by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissole the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. — Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.
I’m reading a lot about the Civil War now (for obvious reasons.) The thing that is clear to me is while it may seem as though a second civil war is inevitable now, it’s also very possible that it’s all going to be a big dud.
Trump, with Barr’s help, will consolidate power after he steals the 2020 election and we’ll just slip into autocracy with our eyes wide open. It’s possible that the center-Left in the United States is simply too weak, divided and concerned with identity politics to actually unite and do the hard work in the real fucking world to do something about Trump.
That’s a very real possibility.
And, yet. It’s also possible an actual civil war or even revolution may take place in the United States very, very soon. As such, it will probably open with a 9/11-level domestic terrorism event. John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry was the first real-world indication that the shit was about to hit the fan, that the country was, in fact, coming apart. Any modern equivalent of this would set off a cascading series of events which would buckle the United States into warring Blue and Red camps. Fox News would be raided by angry New Yorkers and MSNBC / CNN would be kicked off the cable in Red States. A multitude of people would feel unsafe because of their political views and there would be a massive migration that would consolidate the politics of Blue and Red States.
But what would be the actual event that caused all of that?
I’m thinking right now that if things go that bad, it would be a series of coordinated assassinations across the country on the part of MAGA-Qanon fucktards. They would think that by doing so they could “help” Trump consolidate power, but all it would do would enrage Blue State citizens off enough that they would begin to plot a significant reaction of their own. Another possibility is some crazy Qanon Representative might gun down a lot of Democrats in the House at some point when it became clear that we were in for dueling presidents.
All of this would be far more chaotic than my description might make you think. But I do think that we all need to have some sort of “bugout protocol” in place in case the long-feared Second American Civil War actually happens.
