Whether someone only watches Fox News or is a regular MSNBC viewer they will be hearing pundits expound on the country descending into a violent second civil war complete both sides armed to the teeth. Death and destruction are being predicted by everyone from Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity to authors and experts talking about this on just about every evening show if Trump is indicted of a crime, and especially if he goes to trial. People on the far right are threatening to take down and replace the government and people on the left are expressing profound concern that we are closer to losing our democracy than any time in history since the period just prior to the American Civil War. Consider this from a recent article in The Guardian: Is the US really heading for a second civil war?
A slew of recent opinion polls shows a significant minority of Americans at ease with the idea of violence against the government. Even talk of a second American civil war has gone from fringe fantasy to media mainstream.
“Is a Civil War ahead?” was the blunt headline of a New Yorker magazine article this week. “Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?” posed the headline of a column in Friday’s New York Times. Three retired US generals wrote a recent Washington Post column warning that another coup attempt “could lead to civil war”.
The mere fact that such notions are entering the public domain shows the once unthinkable has become thinkable, even though some would argue it remains firmly improbable.
The title poses the same question I am wondering about, but doesn’t answer it’s own question. The article concludes:
In a reality check, Josh Kertzer, a political scientist at Harvard University, tweeted: “I know a lot of civil war scholars, and … very few of them think the United States is on the precipice of a civil war.”
And yet the assumption that “it can’t happen here,” is as old as politics itself. Walter has interviewed many survivors about the lead-up to civil wars. “What everybody said, whether they were in Baghdad or Sarajevo or Kiev, was we didn’t see it coming,” she recalled. “In fact, we weren’t willing to accept that anything was wrong until we heard machine gun fire in the hillside. And by that time, it was too late.”
There is a tremendous amount of terrifying rhetoric being expressed not only from those on talk shows but in the comments and threats coming from those supposedly ordinary people being interviewed, at least those who I see on MSNBC.
Two things occur to me about this.
First, rarely does somebody sell a book, get an article published, or end up on a television talk show panel by present a balanced view of an issue like this. The old saying “if it bleeds, it leads” (read derivation) gets top billing in the news is somewhat applicable here. From the hysterical hyperbole of some Fox News hosts to the quiet but still terrifying scenarios plaid out by serious historians and journalist I end up wondering how likely we could actually have a violent second civl war which could come anywhere close to destroying our democracy.
For example, there are articles like “Joe Walsh's MAGA warning: If Trump is indicted, expect ‘major violence’" published in Salon.
Second, I wonder how much we hear from the far right zealots, from the pundits to those who claim to represent one or another armed group is all show and no go, or put another way, all hat and no cowboy. Are they buying into the message coming from the likes of Tucker Carlson who said “the raid of Mar-a-Lago was not an act of law enforcement” but instead “an attack on the rule of law” and “a power grab.” (reference) to the extent they are willing to engage in an armed insurrection against the better armed, trained, and organized opposition coming from law enforcement, and if it came to it, the American military.
Do they really believe the hyped up threat to their way of life actually is real as it laid out by Trump and his minions enough to risk their own lives the way the Ukrainians have been doing?
Talk like you read about in articles like Following Raid In Trump’s Home, The Far Right Calls For Civil War In The U.S. and The far right is calling for civil war after the FBI raid on Trump's home. Experts say that fight wouldn't look like the last one is frightening. This is an excerpt from the later article:
Fiona Hill, who served as the leading Russia expert on the National Security Council during the Trump administration, said in a conversation with Insider last month that the distrust in the electoral process and government institutions fomented by Trump and his GOP allies has created a "recipe for communal violence." Hill warned the US could ultimately "end up in a civil conflict."
The country is at a point in which "trust in the different communities and authorities" has eroded "to such an extent that people just start fighting with each other," Hill said.
But she also underscored that a civil conflict in the present day would be unlikely to look like the American Civil War, an extraordinarily bloody fight between the Union and Confederacy that left an estimated 618,000 to 750,000 Americans dead.
"I don't think we'd end up in the kind of conflict that we had between the states — the Union and the Confederacy — back in the day," Hill said. "But people's sense of the civil and civic ways of resolving disputes are out the window."
It’s one thing to have your homeland actually invaded by a heavily armed neighbor trying to overthrow your democratically elected government and control your country and then take up arms risking your own life as you watch fellow citizens, friends, and family killed. Brave Ukrainians have no illusions that their leader will miraculously protect them from Russian bullets, shells, bombs, and missiles. When Ukrainians shoot they know the enemy will be shooting back.
My questions are:
Are Trump and his armed minions willing to take their store-bought assault rifles and follow a clothe tiger into battle?
Are they willing to die for his cause?
Please comment on what you think and take the poll.
The Poll:
I am leaving the definition of “significant” somewhat ambiguous because this is subjective. I’d suggest that it would mean clashes in at least several cities involving groups of at least a dozen or so insurrectionists from groups like The Proud Boy and Oath Keepers, and resulting in the loss of more than a few lives. I’d omit lone wolf attacks.