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The second American Civil War?


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GaggedNoMore

This used to be question that was only debated among fringe groups like militias, neo-fascists, but now it's going mainstream. It was discussed on MSNBC  as well as CNN and also at the Guardian. And in terms of popular culture people are starting to notice alarming parallels with recent events in the U.S like storming the capitol and overturning Roe v. Wade and the dystopian regime depicted in The Handmaid's Tale.

 

It's hard to imagine what a second civil war will look like; probably not like the first one with it being divided clearly along state lines. Still it's frightening to contemplate.

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13 minutes ago, GaggedNoMore said:

Still it's frightening to contemplate.

Not that much for me, I'm 9 time zones away.

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GaggedNoMore
6 minutes ago, Lord Revan said:

Not that much for me, I'm 9 time zones away.

The fact that something's happening in another country, far from where you live, doesn't necessarily mean it won't affect you. I live in Canada. America's closest neighbour and we are very closely tied economically and politically. We have a lot in common with them. Our military is comparatively weak unlike the U.S army; the strongest and most powerful in the world. We'd be pretty much defenseless in the event of an invasion. We also have a socially conservative, religious right like that in America. While they're not nearly as powerful and numerous as their U.S counterparts that could quickly change in the right (or should I say wrong) conditions. It would be wise to keep in mind that when Hitler and the Nazis came to power, they started  to expand their empire by first invading Poland.

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GaggedNoMore
23 minutes ago, LeChat said:

Yeah. If you're interested, there's some discussion between members, here, about it. https://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/256274-should-we-get-rid-of-the-us-supreme-court/?do=findComment&comment=1064728869

I didn't see that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. That discussion though seems to be about should the U.S supreme court be reformed and how that could be achieved. A lot of people think it's too late for that and it's pretty much a lost cause at this point. My own political leanings (very far left - libertarian socialist aka. anarchism) inform my views that whole global system; capitalism and all the state institutions that go with it - the courts, police, prison etc are beyond reform and are going to rot away because they have within them the seeds of their own destruction. I also think climate change and global warming will play a huge role in this as well. The system will burn, so to speak, then we can build a new world from the ashes and ruins of the old.

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You're welcome! Yeah; in the link I gave, one member commented at the end about whether it might bring a civil war and couple of members gave their thoughts about that, after that.

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An actual civil war would likely be horribly beyond anything most people are imagining.  The food supply system in the US is extremely complex, and probably a hundred million people live too far from food sources for ad-hoc transport to work.   A real war, would disrupt food supplies and could result in an almost unimaginable food crises - far to large for foreign aid organizations to fix.

 

The US has huge food overproduction, but a civil war could destroy road, rail, and fuel supplies, and there might be no way to get that food to where its needed before millions starve. 

 

Then there is the risk of it going nuclear if we have military forces on both sides. 

 

I think we want to avoid a civil war at all costs, and I mean all costs.  The US civil war was the deadliest in US history and it was fought at a time when population densities were low, and where most of the disruption happened in places where people lived near food supplies.

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AspieAlly613

I don't think there will be a war.  160 years ago, when the confederate states seceded to continue slavery, the union went to war because not allowing slavery to continue was worth the human cost of war.  This time, if anyone votes to secede, it won't be worth going to war to stop them.

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Lysandre, the Star-Crossed
1 hour ago, Lord Revan said:

Not that much for me, I'm 9 time zones away.

If you think a US civil war won't have far reaching consequences across the globe I strongly urge you to rethink your stances. Russia and China are kept in check largely by the threat posed by our existence, and a civil war would take us out of that standoff. NATO is largely a matter of US involvement, they don't maintain military supremacy without us. China would threaten Southeast Asia unchecked as well. We are a deterrent, the metaphorical if not literal gun to the head of the next few largest players on the stage. Mutually assured destruction doesn't work without us.

 

3 minutes ago, AspieAlly613 said:

I don't think there will be a war.  160 years ago, when the confederate states seceded to continue slavery, the union went to war because not allowing slavery to continue was worth the human cost of war.  This time, if anyone votes to secede, it won't be worth going to war to stop them.

I think it depends on the pretext. A civil war emerging from an attempt at secession does not seem likely, because secession doesn't seem likely. What I believe is far more plausible is a civil war beginning out of an failed (or successful) attempt to overthrow the federal government. If January 6th had been the bloodbath I expected it to be as I watched in horror it seems likely that the two parties would have faced a legitimacy issue that would have spiraled into open fighting in the capital. I think there are a great many people who are loyal to the government, but that not all of them would have agreed on whom their allegiance was actually owed to. 

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Fence off Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida. Give Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming to Canada. Let Texas go do its own thing and see how well they could survive without the Government to support them. War averted, national IQ raised 10-20 points, and we could finally get things done. 

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Lysandre, the Star-Crossed
1 hour ago, FSENonServiam said:

Fence off Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida. Give Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming to Canada. Let Texas go do its own thing and see how well they could survive without the Government to support them. War averted, national IQ raised 10-20 points, and we could finally get things done. 

They can have New York, but I want to keep Montana and Wyoming 

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Lord Jade Cross
2 hours ago, GaggedNoMore said:

The fact that something's happening in another country, far from where you live, doesn't necessarily mean it won't affect you. I live in Canada. America's closest neighbour and we are very closely tied economically and politically. We have a lot in common with them. Our military is comparatively weak unlike the U.S army; the strongest and most powerful in the world. We'd be pretty much defenseless in the event of an invasion. We also have a socially conservative, religious right like that in America. While they're not nearly as powerful and numerous as their U.S counterparts that could quickly change in the right (or should I say wrong) conditions. It would be wise to keep in mind that when Hitler and the Nazis came to power, they started  to expand their empire by first invading Poland.

Im not entirely sure the US army is as strong as they still believe themselves to be given how they are having a lot of trouble recruiting and keeping soldiers in the ranks as of late. You can see they are growing more concerned, to not say desperate, when a couple of years ago, you wouldnt hear any ads for recruitment and now you have billboards and commercials running up and down the streets trying to incentivise civilians into joining the ranks

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GaggedNoMore
2 minutes ago, Lord Jade Cross said:

Im not entirely sure the US army is as strong as they still believe themselves to be given how they are having a lot of trouble recruiting and keeping soldiers in the ranks as of late. You can see they are growing more concerned, to not say desperate, when a couple of years ago, you wouldnt hear any ads for recruitment and now you have billboards and commercials running up and down the streets trying to incentivise civilians into joining the ranks

That's a fair point as an outsider I hadn't heard about this. Though I have heard about numbers of U.S soldiers deserting since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. - the highest it's been in almost four decades. Which kind of makes me wonder how far the U.S government is going to go to make up for this attrition - ie; bringing back the draft like they did during Vietnam. And even if the armed forces are weakening somewhat, we know from history that private militias can fill that void. Looking back at January 6th, you had groups like the Proud boys, the Oath Keepers and other Trump supporters. I'm not sure how many of them were armed on that day, but these people are by far the biggest champions and defenders of America's Second Amendment. When Obama was in office, gun sales skyrocketed and you can bet these people are armed to the teeth. Keep in mind too that around the world during the twentieth century when colonized countries fought against their regimes and ultimately won their independence, they made use of guerilla warfare tactics against forces that were better armed and organized - and yet they prevailed. I think a new us civil war would look a lot like the sort of violent conflict seen in Northern Ireland for thirty years (and now could start flaring up again because of Brexit. But that's a whole other topic.

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GaggedNoMore
1 hour ago, FSENonServiam said:

 Give Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming to Canada

These three states are the ones that have already banned - or severely restricted - access to abortion after overturning Roe. In Canada our prime minister has vowed that safe legal abortion would be protected. I could see a messy situation coming of that. On the other hand if they became part of Canada. Then again they may have no choice to repeal the ban in that event. (As an aside, clinics in the prairie provinces here (Manitoba and Saskatchewan) are anticipating an unknown number of Americans traveling there for abortions are anticipating a large number of Americans coming up here for abortions. North and South Dakota are the closest U.S states -about an hour's drive - along the border.

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RoseGoesToYale

At this point, I actually don't think civil war will break out. We're too lazy, there's no singular dividing issue to fight about that has clearly divided lines, and we crave our ability to be consumers more than a thousand shipping containers of crack. We can't even boycott Amazon, and war is bad for business (unless your business is war). Seriously, you know how many Democrats and Republicans would freak the fuck out if they couldn't get their double-almond-shot-frappamochalattes from Starbucks? Can't go to Starbucks if the enemy faction is blocking the road with guns. Can't go to Walmart, either. We're too lazy to take the 30 minutes necessary to read political candidate platforms, who's gonna read a battle map and hold an hour long strategy meeting? People will expatriate before that happens.

 

The rioters on January 6th only went to the capital because their leader, the laziest adult male human American ever, told them to. Trump is lazy, he's not gonna command a war. If they have no leader, they might skirmish unorganizedly, but they'll be jailed for that.

 

A fascist authoritarian dictatorship implemented via democratic backsliding and silent coup are not out of the realm of possibility, however.

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I don't think there will be another civil war. The Civil War was fought between two parts of the country that were very different, mainly because of slavery.  The South saw its way of life being threatened so decided to secede.  The country was still really young at the time and had fewer states, and it's easier to break off from a small, short relationship than from a big, long one (in my opinion, at least).  The country is a lot different today.  It's people's ideologies that are different, not their entire economic systems.  And it's spread throughout the country.  We couldn't just create a new Mason-Dixon line and leave it at that.  The coastal states would need to be together and the central states would need to be together, and the toss-up states would just have to pick a side?  Mexico would probably try to take back the southwestern states.  And what about Alaska and Hawaii?  It would be so much hassle, and in the end I think we'd realize that even though we don't all think along the same lines, we're still better off together.

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Eh...if the South just seceded again along the Mason-Dixon line, America would probably be a lot better off.

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1 hour ago, GaggedNoMore said:

These three states are the ones that have already banned - or severely restricted - access to abortion after overturning Roe. In Canada our prime minister has vowed that safe legal abortion would be protected. I could see a messy situation coming of that. On the other hand if they became part of Canada. Then again they may have no choice to repeal the ban in that event. (As an aside, clinics in the prairie provinces here (Manitoba and Saskatchewan) are anticipating an unknown number of Americans traveling there for abortions are anticipating a large number of Americans coming up here for abortions. North and South Dakota are the closest U.S states -about an hour's drive - along the border.

If you thought Yanks were annoying from afar, sounds like you may be getting up close and personal with some!😂 I love Trudeau for guaranteeing safe health care for ladies, but its not going to help poor minorities who are going to suffer most.

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Purple Red Panda

I don't think a civil war in the traditional sense is on the cards in the short to mid term future but I find it suprisingly (and depressingly) easy to imagine some form of low level conflict similar in some ways to how the situation was in Northern Ireland for several decades. US society seems more polarised than I think it ever has been in my lifetime and I fear there is only going to be an increase in politically motivated bombings and mass shooting. Unfortuantely America seems to be awash with right wing conspiracism and people with guns and that is not a situation that should fill anyone with confidence about the future.

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Lysandre, the Star-Crossed
38 minutes ago, Purple Red Panda said:

I don't think a civil war in the traditional sense is on the cards in the short to mid term future but I find it suprisingly (and depressingly) easy to imagine some form of low level conflict similar in some ways to how the situation was in Northern Ireland for several decades. US society seems more polarised than I think it ever has been in my lifetime and I fear there is only going to be an increase in politically motivated bombings and mass shooting. 

I'm thinking it'll look a lot like the early chapters of The Turner Diaries... firebombing government buildings, assassinations of elected officials, the occasional active shooter. It doesn't take much to tie down the military in our country, the shitshow over in the sandbox shows us just what small irregular forces can do against a military more equipped and trained to fight another modern military. We won't see entire states leaving, not until the latter stages.

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I’m enjoying reading this very interesting discussion. Event thought I am British, I studied American history at masters level. I focused on the revolutionary era. Recently I’ve become interested in the civil war, and I’m considering signing up for an online university course about it. 
One of the areas they cover is, “are we closer now to repeating a civil war than any other time in US history?” It will be interesting to see if the discussion follows a similar line to the one here.

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2 hours ago, Lysandre, the Star-Crossed said:

It doesn't take much to tie down the military in our country, the shitshow over in the sandbox shows us just what small irregular forces can do against a military more equipped and trained to fight another modern military.

It's exactly the opposite, the Americans who do have combat experience have no experience and no clue about fighting against a peer military, so fighting in small groups will go badly. Former tacticool US special ops guys fled Ukraine in a picosecond once they found out what they were up against, lmao.

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19 hours ago, Lysandre, the Star-Crossed said:

If you think a US civil war won't have far reaching consequences across the globe I strongly urge you to rethink your stances. Russia and China are kept in check largely by the threat posed by our existence, and a civil war would take us out of that standoff. NATO is largely a matter of US involvement, they don't maintain military supremacy without us. China would threaten Southeast Asia unchecked as well. We are a deterrent, the metaphorical if not literal gun to the head of the next few largest players on the stage. Mutually assured destruction doesn't work without us.

 

I think it depends on the pretext. A civil war emerging from an attempt at secession does not seem likely, because secession doesn't seem likely. What I believe is far more plausible is a civil war beginning out of an failed (or successful) attempt to overthrow the federal government. If January 6th had been the bloodbath I expected it to be as I watched in horror it seems likely that the two parties would have faced a legitimacy issue that would have spiraled into open fighting in the capital. I think there are a great many people who are loyal to the government, but that not all of them would have agreed on whom their allegiance was actually owed to. 

Yes, the classic civil war problem is that sometimes its not at all clear which side is the "legitimate" government. Imagine if Pence had decided to do as Trump requested. 

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Lysandre, the Star-Crossed
1 hour ago, uhtred said:

Yes, the classic civil war problem is that sometimes its not at all clear which side is the "legitimate" government. Imagine if Pence had decided to do as Trump requested. 

Nobody really knows what happens when the folks at the upper levels of government stop playing by the rules en masse. We've not got much to go on except what happened following the civil war.

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Calligraphette_Coe
On 7/31/2022 at 5:11 PM, AspieAlly613 said:

I don't think there will be a war.  160 years ago, when the confederate states seceded to continue slavery, the union went to war because not allowing slavery to continue was worth the human cost of war.  This time, if anyone votes to secede, it won't be worth going to war to stop them.

I'd say, "Begone!" The reddest states are also the ones that receive the most tax dollars and contribute the least. In a couple of years, they'd be back with hat in hand demanding to be let back in.

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Lysandre, the Star-Crossed
2 hours ago, Calligraphette_Coe said:

I'd say, "Begone!" The reddest states are also the ones that receive the most tax dollars and contribute the least. In a couple of years, they'd be back with hat in hand demanding to be let back in.

Many of the deeply red or blue states suck, and many of the worst cities in this country are the large blue ones in red states. 

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On 7/31/2022 at 7:53 PM, alto said:

Eh...if the South just seceded again along the Mason-Dixon line, America would probably be a lot better off.

Guess I shouldn't have decided to click on this after all, since people are just gonna be shitty??  Yeah, you probably would be better off, but screw all of us who have family and roots planted down here, right?  

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SorryNotSorry
On 7/31/2022 at 5:53 PM, alto said:

Eh...if the South just seceded again along the Mason-Dixon line, America would probably be a lot better off.

I agree... a "Dixit". An independent South could also have Idaho and Montana as exclaves, since those states are both pretty much lily-white, far right, and morally uptight.

 

The problem is that an independent South (aka Biblestan) would be a Christian, wetter, and broke version of Saudi Arabia.

 

But as far as an actual war, no. Secessionists, MAGAts, and others on the right would periodically carry out random terrorist attacks in blue regions, the closest analogy being Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

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The French Unicorn

From an outsider perspective I don't really believe in a Civil War, or at least not with guns and things like that. I may be wrong but I think that a big part of western countries are just to use to peace to really think about it. Now I think that if one part or the other attack, it would be different and people would fight back... And it is not crazy to think that it would happen in the future though, but I think we have a few years before that.

 

I think that we have some kind of cultural war though, and that the US country is really divided in two poles, who are not able to understand each other and to cohabit. And I suppose it son't end nicely...

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