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Nah. Who would fight it? Aging white Republicans vs. multiethnic pacifist zoomer and gen alpha Democrats? The Dems are more than happy to roll over for whatever the Republicans want and their base will only hold signs and engage in disorganized civil disobedience. I can see full-on transgender genocide, as our existence can be legislated away with relative ease, but Democrats won’t care any more than they cared about the gay genocide in the 80s, and the incarceration of those that illegally seek meds will be bipartisan
Why in the world would Gen Z/Alpha support the Democrats? They’ve seen what they are supporting in Gaza.
Because they’ll still largely be liberals that think the system can be reformed, material conditions haven’t deteriorated enough for anything else. They’re also far less white and way more LGBT, so they won’t be Republicans unless a sea change happens in that party. If you’re not a Republican in the US, you’re a Democrat, at least socially.
Joe biden is millennial and gen x nostalgia, they just need their own Obama and they’ll go back to brunch, just like the millenials and gen xers that stood against Bush went back to brunch while Obama continued the wars and drone struck US citizens.
E: also the American firewall and tik tok ban will prevent the narrative from spinning out of control again as it did with Palestine
What makes you say that? The invasion of the capitol? Trump? Because for a civil war you need two sides, and the opposition to MAGA in general is more than happy to roll over and let them run the show.
The US is too atomised for that to happen in the forseeable time.
I can’t see it happening any time soon, tbh. All the shit with Trump is purely spectacle. If it does wind up coming to blows, it won’t be a civil war so much as the government/capitalist class dealing with pawns they can’t control. They like having this tension and media circuses about voting - it’s good distraction from all the wretched shit we’re doing, and if anyone talks bad about US foreign policy, they can be accused of supporting Russian and/or China. However, it’s possible some MAGA dogs might slip the leash if Trump doesn’t win, convinced they need to “save democracy”. In which case, I guarantee, the politicians on both sides will disavow Trump and push for a bipartisan crackdown on the “radical insurrectionists” - most of whom will probably get pretty light sentences or deals, after seeing a few (if any) of their comrades get killed by a police/military response. Then we’ll probably see new legislation cracking down on “radicalism”, which will be used to target leftist media and literature.
There is the slight chance, I suppose, that Trump has enough popular support from people who would do something about it, and that the US might be too shocked by a widespread insurrection (an actual one, not that pathetic display on January 6th), that they actually force a response. Just speculating here, but I’d wager it’d just lead to a fascist transition with Trump as some kind of Mussolini so the capitalists and their politicians can stay in power, nobody in power willing to wage a civil war over it. After that, you could make an argument for a war of resistance, but we’re already making too many assumptions here.
Before 2100, maybe.
I hope so. After starting so many civil wars in other countries around the globe, it’s their turn.
I think there’s the potential of it beginning if Trump loses reelection and in a desperate attempt to save his own fat orange ass might command his legions of fascists to attempt to take power. However it could not progress beyond the initial throwing down of the gauntlet, because the US Armed Forces would drop bombs on whatever ragtag army of lunatics wants trouble if they need to.
Reading this gives me the same feeling as being on a roller coaster and at the top of the first hill… scared but also with a giddy elated feeling in my belly.
While I doubt it, I certainly hope so. Shattering the empire from within may be the only hope humanity has, for preventing WW3 and nuclear armageddon.
And for those theorizing the MAGA crowd could start it- sure, I suppose anything’s possible. But I expect it’s the neocon, establishment crowd (which is immensely unpopular and has a considerable chance of losing, and seeing the candidate they conducted lawfare against- Trump- throw the book at their equally-and-moreso guilty asses, will likely do some incredibly desperate and destructive things, especially if their beloved project Ukraine starts falling through) which stands the most chance of setting the country aflame.
They have everything to lose; so does Trump, but the MAGA crowd doesn’t exactly hold great power, not in any way comparable to the establishment “blob” of Washington DC. And they’re the ones- not quite Trump in comparison- who are actively seeking out WW3 and setting fires across the globe at an increasingly deranged rate (Trump was similarly disruptive, but the neocons are clearly far worse).
At some point, I suspect it will be the neocons who will set the US aflame- whether it be a revolution, a military coup, or the MAGA fascists, or (most likely) all of the above and more taking on the government. By all appearances they seem hellbent on terrorizing the world, and robbing their country and citizenry of their very future to do it, and eventually something will have to give.
If you are worried that your neighbors will turn on you, maybe you should move to another region
What would it be over?
Fossil fuel production drops so low that any state with an sizable military will need to decide to make a series of quick expansions to claim water sources and arable land for farming before there isn’t enough gas to drive the tanks and airplanes?
One of these openly fascist types will try to lock the rest of the country out of some important infrastructure or interstate transportation route because of some minor progress in reproductive rights or LGBTQIA+ acceptance in neighboring states or at the level of federal government?
The mind wonders…
No.
The grievances and gripes people have which are highlighted as the likely cause of division and a speculative civil war are mostly smokescreen culture war bullshit that exist for media spectacle and politicking. Beating up on minorities isn’t something that’s going to drive a big chunk of liberals to fight. Material issues are not seen in class terms. It’s seen in matters of bickering about policy like tax policy or war spending which is true to a degree but it’s a lost in the illusion thing. Conditions worsen but the illusion remains.
The media and parties and grifters stir up mild tension for profit and distraction but have little real interest in it coming to an actual protracted fight. Sure reactionaries wouldn’t and don’t mind killing some progressives or leftists now and again but the left isn’t large enough, organized enough, etc to actually fight back nor the citizenry informed enough outside the bourgeois press propaganda bubble to get involved after an outrage.
The mythos of the holy American institutions, the holy government, the holy constitution and system still holds strong. As long as that is the alter at which all Americans worship at I don’t think a civil war can happen.
Only when a significant part of the population make a sustained break from that might something happen. And for that to really occur you need much worse material conditions. There are cracks, the Republican resistance to Ukraine and increasing skepticism of neo-cons (which probably won’t last beyond the day Trump is elected), the crushing of Palestinian student protests and the disenchantment that has. But neither I see as things that can grow in the short term.
If there is a civil war it will be decades from now when the contradictions have heightened, the empire has visibly fallen and Americans can only bicker among themselves and fight over increasingly limited spoils and take from each other. But it will take a severe split in the bourgeoisie or genuine anti-capitalist sentiment that rocks the youth of that time. Frankly with how atomized the population is, with technology, with the surveillance state, it’s going to get really, really, really bad before it gets even a little bit better in terms of people pushing back.
If anything I think all the mainstream talk of civil war is yet another sign we’re not headed there soon. It’s a kind of outlet, to let the public collectively explore the idea, enjoy it, hate it, fear it, whatever rather than actually experiencing it. It’s part of the broader attempts at controlling the narrative too. There is this idea being pushed that the reason we’re at risk for civil war is not any of the real problems like fascists, bigotry, support of genocide, living in a genocidal violent empire, BUT that people are seeing outside agitator “propaganda” from Russia, China, etc. It’s part and parcel of the push to ban Tiktok, to crack down on anyone spreading views counter to the state department line, to label them a real enemy. Because by tying it to that they’re no longer just a “kook” with a weird conspiracy opinion but a danger to the precious and holy American institutions and a threat of causing civil war if we don’t crack down on them and crack down on those giving them those ideas. So it’s really part of a push to control information, to control it online in social media, to block foreign media and perspectives. And to censor and deplatform anyone deviating from the “bipartisan” imperialist consensus as a foreign agent, as a chaos actor, as someone trying to destroy the US. It really all started with Trump and the liberal derangement and Russiagate hoax around him.
