Hol’ up. We’re a few Bleeding Kansases away from anything that could be rightly called a Civil War.
I agree we’re on a path of increasing political polarization, but does anything divide the nation today quite like slavery did? Today, there’s a complex collection of interlocking issues and interests that form up the Republican and Democratic Parties. But back in the early-19th century, there was a single dominant political-economic force, sometimes termed the “slave power” by abolitionists, which propped up Southern elites and captured the state governments of the Confederacy to the point that they viewed treason as preferable to continuing in the United States. But quite apart from some loud fringe personalities of social media, no core institution of American government (and that includes the GOP) today views violence and treason as the answer.
I’m actually saying just the opposite of what you claim I believe. The vast majority of Republicans *aren’t* domestic terrorists.
They aren’t! They’re grandmas and grandpas, they have kids, they look out for their futures, they have decent lives. Throwing your life away on insurrection is unappealing.
The FBI’s Mar-A-Lago search produced a lot of sound and fury on Trump’s behalf, but so far, I have counted just one armed right-wing wacko who tried to gain access to an FBI field office and was ultimately shot dead. You can file that guy under the category of “lone wolf terrorist,” (a not very successful one at that), or else put him in the unlucky company of Americans who get shot dead on a daily basis for all kinds of reasons.
Inchoate rage alone isn’t a basis for a Civil War. Efforts to retrieve classified documents stolen by a former President (if that is what happened) seems an unlikely flash point for conflict. The ingredients for a Civil War are organization, logistics, dedication on a continental scale that doesn’t seem feasible without long-term institutional support. Who’s going to war over Trump’s recordkeeping practices?
Does Trump himself want to go to war? Or would he rather play golf?
There are other forces pulling America apart. But at worst, this will end in a Whiskey Rebellion-type event (Jan. 6 was a bit like that), or maybe we’ll enter a period of instability and domestic terrorism similar to the Northern Irish Troubles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
I’m sober, but not that pessimistic. Put me down as a Second Civil War denier.
