by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I keep saying, that any Rightwing nutjob would actually WANT a civil war, really makes no sense. The moment you leave the realm of the political and enter an existential situation, all bets are off. It could go any number of different ways.
I guess, for me, the real existential question is why the Right now hates the center-Left with such a rage that they would care more about having the opportunity to kill liberals on the battlefield than be content with their continued political victories in Washington D.C. There’s something really wild going on on a macro level and I simply don’t have a ready answer.
Anyway, as you can tell from this map, Blue States — should they decide to stand and fight — have one clear way they could win the war. California is a huge, politically cohesive state that could easily supply the men and economy necessary to put the Blue States in a very strong position militarily. There aren’t a lot of people — in real terms — between California and, say, Minnesota and Wisconsin so, all things being equal, their forces could easily blitzkrieg across the largely empty (and Red) Great Plains. Once the Blue States are contiguous, they can press east and south into the heart of Old Dixie. Additionally, Florida — like Virginia — would likely implode because it’s actually on a political level several different states smashed together. South Florida is Blue while the rest of the state is various shades of Purple outside of the panhandle area.
I’ve also noted that, in general, Red States are far less politically united than Blue States. And, if I had any control over Blue State war aims, I would entice the African American community in the South to rebel en mass by telling them they would get some sort of reparations for slavery if they did so. Freed slaves were key to Union victory during the original civil war. If you have huge swaths of the population of Dixie in open rebellion against the fascist Neo-Confederates, then that particular problem might be wrapped up a lot quicker than you think.
But one thing you have to remember — this would not happen in a vacuum. We don’t know which side the U.S. Military will land on. We don’t know if desperate Red States won’t seize WMD and start using chemical, biological and tactical nukes on Blue States to slow their advance down. We also don’t know if the DPRK might nuke the States in some way during all of this or if Russian won’t throw aid to the Red States because, well, lulz.
The whole thing could grow far more messy and intractable than you might think. The whole country will, essentially, be burned to the ground should his happen. But the case could be made that should Blue States solve the central problem of the United States, that we might enter a second Gilded Age. (If the Red States win, we’ll probably just endup slaves to House Trump.)
I guess the ultimate endgame could be a lot more messy than that, will some sort of rump Red State USA surviving out of spite. I can’t predict the future, I don’t know.
Good luck everyone.
