by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
First, there is no case — woke or otherwise — for a Second Civil War. But, given that the MAGA New Right definitely has grown politically bloodthirsty enough to want one, it’s something we on the liberal-progressive side have to begin to take seriously.
The thing about a civil war is, the MAGA New Right is so much more prepared than anti-MAGA forces are, that the moment we cross that particular Rubicon, things are going to grow very surreal, very quick. The average American who isn’t Very Online doesn’t even realize how dire America’s political straits are other than bonkers screaming at their local school board meeting.
So, should my fears about the 2024 – 2025 timeframe tragically come true, a lot of people are going to be left flat footed. When suddenly it becomes existential if you are Blue or Red on a personal, individual basis, there’s going to mass chaos as people flee their homes for a Blue or Red state that better fits their politics. And it’s going to happen very, very quickly — the event will likely be counted in days, not weeks or months.
The thing about an actual hot civil war in the United States is would be high risk, high reward for the center-Left. Just like with the First Civil War, if the center-Left can just get its act together, we might pass modern equivalent of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments in some sort of Second Reconstruction period. On paper, at least, Blue States would probably ultimately be victorious in any Second Civil War. Not that a lot of people wouldn’t die and once the whole thing is over we might have a generation or more of rebuilding ahead of us.
- Republicans have come to glorify political violence
Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want. - Republicans no longer believe in democracy
It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely distablizing things that help push the country to the brink. - Trump 2024
Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit. - Steve K Bannon.
Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that we use to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War. - Extreme negative polarization
We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem. - A lack of shared values
As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up. - A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans
It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
But there are absolutely no assurances that there would be any sort of tidy ending to a Second Civil War. It’s just as possible that the country simply collapses and we have an ending a lot closer to what happened to the Soviet Union than we do America during the First Civil War.
The point of it all is a civil war would suck. It would be an enormous clusterfuck to the point that everyone involved would regret they ever thought there would be any upside to it. And, yet, here we are. It’s possible that the United States, the most powerful nation in the world is, in a few years, going to use WMD on itself and bomb itself into the stone age with its eyes wide open — and by choice.
