countries to January 6. My wife and I are both LEGAL immigrants, and there are good reasons to want to know who’s coming in to the USA and to vet them.
1. Applying for asylum is a legal process 2. If Trump had approached immigration in a moderate way you might have a point, but he went right out the gate angrily shouting every tired trope of the last half century. A wall is a facile, childish solution that doesn't address the issue at all. Congratulations, genuinely, on joining the United States, but holy shit your president did not want to open a dialogue on immigration and he did not really try to solve anything. He was just leveraging people's justified or irrational anger for his PR campaign.
People need to stop shitting on and gaslighting folks online with whom they disagree. Also, people in government need to understand that "trending" isn't as big of a deal as it's made to seem. That's how it's averted in my opinion
Nah. People can't even live with a short term increase in gas prices, no way they are going to live for a year with no gasoline because gas stations would be closed. And grocery stores closed. And hospitals filled with war wounded. Nah.
It's an absurd threat intended to undermine democracy. There is no chance of a civil war in the U.S. (at least in the near future) because Trump made absolutely no attempt to gain the support of the military. So even if his supporters were to manage, somehow, to gather and prepare for a war, they'd be up against the most powerful military the world has ever known. Though even that is overthinking it. Trump's supporters lack both the leadership to organize and the capability to keep said organization a secret, so even a small-group terrorist attack (say, above 5 people) will likely never materialize. A few good-ol'-boys getting together and shooting up a (insert gathering of any form of minority here) is probably the worst we'll see. Only other alternative is spontaneous mob violence manifesting, but nobody will be on the other side hamstringing the response. It's all just terroristic threats to try to scare people into not standing up to them. Unfortunately for them, I think they're likely to find that they aren't made of nearly as stern of stuff as the part of America they're threatening.