People keep saying this and I personally don’t really believe it, I think there could be a couple riots, but not like a full on civil war. What does everyone think?
“War is only a few meals away” -idk
No, not in a North vs South sense. If anything it’s just going to be in the form of terrorism like we saw during his presidency. Just more bold.
Can? Yes. Contrary to common belief history is not over and white people are not exempt. Will? Maaaybe.
I can’t see the US system self-correcting, but a deeply established democracy like the US coming apart is a new thing (all the past ones were much more ephemeral AFAIK). It could just as easily slide into one dictatorship, like Wiemar Germany, or undergo some sort of slow death as states become more and more independent of the broken national system. It’s also hard to say what the timeline is.
There isn’t really two sides to go to war at this point. There’s only one military, and while the will to fight may exist on the republican side they aren’t really organised for it. That could all change given time, though.
Why do you believe what you believe?
Any country can experience civil war but it requires certain material developments. The US would require a substantial breakdown in shared interests for that to happen. Not just partisan frustrations, there would need to be a fundamental economic split so severe that it pitted states or regions against one another and they could actually act on that. This would almost certainly have to coincide with a weakening of the federal government as well, where the states/regions in question need to push against the federal in order to go in their own direction, for their own interests.
The US Civil War had a material basis like this. The South of course sought to maintain slavery and this was the primary issue, but why was it such a sticking point and conflict in the first place? One clue is to look at what happened to production after the South lost (hell yeah): their plantations were bought up by Northern capitalists and run at a profit. The landless poor, which included basically every freed slave, were forced to work there for very little pay while now needing to pay their new landlords for housing. They became the most abused of the proletariat and racism was kept alive for their marginalization in this market. The ascendant northern capitalists had been doing this kind of thing in bits and pieces and by supporting the halt in any new slave states. The Southern planter ruling class knew their days were numbered and, seeing existential crisis, attempted to carve out a country for themselves to prevent that extinction.
You can imagine that sort of thing developing again during prolonged crisis. Some states and regions may develop very different economies and their ruling class interests may become so at odds that it leads to land grabs, assertions of independence, etc. But that would be a prolonged crisis that changed fundamental regional economics and national economics. It’s not necessarily unlikely but it would take decades.
Arguably the US is already in early stages of one. In fact, a model US themselves produced forecasts collapse and a likely civil war in the near future. https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/model-predicting-united-states-disorder-now-points-to-civil-war/12365280
Could it happen? Yes. There is a lot of anger in America. Will it happen in the near (10-15 years) future? No. Why? Watch any and all of the January 6th 2021 videos of the Capitol Riots. That looked like a bunch of alcoholic, mentally ill tailgate partiers tried to take over a nation. It got out of hand and went very, very bad. The only reason they did as much damage as they did, was because actual law enforcement reinforcements were not called in on time. They are just violent idiots who are old, out of shape, delusional about their abilities, and they did not have an actual plan. Civil war is not the immediate threat we face in the USA, it’s the fascism of christianity from within our government that needs to be destroyed. We need a return back to sanity, back to a secular government.
The only reason they did as much damage as they did, was because actual law enforcement reinforcements were not called in on time.
Let’s be clear about this: law enforcement was minimal to begin with, and reinforcements were deliberately refused, because the people in charge of them were trying to help the coup succeed.
Let’s be realistic. If it had been a coup attempt, they would have brought weapons.
To suggest that was an attempted coup, when nobody brought any weapons, is ridiculous.
You do know they had guns right? The FBI tracked at least 2 shipments crossing the river by white supremacist groups.
All I’ve heard about is some pistols found in a car parked nearby.
I heard he was too busy watching television news coverage to be bothered with all that.
Mostly agreed, but this is naive.
who are old, out of shape, delusional about their abilities
I’ll spare you all the anecdotes, but I’ve been around these people and most of them are no joke. They’re neither fat nor lazy nor stupid nor untrained. You only see the fat slobs in their Amazon gear because that’s who we like to make fun of.
That’s actually how you know they weren’t trying to take over: they didn’t bring guns.
Sure, it can. But if it doesn’t happen right after the election, or on January 6th, it’s not happening anytime soon.
Inshallah
We’re not going to survive global warming if there isn’t one.
The friend of certainty is time. One day perhaps then we won’t even call ourselves Americans. I doubt the 1860s will happen again anytime soon. Maybe something closer in scale to Blair Mountain.
Look to history. We’ve had two. Look at the words explaining the necessity of independence in the declaration of independence. Those were not hollow words but detailed a long series of abuses. Then look to the causes of the Civil War. A perfidious institution anathematic to the very core ideal of the nation, that all men are created equal.
Our times doubtless have our problems but the do not meet nearly the standard set in the past.
I believe most people will only fight if their life is already disrupted. So, if the riots or political climate ends up significantly disrupting people’s daily lives, to the point where it cannot be ignored… yes. The state governments could also probably force the issue. It’s not the most likely scenario in my mind, but it is certainly possible. “It could happen here”, as they say.
No. For practical reasons. Who is your enemy? Are we going shirts and skins? With the American civil war and most wars it’s easy to determine who your enemy is. Everyone who lives south of that river.
I think the drug addiction crisis that they have is somehow preventing/delaying this to happen. But the elements for a civil war are there: weapons access, ideological intolerance, economical imbalance, evee-differing state and federal law and policies, corruption in government and the probable rise of a political group that lost the presidency causing the Capitol Attack out of resentment, between others.
Democracy in the USA feels like holding with pins. I see the country as conservative to far-right with very few space for other political ideologies.
Sure. Could happen. Imagine trump wins somehow. Then imagine he orders the military to help the Russians or even just orders some people round up like he promises. His disdain for our military is clear. Some generals will follow because he is the president. But others will refuse. And Trump is dumb enough to order his generals to arrest the other generals. Boom, civil war. Or if trump loses… his followers will look for someone else to follow. If someone actually competent shows up, similar path, just 4 years later.
I generally agree, and I also think that the spy agencies would assassinate him within a couple of days. There’s a bunch of men who have been running those groups for decades, and they don’t want to give up their power because some lunatic is making a power grab on the White House.
No and you should not listen to people who think it could.
A civil war is large scale armed conflict between groups vying for the levers of power. In the case of the American civil war it was over slavery and came to war because there was no mechanism to integrate the south’s elites into the power structures of the north’s or vice versa and the material bases of those two groups power structures were in opposition.
What two groups would fight an American civil war nowadays? Democrats and republicans? They serve the same masters. We are witnessing propaganda bent to the ends of integrating members of one group into another.
Separatist militias? Not only would that not be a civil war, we saw how the fbi handled them in the 90s.
Corporations? Why would they do that? Government already does the unprofitable things they want and does them how they want them.
Separatist states? It’s against the economic interests of the very people who would make up the elite class of the new nation of Texas to submit their borders to taxes and tariffs.
Workers? That’s a revolution, not a civil war.
If someone wants you to fear modern civil war they’re trying to control you.
If someone makes art about a modern civil war they’re trying to tell you about something else on the sly, like with zombies.
In Florida, I have heard it from way too many people to feel comfortable. Republicans will say how they are ready if Trump loses. They say it’s because there is no way he can lose unless it’s all rigged. They believe this will happen. The worst I heard was a guy saying he will shoot anybody he suspects is not on his team. Others were not quite as ready, but definitely as angry and ignorant with the means. Some of the more intellectual I talk to are quick to point out the flaws of Democrats and how that said is more violent because of all the riots.
Living here is scary. It would be a war of ignorance, frustration, and hate against a false enemy. It will be a passionate group of clueless rebels without an enemy based in reality. Anyone could become a casualty in the chaos. These people are anti-intellectual, basing everything on what they call “common sense.” What that actually mean is whatever reinforces their anger in the moment is the truth no matter how ignorant or hypocritical.
It feels too real that citizens will be taking up arms. The worst part is not knowing who they will attack since the enemy is all in their heads.
That’s not a civil war though, that’s stoichastic terrorism at least and militia violence at most. I, uh, was just in a disaster in the us where militias were said to have been run off by the national guard and local law enforcement.
It’s still scary, but it’s not civil war.
To give you an idea of how common what you’re describing used to be, when 9/11 happened people who hadn’t already gotten the word from the federal government were blaming it on domestic terrorist organizations and individuals. We had just come off of a decade of federal law enforcement torching Waco, sniping ruby ridge, package bombs, federal building bombs (including wtc!) and school shootings there at the end.
The harmless nut job was such a common idea that the Feds had to really struggle against it when they bungled Waco and ruby ridge.
There’s been thirty years of domestic counter terror training to deal with just this type of situation. Fifty if you count the bender mienhoff group in Europe as the start.
You may see Waco 2.0 but you won’t see a civil war.
Republicans will say how they are ready if Trump loses.
99% of people who profess revolutionary politics are full of shit, for what it’s worth. It’s cheap to talk tough, and not so cheap to actually be in the line of fire, or in jail.
Actual uprisings have a structure to motivate fighters in other ways, be it by greed, ego or coercion. There is no paramilitary branch of the Republican party so far.
While I agree civil war is unlikely, there are paramilitary groups in the republican party, which Frontline investigated.
I could see a more minor version of The Troubles taking place.
Groups “in” and groups “of” are two very different things. The militias that exist are pretty wimpy, and pretty fractured. I’d guess 90% of militiamen are also full of shit, but with more merchandise.
If there was a power vacuum they’d get bigger, but that seems unlikely with so many various established authorities in the mix. I could see them getting coopted into whatever hypothetical faction, though, or just doing terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately, I can’t actually see that video.
How do you define the destinction? I assume you’re only counting ‘in’ as officially recognized by the republican party, the political entity?
The first one never ended, just went into a cold phase. Heated up a bit in the 50s and 60s and has been getting a lot hotter the last 10 years or so
