by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
While I’m not the political genius that Maggie Haberman believes Trump to be, it’s very, very, very easy for me to not only come up with Blue State civil war aims, but to lay out how they could win such a civil war.
First, Blue State war aims.
If I had any say in such things — which I never will, but work with me — I would say Blue State war aims would be a Renew American Covenant. If you work on the assumption that Lincoln renewed the American Covenant by turning the Civil War into a war of liberation, then you could say that the Blue State war aims would be to bring the liberal democracy prosperity of California to the entire United States.
Or, put another way, if you could keep California engaged with the dream of a more perfect Union, then you could get them to use their economic might and population size as the engine that would re-unite the States under a Renewed American Covenant. Unfortunately, this is something of a big “if.” California could just wash its hands of the Union and enjoy its status as a free country.
But I’m too much of a Neo-Lincolnist. I want to believe that California would serve the same purpose that states like New York and Pennsylvania did in the original civil war. So, that’s a war aim — make America great again by using California as model for what you want the Union to look like once you win any very tragic — and dumb — civil war.
Now to how Blue States would win any such civil war. If you can just keep California in the Union, they could easily blitzkrieg across the rather empty mountain and Great Plains states and link up with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. They would, in turn link up with Illinois and the Blue States of the Northeast. Then you do a pincer movement east and south. And, remember, if you’re using the Califnornia model of progressive politics, it’s easy to imagine Blue States in some way tapping into a supply of soldiers that Red States never would — women.
I would also promise African Americans in the South some sort of post-war reoperations for slavery if they simply make life hell for the Neo-Confederates of the South. That’s a pretty good bargain and would fix a lot of problems with systemic racism after any dumb, avoidable and tragic Second American Civil War.
But let me be clear — this is just a back of the envelope type situation. Of course MAGA would likely, in desperation, seize WMD in parts of the country they controlled and bomb — and gas — us all to the stone age in desperation. And they probably might simply start murdering African Americans like Nazis given any type excuse.
AND, you would have to factor in WW3 would be taking place across the globe as the United States went through a second civil war. So, the DPRK might vaporize a few cities in the United States out of spite while we were busy killing each other over “cancel culture.”
All I gotta say is — don’t have a civil war.
