by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I am not the first, and definitely will not be the last, to ponder what a possible Second American Civil War might look like. It seems pretty obvious that America is hurdling towards some sort of armed conflict for no other reason than much of the same mentality that existed in the 1850s exists today in the United States.
Really, all that blocks armed conflict at this point is that Democrats and The Resistance are still playing by the “old rules” of politics while the Republicans and MAGA are playing by the “new rules” of running slipshod over any and all opposition using white knuckled hard ball politics.
Once that changes, once both sides play chicken with the government in an absolute rage, then the entire system freezes up and we have the “politics through other means” that Mao mentioned. But what are some of the scenarios one might concoct about an actual modern Civil War in the United States?
Well, here’s the thing: Republicans have land mass, while Democrats have concentrated population. While Red States are contiguous and Blue States aren’t, the sheer concentration of people in Blue State areas will make any attempt to quell them should a war break out. I’m not entirely sure that outside of some “purple” states that there would even be any violence at all. If the two sides grow so polarized that they simply have nothing in common politically or culturally, there’s a good chance whomever is running the government when the actual split happens will do the whole “wayward sisters, part in peace” bit.
It definitely seems at this point that the trends are Blue States will leave the Union and work actively to align themselves with Canada. That definitely seems like one scenario. Again, I doubt seriously there will actually be violence if things get bad enough that individual states want to leave the union. This is where who happens to be in control of the government would have a lot to say about the outcome of these events.
If it’s a Democratic president and Republican states bold en mass, things will go a lot differently than if its reversed. Really, it could all be avoided if we had, like, effective leadership in the first place but that’s not going to happen. It definitely feels as though the United States is careening towards some sort of division on the state level, the exact nature of which is still very much in the air.
