The Civil War of 2025

[southernhybrid]

The idiots who keep screaming that Trump won are a small minority, as far as I can tell. Only two assholes in my entire city have kept their stupid Trump 20/20 signs up. One of them looks to be about 85 years old, so I seriously doubt he's going to join the civil war. We did have some young Trump supporters on my street, but they took down their signs a few weeks after the election and much to my joy, they moved to an exurban area shortly after. I tend to think that the Trump extremists are not nearly as common as some think. I have my concerns but I don't think it's helpful to keep predicting a civil war etc. These people have children and jobs. Very few of them are going to put their children or their means of support a risk. Jan. 6th involved a small number of crazies. They are a small minority.

I'll tell you what concerns me. I am worried about the negativity in the media, especially the more lefty media. If the media keeps predicting that there is no way the Dems can keep their majority in Congress, it will discourage voters from voting. I will vote no matter what and so will all of my friends in my age group. But, the younger voters are often somewhat apathetic when it comes to voting regularly. Some have never voted. If they keep hearing that there is no way the Dems can keep a majority in Congress, I am almost positive that many won't bother to vote. I've known too many like that here in Georgia. Plus, I've known some who never vote in the midterms. How do we change that?

The attempts to make voting harder in states like mine aren't nearly as bad as the media has portrayed them. We still have 3 full weeks of early voting. Anyone can request an absentee ballot without having a reason. They just have to request it. It's true that some lines in the larger urban areas are always long, but there are ways around it. Early voting and absentee voting make it easier to vote. It's up to the citizens of the country to make sure they vote and demand that their vote is counted.

All of this negativity and scary talk is foolish. We just need to get involved with the election process and encourage the apathetic voters to vote.

If the Dems want to win, they need to get their shit together and compromise so they can actually get something done. If nothing gets done, we are fucked.

Right now, SCOTUS is my biggest concern. SCOTUS is now a bunch of partisan hacks and we have another 80 plus year old liberal judge who refuses to retire. We need term limits for these asshole justices. They have too much power and thanks to good old Mitch, the court is now further right than most of the country.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Let’s see if they have the chutzpah to actually do it. Their best chance was Jan 6th, when Trump was still in power and they had the element of surprise, and yet not a single one of them fired a shot. Not a single of their bombs went off.

Are they even organized? Who are their generals? Where are their targets?

Won’t be so much a civil war as isolated uprisings and they’ll be facing actual trained and armed military and national guard.

They should put up or shut up because I would like to see them come out into the open and get this over with.

 

[bilby]

Well, that's what we're trying to do.....


https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-trump-activists-subpoenaed-in-jan-6-investigation/JDTIPITFP5E2HN4YGTM5HVVOY4/

A House committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has subpoenaed two Georgia tea party activists who helped arrange the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the attack.



Women for America First founder Amy Kremer of Roswell and her daughter Kylie Kremer were on a list of 11 names released Wednesday by the House select committee investigating Capitol attack. The committee is seeking documents and testimony related to the riot.

“The investigation has revealed credible evidence of your involvement in events within the scope of the Select Committee’s inquiry,” the letter to Amy Kremer stated, noting that the permit application for the rally was made the same day as former President Donald Trump’s tweet urging people to attend.

This shit takes time.

And, imo, it's not so much that Democrats are pussies, unless by pussies, you simply mean cats. Cats are difficult to herd and that's how I view the Dems. For example, those on the left won't compromise with the moderates so nothing gets done. This is one reason why I can't stand Bernie. It's not that I'm against most of his wishes, I just don't like anyone who has the attitude that it has to be all or nothing. Get what you can and then try to get more later. Pass the f'n infrastructure bill, and then reduce the 3.5 trillion plan so that the two moderates in the Senate will pass it.Then come back bit by bit and get what you can. You know......"you can't always get what you want...but if you try real hard, you'll get what you need." Something is better than nothing.

There's not going to be a civil war. How would that work since just about every state is a diverse mix of Dems and Repubs as well as independents? The so called bluest states are on opposite sides of the country. Sure, we have a lot of crazy violent idiots in this country and sadly, guns are totally out of control. Violence is on the rise all over the country and a lot of it isn't at all related to politics.

Jesus! Some of you sound like helpless little scardy cats! Plus, Trump may either be dead or so senile that he won't be able to walk upright by 2024. Let's see how the next year or two go before we freakout.

The American Civil War was perhaps the most territorially defined 'Civil War' in world history - to the point that it really wasn't a 'civil war' at all, but a war between neighbours.

Having both sides geographically mixed, with little or no clear territory that hosts only one or the other group of belligerents isn't a barrier to the outbreak of civil war; It's a defining feature of such wars.

If your sole comfort is the belief that civil war couldn't occur because the two sides are geographically mixed, or because the territories held by one or the other are widely separated, then history has some very bad news for you.

The worst civil wars are those with the least clear territorial separation between the sides. Where conflict between next door neighbours, or even within a single household, is commonplace.

Homogeneous mixing of the two sides isn't a barrier to civil war; It's just a stimulus to massacres as the opening phase of that war - something that characterises most civil wars, with the American 'Civil War' as a clear exception.

 

[Ford]

Let’s see if they have the chutzpah to actually do it. Their best chance was Jan 6th, when Trump was still in power and they had the element of surprise, and yet not a single one of them fired a shot. Not a single of their bombs went off.

Are they even organized? Who are their generals? Where are their targets?

Won’t be so much a civil war as isolated uprisings and they’ll be facing actual trained and armed military and national guard.

They should put up or shut up because I would like to see them come out into the open and get this over with.

Will the Gravy SEALS actually do it? The guys who buy "tactical" flashlights and sunglasses, fly Trump flags on their trucks, and sink in a boat parade? Probably not. They're "peaceful protestors" mostly because they don't have the chutzpah.

Will the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and III Percent types? That worries me, because they are not only armed, but have (in the case of the Proud Boys) demonstrated that they will get violent.

What really worries me is that there are some hard-core "true believers" who have always been "prepping" for a showdown with "the government" who have merely hitched their little red wagons to the Trump movement. We've seen what happens when they decide to actually launch an attack against "the government."

The worst terrorist attack on the United States prior to 9/11 was Oklahoma City. Tim McVeigh and his cohorts really did "take the fight to the government" and massacred 168 people with a truck bomb. Prior to that attack, there was a growing "militia" movement, with people like the Michigan Militia training in the woods, meeting up, stockpiling weapons, etc. McVeigh and Nichols were tied to them in particular. After Oklahoma City happened - and that picture of the firefighter carrying the bloodied infant out of the rubble went "viral" - the militia movement took a hit. The nation recoiled in horror. The militia types slunk back into the shadows because blowing up a daycare was a bad look.

What really, really worries me is that - if the mass shootings are any indication - mass casualty events don't cause the same recoiling in horror reaction anymore. There's a segment of the population that says "well Sandy Hook never happened" or "it was just crisis actors." Or "a good guy with a gun could have stopped (fill in mass shooting here)!" And of course there are people who insist that January 6th was just overly-enthusiastic tourists, or Antifa, or that the woman who got shot trying to storm the Capitol was a "martyr." Will a mass casualty event at a government building move the needle? If some nut manages to bomb the Capitol, or assassinate Biden or Harris, will the Trump fans with the flags recoil in horror and say "whoa...that's not us!"?

I'm doubtful. Will a full-on civil war happen? No, but when the armed, violent extremists actually do manage to pull of a terrorist attack, the boat parade people will not disavow them...just like they're not disavowing the 1/6 rioters. They'll make excuses, or justify the attacks, or simply deny it happened.

 

[Elixir]

Ignorant blowhard babies.
Time to pat them on the head and tell them it's all okay, they won the civil war, Trump is President and they never need to vote again.

No. They are a real threat.

Yes, of course they are. They must be prevented from coming to power as a minority. But that has nothing to do with placating them; that was ... facetious. If only Donald would tell them he's President again so it's all okay, they'd probably believe him and we could go about making sure they can't rig the '22 elections to bring themselves into control of Congress. But Donald isn't going to do that, so...

This dismissive type response is exactly what they are looking for. They don’t care about voting. They care about overturning elections and will do so through crooked and illegal procedures and outright violence.

Whether or not such dismissive response is issued, I agree that the priority for the GQP is now to illegally/violently overturn elections. But I also agree with Ford - the boat parade people are NOT going to team up with the Proud Boys to assault their State or Federal Capitols. People who want to get involved in a violent overthrow of the Government of the United States of America are a fairly small minority still.
If we can keep their hands off government we can be as dismissive as we want - they're fucking traitors. I think they should lose their citizenship when they get out of jail.

 

[ideologyhunter]

We're likely due for some cowardly acts of terrorism (a redundancy.) There won't be any mass militia action like one of those jackasses is quoted as predicting. The real profile of the Trump base has to include recliner chairs, Fibercon, and Quarter Pounders. They are a miserable bunch and can be led like sheep. Trump has to be chortling.

 

[ZiprHead]

We're likely due for some cowardly acts of terrorism (a redundancy.) There won't be any mass militia action like one of those jackasses is quoted as predicting. The real profile of the Trump base has to include recliner chairs, Fibercon, and Quarter Pounders. They are a miserable bunch and can be led like sheep. Trump has to be chortling.

This.

And the idea that Madison Cawthorne will be on the front lines makes me laugh.

 

[Politesse]

I think they're forgetting how that war ended. It takes more than bravado alone to murder your kids / neighbors and get away with it.

 

[ideologyhunter]

If we do experience additional Trumpist terrorism, expect even more vile justifications from GOP senators, reps, and Fox. I can't see how this gets them any new converts, and they have to know that the truly nutso Trumpists are the Crazy Third. So they have to depend on all these vote-stifling laws to get where they want to be. This is a party that is corrupt to its core.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If we do experience additional Trumpist terrorism, expect even more vile justifications from GOP senators, reps, and Fox. I can't see how this gets them any new converts, and they have to know that the truly nutso Trumpists are the Crazy Third. So they have to depend on all these vote-stifling laws to get where they want to be. This is a party that is corrupt to its core.

Lindsey Graham: “I didn’t say to not kill your neighbors, I just said to think about not killing your neighbors.”

 

[TV and credit cards]

Let’s see if they have the chutzpah to actually do it. Their best chance was Jan 6th, when Trump was still in power and they had the element of surprise, and yet not a single one of them fired a shot. Not a single of their bombs went off.

Are they even organized? Who are their generals? Where are their targets?

Won’t be so much a civil war as isolated uprisings and they’ll be facing actual trained and armed military and national guard.

They should put up or shut up because I would like to see them come out into the open and get this over with.

Do not make assumptions about the leadership of organizations such as the National Guard. A poor leader need only hint at his political leanings to affect how his troops will respond. All law enforcement should be apolitical and professional in their duties but I think it would be naive to think this will be the case.
Further, we do not know at what point they would even be ordered to respond. My observation going back as far as the Bundy’s is to let them tucker themselves out depending on what exactly they are doing.
Would a right leaning sheriff in Smalltown, USA tolerate civilian militia conducting traffic stops? Maybe for awhile. Would left leaning city leadership prevent law enforcement from doing their duty in a timely manner so as not to appear heavy- handed? I think we already know the answer to this.
This will happen by degree. They will probe and test to see what they can get away with.
But they are not going away. They have been underestimated since the formation of the Tea Party.
They may not all take up arms but they will have the support of no small part of the country.
Well, if they were given jobs with a decent wage, that would put an end to all this. But we all know that’s unlikely to happen.

 

[Swammerdami]

Let’s see if they have the chutzpah to actually do it. Their best chance was Jan 6th, when Trump was still in power and they had the element of surprise, and yet not a single one of them fired a shot. Not a single of their bombs went off.

Are they even organized? Who are their generals? Where are their targets?

Won’t be so much a civil war as isolated uprisings and they’ll be facing actual trained and armed military and national guard.

They should put up or shut up because I would like to see them come out into the open and get this over with.

Do not make assumptions about the leadership of organizations such as the National Guard. A poor leader need only hint at his political leanings to affect how his troops will respond. All law enforcement should be apolitical and professional in their duties but I think it would be naive to think this will be the case.
Further, we do not know at what point they would even be ordered to respond. My observation going back as far as the Bundy’s is to let them tucker themselves out depending on what exactly they are doing.
Would a right leaning sheriff in Smalltown, USA tolerate civilian militia conducting traffic stops? Maybe for awhile. Would left leaning city leadership prevent law enforcement from doing their duty in a timely manner so as not to appear heavy- handed? I think we already know the answer to this.
This will happen by degree. They will probe and test to see what they can get away with.
But they are not going away. They have been underestimated since the formation of the Tea Party.
They may not all take up arms but they will have the support of no small part of the country.
Well, if they were given jobs with a decent wage, that would put an end to all this. But we all know that’s unlikely to happen.

I'm not sure how the civil unrest will play out, but things will get very grim. We already know that a large share (perhaps a majority) of white-skinned law enforcement officers will side with, or at least not actively counter, Nazi-style insurrectionists. Don't let the amateurishness of January 6th give you hope: such are just dress rehearsals.

One point I disagree with is "if they were given jobs with a decent wage, that would put an end to all this." People struggling to make ends meet generally have little time to buy black flags and parade with guns. I think most of the QAnon crowd have adequate incomes (although poor choices may have left them with debts) but are enraged by right-wing propaganda about vaccines, non-white people, etc.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Madison Cawthorn Is Openly Talking About Civil War at This Point | Vanity Fair

Cawthorn, the Nazi wannabe (whose bucket list included going to the Eagle Nest), scares the heck out of me. A kid with no experience with anything other than dealing with some harsh physical therapy is marching up the alt-right notables. The alt-right is being pushed forward by the most inexperienced and unqualified people.

The alt-right has been threatening violence for a bit now, oh and trying to 'assist the military' on January 6th, but the worst violence was actually a Sanders supporter up to this point. But the January 6th events definitely proved they are clearly programmable and incitable.

 

[Gun Nut]

Ignorant blowhard babies.
Time to pat them on the head and tell them it's all okay, they won the civil war, Trump is President and they never need to vote again.

No. They are a real threat. This dismissive type response is exactly what they are looking for.

I agree with Elixir that they are ignorant blowhards. I do not think this is dismissive. It is simply calling a very weak bluff.

They don’t care about voting. They care about overturning elections and will do so through crooked and illegal procedures and outright violence.

.. and so they will end up in jail, unable to legally vote ever again. I call that a win for society.
So far, our democratic controls, weak and held together with chewing gum and thread, are nonetheless holding. So far. More or less. Sort of.

 

[Gun Nut]

One point I disagree with is "if they were given jobs with a decent wage, that would put an end to all this." People struggling to make ends meet generally have little time to buy black flags and parade with guns. I think most of the QAnon crowd have adequate incomes (although poor choices may have left them with debts) but are enraged by right-wing propaganda about vaccines, non-white people, etc.

A descent entry-level AR-15 costs about $1700 to own, and about $0.70 every time you pull the trigger (shooting the cheapest .223 ammo currently available).
So, ya. I agree.

 

[lpetrich]

I've merged "Trump supporters threaten Civil War II" in "US Presidential Politics" with this one.

 

[lpetrich]

He Saw America’s Crackup Coming in 2011—He Says It's Worse Now

A decade ago, journalist Colin Woodard wrote "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America", much like "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" and "The Nine Nations of North America".

He described US history as a contest between different cultural regions, each one founded by different European settlers and then being perpetuated by which later immigrants chose to settle in them.

• Yankeedom - New England, northern Midwest
• New Netherland - NYC and nearby
• Midlands - southern NJ in a thin strip to a big part of the Midwest, also Canada north of the Great Lakes
• Tidewater - eastern VA and NC
• Greater Appalachia - central PA to central TX
• Deep South - SC to southeast TX
• New France - Quebec and south LA state
• El Norte - south TX to south CA, with a projection into south CO
• Far West - western Great Plains and western mountains and deserts
• Left Coast - a thin strip of CA, OR, WA, BC
• First Nation - original populations in northern Canada and Alaska

He also notes the Caribbean for south Florida and Polynesia for Hawaii

The different regions have been at loggerheads for the last two centuries, with the Civil War being fought by two alliances of these regions. The regions now cluster as Red and Blue, with some regions being swing regions.

 

[lpetrich]

Back to the article.

"Another outside possibility is that, faced with a major crisis, the federation’s leaders will betray their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the primary adhesive holding the union together,” Colin Woodard wrote in the epilogue to his prescient 2011 book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Regional Cultures in North America.

”In the midst of, say, a deadly pandemic outbreak or the destruction of several cities by terrorists, a fearful public might condone the suspension of civil rights, the dissolution of Congress, or the incarceration of Supreme Court justices.”

A decade later, the specters of MAGA-mania and Charlottesville torches, police and protester clashes, COVID-19, and a Capitol Hill insurrection all haunt the passage. Still, even the author was startled by the arrival of the calamity he’d foreseen.

“I knew the country was brittle and if we kept going down the road we're on that there would be trouble ahead, but it's the speed at which it’s happened, right?” Woodard said over the phone from Portland, Maine.

...
“We’re terribly out of balance. To have a liberal democracy, you must have a balance between those two forces and aspects of freedom, between building and sustaining community and individual liberty,” he said. “Neither can exist long without the other and taken to extremes, they each contain the seeds of their own destruction. Orwellian on one side, oligarchical on the other.”

He got the idea of writing about US regionalism from his experience in covering Eastern Europe during the fall of Communism there. He noticed that Eastern European countries sometimes are divided by who ruled which of their territories in the past.

A big example is Poland.  Poland A and B - western vs. eastern Poland. Polish Election Map Reveals Old Imperial Border - Big Think overlaying the late 19th-cy. German Empire onto the  2007 Polish parliamentary election results map. The former German areas voted for the Civic Platform party (Platforma Obywatelska, PO), while the former Russian areas voted for the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS).

Ukraine likewise shows a split between east and west, the western part having been in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth some centuries ago. Maps! Ukraine's geographical and historical divisions | Observationalism

Romania has a split between the northwest and the rest of the country, the northwestern part having been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 19th cy. Xavi Ruiz on Twitter: " The map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918) overlapping the results of the 2014 presidential elections in Romania An example of the long term impact of past institutions. (pic link)" / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

When he returned,

... Woodard took note of similar cultural rifts after returning stateside to live in regions beyond his native New England. Time in Washington, D.C., made it most obvious. Inner Maryland showed German influence while place names closer to the coast were associated with British royalty.

“We'd be driving [to Chesapeake] and you could almost see where the two zones met. Suddenly the baseball teams you would see practicing started being de facto segregated by race whereas they hadn’t been a few miles before,” Woodard said.

...
Widely hailed as a “Rosetta Stone” of American struggle and dysfunction, American Nations has detractors, too. Deep South readers often accuse Woodard of bias. Pedantic disputes arise over regional boundaries.

He brushes aside the notion that he has some superior understanding, saying that fissures or rot or whatever can cause trouble for a society under stress.

His pandemic reference wasn’t an outlier, either. The 1918 flu, smallpox, and polio were worldwide scourges just in the last century. When Woodard penned American Nations, he leaned on previous SARS virus research and health officials concerned about a hypothetical virus “even more contagious” with “rationed care” and “unrest.”

“I was aware people in that universe were worried that eventually a respiratory, air-transmitted virus was going to happen and that we were unprepared,” Woodard said.

Even the public response to COVID-19 preventative measures and vaccines followed Woodard’s contentions. Regions imbued with civic responsibility, communal empowerment and educational emphasis boasted high vaccine rates. Regions marked by suspicion of government trailed in vaccine numbers.

 

[SLD]

I agree with Elixir that they are ignorant blowhards. I do not think this is dismissive. It is simply calling a very weak bluff.

They don’t care about voting. They care about overturning elections and will do so through crooked and illegal procedures and outright violence.

.. and so they will end up in jail, unable to legally vote ever again. I call that a win for society.
So far, our democratic controls, weak and held together with chewing gum and thread, are nonetheless holding. So far. More or less. Sort of.

Yes, but what happens if they overturn elections through out right theft? Suppose in 2024, Arizona and Georgia go for Biden again, and he needs them to win. Then their legislatures overturn the will of the people and appoint electors for Trump. What do Dems do? Just roll over and take it? It may not be the Republicans that start the violence, but the Democrats! And rightfully so!