by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Reading Barbara F. Walter’s book about how civil wars start, it definitely seems as though she’s convinced that if the United States has a civil war it will be the center-Right that starts it.
She hasn’t come out and said it so far, but from everything about the wink-wink nature of the book indicates that she’s pointing a finger at white Christian Traditionalists.
I have to politely disagree with this assessment.
She’s being short-sighted. I say this because I believe any civil war that may happen in the United States will happen for tactical reasons in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. It will be the center-Left that is pushed to the breaking point around then, not the center-Right. The center-Right is ascendant and well on its way to sucker punching the center-Left to the point that any civil war that happens in the United States will focused around not race, or economics but the more abstract notion of, “Is the United States a democracy or a Constitutional Republic?”
I say this because that’s the sticking point that ends political debate between myself and my Traditionalists relatives. So, when the time comes in 2024 – 2025, the lines will be drawn between people who think Republicans have stymied the will of the people and those who think “the system worked” and, fuck you lib.
Not that I don’t think that the MAGA New Right might not start a civil war. But if they did, it would be at some point between now and 2024. The most obvious reason such a civil war would start would be some unexpected pressure on our already fragile political system — probably Trump shuffling off this mortal coil for some reason. The MAGA New Right so so primed to assume that the Deep State has it out for Trump that his untimely demise would be, unto itself, enough for them to take up arms and start a civil war like Ms. Walter believes may happen.
Otherwise, however, it is that existential issue of ‘What is the United States?” that will ultimately be the demise of the Second American Republic. The GQP already rants about how they want a “National Divorce,” not thinking about how messy it would be and inevitable lead to violence that would include WMD.
So, should Republicans brazenly steal the 2024 either through Steve Bannon’s “administrative coup” or by playing the Constitution itself like xylophone, the two sides will both believe they have a legitimate claim to the presidency, which will cause Blue States to begin to leave the Union.
If the brazen theft of the 2024 election doesn’t cause Blue States to leave the Union, then we transition peacefully from an anocracy to an autocracy. Though, I believe there is a really good chance that in the biggest irony of all, Republicans could win the 2024 election fair and square, only to blow it all because they cheat.
So, we would be in a position where a civil war starts because the Republicans cheat, even though in hindsight it’s obvious they would have won anyway.
