Two in five Americans believe that a 2nd American Civil War is possible in the next 10 years. New York Post. 14% of survey respondents said a war was "very likely" while 29% said it was "somewhat likely". The rest said it was not very likely, not likely at all or were unsure about the question. Most people also think that the country is becoming more politically divided with 66% agreeing while 63% say that the division is just going to get worse. Republicans are more pessimistic than Democrats and Independents as 72% believe that things will get worse while only 58% of Democrats and Independents feel the same way.
My Comment:
There is a common idea in politics that you can use four different boxes to change things politically, the soapbox, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box. It seems very clear that the first three boxes have already been expended or been taken away. As a Republican I feel that I can't really say what I want anymore so that's the soapbox gone. And the 2020 election was such a farce that the ballot box might be out too. And given how the January 6th protesters and Donald Trump himself are being treated we know that the jury box is bad. I don't have to say what the last box implies but even that is under threat, thanks to illegal gun control schemes.
I have long thought that the left took the absolute wrong message from January 6th. Nothing about how the 2020 election was run was acceptable. It was clear that the government didn't care about the concerns about the election and the outright hostility to even the suggestion that the election was poorly run at best and crooked at worst. So there was a major protest directly against the people that caused the problems in the first place.
In a sane world the powers that be would have had a moment of self reflection and understand that maybe it's time to change course. That would have been easy enough, let the Supreme Court make a ruling and acknowledge the problems and promise to do better in the future. That's not hard to do and if it had been done it would have absolutely lowered the temperature here in the United States. But the exact opposite happened and now 2 in 5 people thinks a civil war is possible.
I think that Joe Biden has a lot to do with this. Instead of lowering the temperature he has dramatically increased it. A total lack of competence is part of the problem, who could be happy with Biden after huge inflation, foreign policy mistakes and all the other various failures he has done? I mean for awhile there we had a huge baby formula shortage, the government failed at the most basic thing it's responsible for, feeding children. It's totally unprecedented and it's clear that Biden is the worst President we have had in the modern era, and is in the running for the worst all time.
It's his policies that have been increasing the temperature though. Many of them seem specifically tailored to punish the people that vote for him. None of them have been dangerous than his insistence on gun control. If there is a red line for the right in this country it is gun rights. Same with his hiring IRS agents, the corruption at the FBI and the assault on the rights of Donald Trump. Most recently, it was the student loan forgiveness which seems specifically designed to anger just about everyone who isn't one of Biden's professional managerial class supporters.
It's not all on Biden though. The general culture has gone insane and much of it is designed to make people as mad as possible. Some of this is due to social media algorithms that have been proven to be used to make people angry, since angry people spend more time on social media. Plus the news and entertainment media is insanely hostile to more than half the country. It's unprecedented for companies to attack their own customers but in the past few years it has been common.
Surprisingly, it's not just the right that sees themselves under attack. To be fair, the left just suffered two huge cultural defeats thanks to the Supreme Court. They lost on abortion, which was a huge priority for them, and though the issue has faded it has radicalized some of the left. And they also lost on gun rights, thankfully.
Do I personally think that a civil war is likely? It's up in the air at this point. I personally wonder if the country will last long enough to actually fall into civil war. After all, war with Russia seems depressingly possible and I think the entire world is falling into a global depression, thanks to our Ukraine policy.
But I do think that civil war is getting more likely every day. The thing that is holding everyone back appears to be collapsing. The fact of the matter is that people with full bellies, a home and a car aren't likely to want to give that up for the chance of protecting themselves. Some people are willing to fight, but most aren't until they have nothing else to lose. And until very recently most people still had a hell of a lot to lose. As the economy goes into the toilet though, all bets are off. If people figure their kids are going to starve and their doors are going to be kicked in by criminals or government goons then there is a real possibility.
I personally think that this should be avoided if at all possible. People don't seem to understand what an American Civil War will be like the last one. Biden certainly does since he seems to think that not only will the people opposed to him won't have F-15's while at the same time not realizing that we just lost in Afghanistan in spite of our technological advantage. It also baffles me that people will think that the rebels will be exactly like the Confederates, just lined up in some kind of mass formation so that the aircraft and tanks can easily kill them.
I don't think the 2nd American Civil War will be like that at all. The idea that huge armies will clash with each other in open fields seems naïve at best. Assuming the military doesn't end up being destroyed by itself I am guessing they will be mostly a non-factor outside of infantry. I'm picturing our future conflict to be more like The Troubles in Ireland than the 1st American Civil War. Or perhaps like Syria, with dozens of competing factions and practically every other country on earth involved.
But what everyone seems to ignore is the fact that it's not going to be good for anyone. Though I am not exactly sure how a 2nd American Civil War would play out, I do know that a lot of people would die or be injured. Americans haven't gone through anything like that since the 1st Civil War. People will die from combat, massacres, disease and starvation. All of that should be easy to avoid.
Can we still avoid a civil war? Of course we could. I think a big win for the Republicans in November could do a lot to lower the temperature. It would put some restrictions on Biden and people would be happy seeing him impeached. It would also restore some faith in our broken election system if the Republicans perform near or at what their expectations are. Biden's hugely unpopular so it would be unprecedented if the Democrats were to keep both the house and the senate.
I also think that the coming economic disaster could have the opposite effect. Perhaps Americans would come together if they came under major economic pressure. After all, we didn't go to war in 2008 or back in the 1930's. Perhaps people won't care about the outrage of the day when they can't afford to keep the power on...
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