by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Someone recently came to this site looking for information about what would happen to Kentucky if there was a Second American Civil War. I thought about it some and here’s my general hot take.
First, a lot — and I mean A LOT — of things would have to go wrong for the United States to have a traditional civil war. I say this because of the U.S. Military. The more I think about it, the U.S. Military is something of a wildcard in all these dystopian hellscape civil war scenarios I keep coming up with. The only way that things would get so bad that there was WW2-type fighting in America during a 2ACW would be if states began to leave the Union and were able to successfully get members of the U.S. Military to join their new armies. That is very debatable.
What’s more likely to happen is some sort of military coup then junta. We would endup with Acting President James Mattis who would hold the country together until we were able to have a Second Constitutional Convention to address the causes of our impending doom.
But, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the U.S. Military was hollowed out as states began to leave the Union. Now, at the moment, I believe that if we have a civil war, it will begin in late 2024, early 2025 when it becomes obvious to Blues that the presidential election was stolen.
I suppose, of course, that it’s at least possible that if Trump gets indicted before 2024 that he will go transactional and it will be Reds, not Blues that demand a “National Divorce” and, as such, start a civil war.
Back to the scenario.
I think the high-density states of the “Heartland” like Kentucky will see the most brutal fighting if it comes to that. I say this because the first phase of the Second American Civil War in that area of the country would see coups and counter coups as it was determined which side each state was on. I mean, there is a very small but very organize group of people in, say, Michigan that would definitely want the state to be a Red state in any Second American Civil War. And, yet, there there are enough Blues in the state that such a move would be violently contested.
So the Heartland would probably turn into a pitched battle just like WW2 in Europe. And, remember, there is a very good chance that WMD would be used by both sides as the civil war began to grow more heated. And, I could see Kentucky radicalizing to the point that the state would collectively decide to fight to the absolute end rather than surrender to Blue forces, should Blue forces get the upper hand and try to re-unite the country as a war aim. (I don’t see that being a war aim for Blues, but war is so unpredictable that I suppose it could happen as part of mission creep.)
What’s more likely to happen is once it’s determined which state is a Blue state and which state is a Red state that there really could be some sort of “National Divorce” that was a lot less violent than you might think. The two sides might agree to disagree once a short, but violent war of separation happened and then the looming problem would be all the people in Trumplandia desperate to flee the Trumplandia USA.
To answer the question of what would happen to Kentucky in a civil war — there is a pretty wide spectrum of outcomes. On one end, you have the state simply becoming a border state to Blue USA (Illinois) and on the other you have the complete and total destruction of the state because Blues swoop in and demand the MAGA cocksuckers come to grips with the reality of who has won the war.
