American Civil War II: Is It Coming?
 

I didn't think so a few months ago, but today I'm not so sure, mainly because of Trump's attacks on the integrity of our elections, and the prospect of having an election in which large numbers of Americans have no faith in the outcome. I think if this comes to pass there will be violence, it's only a question of degree.

Poll is up, multiple choice allowed, have at it!

Both extremes of the ideological horseshoe think that we are already in a civil war

Civil Cold War maybe. And that's being 90% serious.

Posit: protesting becomes more frequent. Carrying of weapons on street becomes banned/restricted in the interests of public safety. Police take a page from towns where rioting is quelled by minimal police interference. Does this nullify Civil War? Without guns, the right is castrated. Without fascist resistance, the left protests without rioting. All allowing for exceptions of course.

I'll bet if we lose the prevalence of bang sticks on the street that we suddenly have a much more manageable situation.

A dubious assumption at best.

Yes, if Trump wins. This fascist takeover might prevail, but not without massive upheaval.

I think we've been seeing it on action. Towns where police marched with protesters (ie Flint MI, Camden NJ) saw no violence. Towns that initially responded strong arm then backed off (Philly, Boston) saw pushback then mellowing.

It's not Trump I fear so much as his mindless supporters and enablers. They are of a discomfiting number, which emboldens them and amplifies the herd mentality. The feedback loop involving them, their 'leader' and supporting propaganda organs is winding tighter a spring of fear and hate. How that energy is released when triggering events occur has fearful potential.

There may not be present sufficient passion to mobilize for a full on national civil war, but more limited skirmishes can be envisioned.

A nation awash in guns, with a tinderbox ready to be lit, is an outcome Putin could hardly have expected so soon after his cheap investment in Donny.

Wake up, America.

Our Trumpers are going to just do their standard screaming about "LOL overdramatic triggered libs" but what (most of us I think) are talking about isn't a real, true fear that we are gonna wake up on November 4th to find AOC leading a battalion of pink haired college genderfluids fighting Alex Jones and his Preatoran Guard of Qanoners for control of our local Burger King.

What we're worried about is an increasing level conspiracy theory twinged violence from people who live in a post-fact world and are impossible to reason with.

I don't nearly know enough about the topic to say.

But some degree of civil upheaval, like large-scale protests, street fighting, gravy seals, et cetera? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. I imagine it to play out more like Portland or maybe the Troubles in Ireland than anything resembling civil war, however. Then again, as I said, I know next to nothing about civil wars, so I couldn't say.

For those who do believe a civil war, though, how do you think it will come about? Will the US military remain on Trump's side so that you have a kind of guerilla war, or is there a chance of parts of the armed forces defecting? Will states declare independence?

Honestly, the sheer size of the USA, and the might of the US military, is what makes me the most skeptical of a full-blown civil war even being possible.

This isn't 1861. There are smarter, modern mechanisms.

Protests shut down every major city in a way that makes May-June seem like baby stuff. Special emphasis surrounding Trump properties.

Shut down every interstate, every airport.

Targeted DDoS attacks on massive scale.

Tax revolt. There is 0% chance I'm going to fund the fascist takeover, and I hope this becomes a movement.

Hack the power grid.

Etc.

I'm not saying it will work.

I think that would be a definite tinderbox moment. People marched on government buildings holding semi-automatic rifles and carrying swastikas and nooses over being unable to get a haircut because of lockdown restrictions. The 2nd amendment is a consistent and constant rallying cry for these people. How do you think they'd react to a curtailing of those 2nd amendment rights, real or perceived? I think it's safe to say that the answer is "not well".

To the more general question in the thread - yes, I'll be surprised if we don't see violence after the election, no matter the result.

I would pay to see that, it would be lightyears more interesting than what is probably actually going to happen.

I voted not going to happen in the forseeable. The only reason I didn't vote never is the possibility that somewhere down the line there might, maybe, be a kind of resource poor type thing.

There's a difference between civil unrest and civil war.

Sure, it probably would nullify a Civil War, because this scenario would effectively be one side simply surrendering to the other. What are the chances of that happening, though?

The more I think about it, yeah, not a Civil War but a Supersized Culture War. Govt will basically be out of it but the citizenry will be polarizing in an unprecedented and violent scale.

If our current President wanted to strip Democratic dominated cities of political representation, then "defending the Second Amendment" would be a useful pretext for doing so.

If one pays attention to other nations, one knows that coups and power-grabs are usually accompanied by psuedo-legalistic justifications - wrapped in a flag and carrying the bible, so to speak. Citing one portion of a constitution as the basis for suspending other parts of a constitution is common in such events. Given the near-religious aura many ascribe to the 2nd, it is not hard to imagine that perceived threat to the 2nd could be that "justification" to start stripping Democratic state and city level politicians of power, as the feds step in to "defend" the 2nd Amendment.

No option for "It's already started" so I haven't voted.

Seems to me that if we step back a few paces from the few localized conflict areas, we’d see that the vast majority of the country is not experiencing these disturbances.

We are tempted to look at the worst-case stuff and extrapolate, but sometimes that extrapolation is not justified.

In my city of Portland last night there were hundreds of Trump supporters who led a caravan into the city to deliberately escalate the tensions by confronting the protesters. They went armed with paint ball guns and shot at protesters from the back of pick up trucks. They also sprayed bear spray at protesters. A man was shot and killed which is being investigated. Instead of condemning the violence and calling for both sides to calm down and take a step back as any responsible POTUS would and should do, Trump is fanning the flames and praising these idiots for going into Portland and calling them "GREAT PATRIOTS" while only condemning the BLM protesters. Trump is fanning the flames of civil unrest and violence for his own elections advantages. He is a sociopath and a clear and present danger to this country and only fools cannot see this.

It wont, and those who do try such things are basically terrorists. If he wins by legit majority he wins, if Biden does, same deal. You seem ready to trash society all because your side didnt get its way.

Between this open support of violence*, and deliberately letting covid wreak havoc on blue states for then to blame the Democrat governours, it's pretty clear the gloves are off. No more dog whistles if he wins in November. It will be overt facist rule. More than what we're seeing right now, that is.

*not that this is new or unexpected - we all remember he encouraged his followers to beat up political opponents at his rallies.

It's gonna be a cold civil war. Culture war if you like. In that sense you could argue that it is an ongoing conflict.

I voted planet x, only because I couldn't put in a partial vote for one of the other options.

Just a few months ago I would have laughed at anyone who suggested the possibility. I probably did in some thread or another around here. Now, I'm not so sure.

And yes, it is Trump's fault. See stacyhs' post.

One of the things that I think is fanning the flames is the isolation of our plague-infested lives. If we were leading normal lives, where we go to work in offices every day, and talk to friends and family on a regular basis, and go the 7-11 whenever we felt like it, I don't think any of this would be happening.

But here we are, locked up, isolated, wearing masks, working in our basements, and there is no stabilizing factor. If we are inclined to believe that the other side, whether Trump or BLM or Antifa or Nazis are crawling through our yards waiting to deny us our freedom and corrupt our precious bodily fluids, there isn't the usual stabilizing factor of friends and family to say, "Shut up about politics and deal the cards."

Instead, there's the TV or the internet telling us, "No. Those people are not as bad as you think they are. THEY'RE WORSE!!!! WATCH THIS!!!!!!!!!!!"

Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland just ripped Trump a new one. To put it in a nutshell: he told him to basically shut up as he is just encouraging the violence and unrest with his stupid tweets and rhetoric. He said what America needs is for Trump to be stopped.

TV News HQ
@TVNewsHQ
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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who yesterday refused federal help, now blames President Trump for the violence: “Do you seriously wonder, Mr President, why this is the 1st time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? It’s you who have created the hate and division.”

https://mobile.twitter.com/TVNewsHQ/...70756987531264

I think this doesn't consider how much violence and political violence the system can absorb.

We could double the murder rate and still be at 90s levels.

There was a multi decade stretch where states coordinated with terrorists to promote racial supremacy and both parties at the federal level tolerated it.

Beating a senator in the chamber would be a real sign one is coming.

I'd say the civil war has already started. It's in an escalating phase. It's not an interstate conflict, but a modern civil war where the in-group and out-group is ideologically - and to some extent, racially - delineated.

There's a good chance it could stop escalating and go back to slowly brewing with the occasional terror attack and murder, but given the anger on the streets and the apparent willingness from one side to keep attacking and provoking, I'd say it's going to keep going for some time.

Putin is one happy guy. His investment in helping get Trump elected has paid off beyond his wildest dreams.

Wow, the trumpsters are out in force in the comments thread.

That is so true.

People think that he helped Trump because Trump and he were some sort of good buddies or had some sort of common agenda. I doubt that's the case. I was pretty sure in 2016 and pretty sure now that Putin's whole agenda was to sow discord in the United States. I'm pretty sure he even suspected that what that meant was to make sure there were a bunch of extremely adamant haters of President Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, it was a gift, and the way Trump has governed has made it the Best Christmas Ever in Moscow.

Absolutely. Russia could never conquer the US in a military war without destroying itself as well. The only way to beat us was to destroy us from within and watch us collapse. Trump and his followers played right into his hands and still are and they're too stupid to see it.

After what I saw with the Trumptrash in Portland today, I'm going to revise my assessment and say I see a distinct possibility for widespread civil unrest short of war. I see a possibility of unrest and widespread, localized violence in a number of cities from the announcement of the winner to shortly after Biden is sworn in (assuming a Biden victory).

Trump was able to get his Trumptrash in Oregon together and move them through Portland engaging in unprovoked violence throughout the city. It was clear the way the convoy moved that it made the unrest in the city more widespread. The way the violence was localized to a couple of blocks made it difficult for Trump to claim Portland was burning. He had is gang of traitors and thugs move throughout downtown to make sure the violence was more wide spread. Having his people spread violence will justify deploying more DHS troops to the city.

So, like the American Revolution, then?

Wheeler's reasoning doesn't make sense.

The protests are peaceful. The violence is just a few bad actors, primarily right-wing plants. It's not representative of the concerns, nor of the people raising those concerns. He's blaming Trump for a problem that largely doesn't exist.

And to the extent that people are rioting, they're not rioting about OMB in faraway Washington, D.C. They're rioting about issues closer to home: Their own city and state governments. Their own police forces. Their own social services. Largely, their own Democrat governments.

Take these people, for example, who occupied Mayor Wheeler's home yesterday:

BREAKING: Activists occupy Portland mayor Ted Wheeler’s apartment and aren’t leaving until he: resigns, abolishes the police by 2022 with no tech or private replacement, and allots saved resources to BIPOC communities and city services. #TearGasTed #AbolishPPB #WheelerResign

https://twitter.com/RisingTideNA/sta...16351963308038

Look at those hashtags. They're not complaining about "Tear Gas Trump." They're not calling for the abolition of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They're not saying Trump needs to resign. Their demands are local. Their problems are local. I'm sure they're pissed off about President Trump. But their beef, their violence*, is local. Ted Wheeler, not Donald Trump, is the problem in Portland.

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*To the extent that even is any violence.

I voted "not in the foreseeable future" because the foreseeable future is so very short these days.

Trump is a large part of the problem because he is fanning the flames instead of trying to calm the violence. He is encouraging the violence because it supports his campaign narrative. When his supporters, whose objectives were to confront and antagonize BLM protesters in Portland, shot them with paint balls and sprayed them with a chemical of some sort out of the back of trucks, and he called them "Great Patriots", he's a huge part of the problem.

ETA: Trump talks about 'left-wing agitators'. When you come to downtown where there are BLM protesters flying Trump flags and have trucks decorated with Trump signs, armed with paint ball guns and toxic sprays, you're right-wing agitators.

They are flying Trump flags. They seem to think there is some sort of connection to faraway Washington D.C.

(Or anti-Trump flags/signs/whatever.)

The question is what is or is not a civil war. It is not going to be states succeeding and armies in the field type civil war. But clashing paramilitary groups and terrorism those are certainly going to increase.

So was Iraq in a civil war? was Norther Ireland? Was the 2014 Ukrainian revolution? Does Arab Spring count?

Political violence is going to be on the rise for quite some time, regardless of if you call it a civil war or not.