LDC
On est tous des pangolins
You do know we're talking about the US here?
The next American Civil War
- Thread starter pbsmooth
- Start date
You do know we're talking about the US here?
flypanam
Sausage to fortune
I think it’s more than the taxman that concerns the likes of the Koch bro and his ilk. I think they are motivated by fear of mass democracy, by the very idea of equality. As any increase in our say or our freedom is necessarily a reduction of their freedom and influence.
Eta not that any extension of our freedom is on the cards anywhere, unless we (WC) make it so.
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
One factor in the previous civil war is absent in America: an obvious prize for the belligerent parties to fight over. The Confederacy planned to extend slavery into the western territories that a lot of people in the North hoped to open up to settlement by independent farmers. That's how you got "Bleeding Kansas", the chronic violence that erupted over whether that state would be free or slave.
Where's the present-day equivalent? Control of funko pops output? Hegemony over Zuckerburg's "metaverse"? What?
Where's the present-day equivalent? Control of funko pops output? Hegemony over Zuckerburg's "metaverse"? What?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Tbh if you were xi jinping or Vladimir Putin now would be a grand time to make America look inward and distract from great power competition with Russia or China. The auld axiom, who benefits, cuts through what I think is really behind this. obviously it helps that the Americans were already becoming polarised - it's very hard to start trends rolling but easy to give them a shove once in motion. To return to the notion of civil war, I think this won't be 1861-5 again, because there's no obvious territorial divide, no moves for actual secession and white supremacists have already gained a foothold in a number of institutions, notably the police. I think that what may happen might be half slow coup, half insurrection
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Third of each of them plus a third collapse would be my bet. The State has retreated from certain areas anyway, some rust belt inner cities for example.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
The federal state or the state state?
Helped into power, we’ve heard this before I recall.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I've not read the book but the interview with her on 538 was appalling.
Why An Expert In Political Violence Is Worried About Civil War In The U.S.
In the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, academics and journalists have taken the possibility of future political violence in America increasingly …
Her complete lack of awareness of her own politics of breathtaking - rich countries have better governance than poor countries, models tell us there is a 3.5% chance per annum for a civil war, Yugoslavians hated communism, Latinos are generally conservative
There are some reasonable points there but the generalisations, the unspoken assumptions and lack of caution make it looking for nuggets in dross.
Last edited:
Joe Biden one year on: Has the United States become ungovernable?
A president who promised to unite the country is unable to bring his own party together.
www.bbc.co.uk
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
Brilliant piece by the aforementioned Stephen Marche in the Guardian today With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil war | Stephen Marche
Opinion | Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?
It’s hard to imagine. But so is democracy’s salvation.www.nytimes.com
Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?
Barbara F. Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, has interviewed many people who’ve lived through civil wars, and she told me they all say they didn’t see it coming. “They’re all surprised,” she said. “Even when, to somebody who studies it, it’s obvious years beforehand.”
This is worth keeping in mind if your impulse is to dismiss the idea that America could fall into civil war again. Even now, despite my constant horror at this country’s punch-drunk disintegration, I find the idea of a total meltdown hard to wrap my mind around. But to some of those, like Walter, who study civil war, an American crackup has come to seem, if not obvious, then far from unlikely, especially since Jan. 6.
Two books out this month warn that this country is closer to civil war than most Americans understand. In “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them,” Walter writes, “I’ve seen how civil wars start, and I know the signs that people miss. And I can see those signs emerging here at a surprisingly fast rate.” The Canadian novelist and critic Stephen Marche is more stark in his book, “The Next Civil War: Dispatches From the American Future.” “The United States is coming to an end,” Marche writes. “The question is how.”
In Toronto’s Globe and Mail, Thomas Homer-Dixon, a scholar who studies violent conflict, recently urged the Canadian government to prepare for an American implosion. “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence,” he wrote. “By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.” As John Harris writes in Politico, “Serious people now invoke ‘Civil War’ not as metaphor but as literal precedent.”
Of course, not all serious people. The Harvard political scientist Josh Kertzer wrote on Twitter that he knows many civil war scholars, and “very few of them think the United States is on the precipice of a civil war.” Yet even some who push back on civil war talk tend to acknowledge what a perilous place America is in. In The Atlantic, Fintan O’Toole, writing about Marche’s book, warns that prophecies of civil war can be self-fulfilling; during the long conflict in Ireland, he says, each side was driven by fear that the other was mobilizing. It’s one thing, he writes, “to acknowledge the real possibility that the U.S. could break apart and could do so violently. It is quite another to frame that possibility as an inevitability.”
I agree with O’Toole that it’s absurd to treat civil war as a foregone conclusion, but that it now seems distinctly possible is still pretty bad. The fact that speculation about civil war has moved from the crankish fringes into the mainstream is itself a sign of civic crisis, an indication of how broken our country is.
The sort of civil war that Walter and Marche worry about wouldn’t involve red and blue armies facing off on some battlefield. If it happens, it will be more of a guerrilla insurgency. As Walter told me, she, like Marche, relies on an academic definition of “major armed conflict” as one that causes at least 1,000 deaths per year. A “minor armed conflict” is one that kills at least 25 people a year. By this definition, as Marche argues, “America is already in a state of civil strife.” According to the Anti-Defamation League, extremists, most of them right-wing, killed 54 people in 2018 and 45 people in 2019. (They killed 17 people in 2020, a figure that was low due to the absence of extremist mass shootings, possibly because of the pandemic.)
Walter argues that civil wars have predictable patterns, and she spends more than half her book laying out how those patterns have played out in other countries. They are most common in what she and other scholars call “anocracies,” countries that are “neither full autocracies nor democracies but something in between.” Warning signs include the rise of intense political polarization based on identity rather than ideology, especially polarization between two factions of roughly equal size, each of which fears being crushed by the other.
Instigators of civil violence, she writes, tend to be previously dominant groups who see their status slipping away. “The ethnic groups that start wars are those claiming that the country ‘is or ought to be theirs,’” she writes. This is one reason, although there are violent actors on the left, neither she nor Marche believe the left will start a civil war. As Marche writes, “Left-wing radicalism matters mostly because it creates the conditions for right-wing radicalization.”
It’s no secret that many on the right are both fantasizing about and planning civil war. Some of those who swarmed the Capitol a year ago wore black sweatshirts emblazoned with “MAGA Civil War.” The Boogaloo Bois, a surreal, violent, meme-obsessed anti-government movement, get their name from a joke about a Civil War sequel. Republicans increasingly throw around the idea of armed conflict. In August, Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina said, “If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place and that’s bloodshed,” and suggested he was willing, though reluctant, to take up arms.
Citing the men who plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Walter writes that modern civil wars “start with vigilantes just like these — armed militants who take violence directly to the people.”
There are parts of Walter’s argument that I’m not quite convinced by. Consider, for example, America’s status as an anocracy. I don’t dispute the political science measures she relies on to show the alarming extent of America’s democratic backsliding. But I think she underplays the difference between countries moving from authoritarianism toward democracy, and those going the other way. You can see why a country like Yugoslavia would explode when the autocratic system holding it together disappeared; new freedoms and democratic competition allow for the emergence of what Walter describes as “ethnic entrepreneurs.”
It’s not clear, however, that the move from democracy toward authoritarianism would be destabilizing in the same way. As Walter acknowledges, “The decline of liberal democracies is a new phenomenon, and none have fallen into all-out civil war — yet.” To me, the threat of America calcifying into a Hungarian-style right-wing autocracy under a Republican president seems more imminent than mass civil violence. Her theory depends on an irredentist right-wing faction rebelling against its loss of power. But increasingly, the right is rigging our sclerotic system so that it can maintain power whether the voters want it to or not.
If outright civil war still isn’t likely, though, it seems to me more likely than a return to the sort of democratic stability many Americans grew up with.
Marche’s book presents five scenarios for how this country could come undone, each extrapolated from current movements and trends. A few of them don’t strike me as wholly plausible. For example, given the history of federal confrontations with the far right at Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, I suspect an American president determined to break up a sovereign citizen encampment would send the F.B.I., not an Army general relying on counterinsurgency doctrine.
Yet most of Marche’s narratives seem more imaginable than a future in which Jan. 6 turns out to be the peak of right-wing insurrection, and America ends up basically OK. “It’s so easy to pretend it’s all going to work out,” he writes. I don’t find it easy.
He says the war will be structured as 'stochastic terrorism': attacks like the Buffalo shooting, but more and more frequent. That seems highly plausible to me. In fact it could be argued that the war's already started, but at a very slow pace. If it builds, with attacks by the right every day, it's not hard to imagine the left arming themselves. In his article he says the Left's buying of guns is well under way.
The next Republican presidential candidate seems likely to be a Trump-MAGA enthusiast, probably Trump himself or Ron DeSantis. Right wing politicians are working hard to reduce the black vote. So why not have militias driving around black neighbourhoods shooting them up on polling day? It seems likely to me. KKK and militia members have already joined many local police forces. No doubt more will do so before the 2024 election. This will make it easier for the militias to operate.
If violence spreads, right wing politicians will resist calls to bring out the national guard. The right will have learned from all the screwups made by the Capitol rioters and by Trump. He kept calling for people to be shot by the police, but he was always thwarted Trump Wanted Black Lives Matter Protesters to Be Shot, Says Former Defense Secretary I can imagine that in a couple of years the police will go along with it
petee
no gods, no malarkey
it started in april of 1995
Oklahoma City bombing - Wikipedia
McVeigh was arrested within 90 minutes of the explosion,[80] as he was traveling north on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped McVeigh for driving his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis without a license plate, and arrested him for having a concealed weapon
and he wouldn't even be arrested now, after last week's gun ruling.
and to emphasize something that clapson also pointed to:
Meanwhile, their calls for violence, while never direct, create a climate of rage that solidifies into regular physical assaults on their enemies. The technical term for this process is stochastic terrorism; the attack in Buffalo is a textbook example.
i've tried in my posts to tell people who don't live in the states what the texture of daily life has become. the constant drumbeat of threat from rightwing sources and the consequent atmosphere of aggression has made going out the front door in the morning a nervous experience, even for someone like me who isn't a member of a group that's going to be targeted. it was visible already during trump's campaign. i've never felt this before.
Last edited:
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
That's game over then as there's no resolution to climate change, to keeping rises below 1.5c, with a civil war in America - a civil war which furthers the interests of Russia and particularly China
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
It's horrifying. Are you still in NYC?it started in april of 1995
Oklahoma City bombing - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
McVeigh was arrested within 90 minutes of the explosion,[80] as he was traveling north on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped McVeigh for driving his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis without a license plate, and arrested him for having a concealed weapon
and he wouldn't even be arrested now, after last week's gun ruling.
and to emphasize something that clapson also pointed to:
Meanwhile, their calls for violence, while never direct, create a climate of rage that solidifies into regular physical assaults on their enemies. The technical term for this process is stochastic terrorism; the attack in Buffalo is a textbook example.
i've tried in my posts to tell people who don't live in the states what the texture of daily life has become. the constant drumbeat of threat from rightwing sources and the consequent atmosphere of aggression has made going out the front door in the morning a nervous experience, even for someone like me who isn't a member of a group that's going to be targeted. it was visible already during trump's campaign. i've never felt this before.
petee
no gods, no malarkey
forever, if i can swing it!
8ball
Merr xmas...
Can you expand on that bit (or point to other posts of yours) to give some context about this change in the feel of everyday life, especially this atmosphere of aggression you bring up?
Also, not sure whether you been this side of the pond recently, but if you had I’d be interested in whether you sense some seeds of it here.
petee
no gods, no malarkey
are you dense?
8ball
Merr xmas...
Well done.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
It's wicked to mock the afflicted
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
I imagine that the primary interest of China is to flog as much of its wares as possible. I can't see an American civil war doing much to further that interest.
I would also imagine that China itself faces potential internal conflicts: lots of pissed off people in Hong Kong, the Xinjiang, Shanghai and elsewhere; more generally a population who are not so worried about where their next meal is coming from and can see the rights enjoyed by those beyond China; the faltering Belt and Road project; and a Head of State, surrounded by lean and hungry potential successors, who has abolished the limit on the number of turns a president can serve.
Surely ripe for one of those revolutions of rising expectations in which the mistakes of 1989 are unlikely to be repeated.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
petee
no gods, no malarkey
sorry, or are you engaging in that rhetorical trick where you solicit explanation in order to appear to be "engaging", having determined ahead of time to dismiss whatever's said, based on a reasonable reading of your posts these past weeks minimizing rightwing terrorism?
there i gave you a little more credit.
in this case, i've already given the evidence in the very post you queried. and in case you need more "context", even 2 blocks from where i live on the tony UES we had this
another view
2 Proud Boys members sentenced to 4 years over NYC melee
Two members of the far-right Proud Boys have each been sentenced to four years in prison for their part in a street fight that followed a speech last year at New York's Metropolitan Republican Club
great credit to the antifascists who chased them off and and gavin mcinnes quit on account of it.
a few blocks in the other direction
Capitol rioter sentenced on weapons charges in Manhattan
The guns were found in an Upper East Side apartment.
www.ny1.com
while in DC or a score of other places
not to mention portland
Portland, Oregon, Is Ground Zero for Violent Culture-War Clashes. And It's Spreading
The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other far-right extremist groups have turned the city into a proving ground
www.rollingstone.com
and as to the rest of the country.
there was, uh, this
2022 Buffalo shooting - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Gendron is reported to have written a manifesto, describing himself as an ethno-nationalist supporting white supremacy and motivated to commit political violence. He voiced support for the far-right "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory in the context of a "white genocide". The attack has been described as an act of domestic terrorism, and the incident is being investigated as motivated by racism.
which has already produced trauma in black children in buffalo, which was quite the point.
and where might we have heard this before?
Tucker Pushes Racist Theory Yet Again, ADL Renews Call for Fox to Fire Him
Back in April, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch claimed that Carlson actually “decried and rejected replacement theory.” This week, he openly promoted it again.
www.thedailybeast.com
who has an audience of
Here Are the Top-Rated Cable News Shows for Q1 2022
Fox News dominates the top of the charts for Q1, as expected.
www.adweek.com
throwing in OAN and - this is very important and i grant won't be known to people abroad- countless rightwing radio talkers from coast to coast amplifying the message locally every day.
add associated ubiquitous movements like antimasking and antivaxxing, the recent SC decisions on guns, or deliberate attempts to undermine election all over the country, backed by physical threat
Armed group sent members to minority areas to intimidate voters: suit
The lawsuit accuses the Mike Lindell-linked group of violating the Ku Klux Klan Act and voting rights protections.
www.salon.com
Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers
‘You and your family will be killed very slowly’: Trump's false voter-fraud claims sparked a campaign to terrorize election officials and workers nationwide.
The Lawsuit Against Gateway Pundit Highlights the Dangers of Misinformation
And how hard it is to fight it.
thedispatch.com
it's everywhere.
hth.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
With regard to a potential invasion of The Republic of China, I would imagine that Xi, whilst not the most competent will have learnt from the problems faced by Russia in Ukraine. If he hasn't others have. I can't imagine that other members of the politburo of the People's Republic of China and the PLA would consider such an invasion easy. The Russians have failed in their attempt to invade a flat, rather poor neighbour. Taiwan is a much richer, and well-armed mountainous island quite a distance from the Mainland.
If invasion succeeded there would then be the challenge of controlling a restive population of 24 million. They already have enough problems of that sort
Even the rhetoric used by Russia won't work. Whatever the personal views of the population may be, the regime in Taipei still styles itself as the government of China: an alternative to the Beijing Government. It doesn't claim to be an independent state
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I think you'll find the Russians have succeeded in invading Ukraine, even if they haven't conquered it. If it wasn't for western weaponry and training supplied before the war as well as during I don't suppose Ukraine would have succeeded in halting the Russians as they have. But China first isolating and then invading Taiwan at a time when the usa cannot come to its aid, well that's something different to your scenario. Might cost the Red Chinese dear but i don't suppose the Taiwanese would succeed against the Red Chinese.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
We Are Living in the Age of Civil War
Intra-nation conflicts are on the rise—and no, the United States is not immune.
newrepublic.com
Similar threads
