Peter shared an interesting article yesterday (Divisions in America are even worse than you thought) that suggests that a Civil War in Amerika is inevitable. It's a very good snapshot of Amerika today. It does leave out a few things that should be taken into consideration in the "civil war" discussion. The first and most important is that the demographics are against the Republicans, and the economics are against them. It mentions the economics, but not the full extent of the problem.
So I'll add my own thoughts on the situation and the potential for a Second Civil War:
We all know about the Bell Curve, and especially the bell curve of intelligence across populations. I'll not draw one, but will say that there are sets of three bell curves at play here.
1. Intelligence. There is of course the standard across the entire population. But there are also the Republican (R) and Democrat/Independent (D/I) bell curves. The Republican bell curve peaks to the left of the centre, while the Democrat/Independent skews to the right of the centre. Sorry, just a fact. The very exploitability of the Trumpist base and their willingness to believe any bullshit is all the proof that is needed.
It is important to recognise that the bell curve does have individuals at the upper intellect extreme. Those are the people who are Republican because they know that they can exploit the rest of the curve (and plenty on the D/I curve). Repugnant as he may be, Liddel is probably further up the curve, and I'm willing to bet that past daily cognitive dissonance that is his life, that he knows that the "Big Lie" BS is actually great for sales. He will never expand into the D/I market, but there remains plenty of R market that has not yet bought from him. The same goes for Mike Flynn, Giuliani and the rest of them. They are exploiting the simple for financial or power gain. Trump himself is somewhere above the mean, but I'll not venture a pin on the chart.
I'm not saying that being D/I makes one more intelligent, but if the left-skewed part of the population is excluded, the remaining will skew ever so slightly to the right. Let's face it; you are probably not the brightest light in the tent if you still think that there is a cannibalistic cabal of paedophiles in Washington, even though Trump was unable, in four years, to expose even one of them. Put simply, it takes a special kind of stupid to believe QAnon.
That leads to the second.
2. Economics. The bell curves of economic productive capacity and personal wealth are similar to the intelligence bell curves. This means that, while they do have enough money to buy guns and ammunition, they do not have the economic capacity to sustain themselves (or their states). That economic capacity will be further eroded by the flight of money from their areas as the D/I wealthy remove investment and capital, and the wealthy R cohort removes profits to "safer" D/I regions.
As the first Amerikan Civil War proved, a non-industrial South, lacking in capacity and hindered by geography, was ultimately no match for the power and productive capacity of the North. Add to that the international community's refusal to recognise the slave-owning South (and probably refuse to recognise a theocratic South today) in part for morality reasons and in part to avoid risking the wrath of the North. The international community will "sit this one out", which cannot work to the advantage of the South.
Economically the R regions do not have a chance; they import everything, produce nothing (other than coal and country music, oh and tourism to Florida beaches) and have little capacity to produce what they will need to keep their adherents supplied with the ammunition that the Crispy Cream Brigades will need.
3. Now let's look at the demographic problem. Republicans and the ultra-conservatives are a shrinking (already) minority. As the article points out, the younger cohorts - future voters displacing the older voters as they die out - are very D/I. That will reduce the ability of the R factions to retain power. Sure, there will be individual states, and blocks of states, that will go further right, and will enact the harshest right-wing agendas. They will also suppress D/I voters in order to retain almost perpetual control. But they will suffer from the loss of population as the younger migrate to the more D/I centres of economic activity.
As the article points out, it may take a while, but those D/I states will lose the desire to continue to prop up the R states through infinite largesse to the detriment of their own people, especially when it becomes (became?) clear that the R states will never reform.
4. Centres of power. The other thing missing from the article is the great dreaded and vilified "Deep State". Actually, the Deep State does exist, it is called the infrastructure of government across the country, and ranges from the local DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles, issuing drivers licenses) to Congress, from the administrator in the VA to the policy analysts in the Department of Transportation. The Republicans and Trumpists have created a mythical monster where there is indeed a monster, but not the monster that they think it is. The real monster that they need to be afraid of is two-headed - the DoJ and the DoD.
DoJ is not going to allow January 6th to go unanswered. They will prosecute as high as they can find evidence to support those prosecutions. And they will do so by the tried and true tactics of bringing in the small fish, offering token sentences for evidence and agreements to testify. They will continue to collect the evidence, over Trump's lawsuits (and the SCOTUS just rejected his "let me hide the evidence" lawsuit) and the stalling actions of the rest of his cabal. A lot of people are going to jail. 2022 will be the year of indictments, and of the Deep State reminding people that there are consequences.
DoD will go through a purge this year and next. They will be quietly purging the January 6th supporters and insurrectionists, and there were plenty. They will be removing "political" generals, and they will be reinforcing the civics training that has always been a component of initial and ongoing military training. An apolitical military is one of the foundations of the US of Amerika, and the military leadership will demand a perpetuation of that value. That will be non-negotiable to the generals and the Joint Chiefs. So, in 2024, whoever is lawfully elected and certified by Congress will be sworn in as the next president. No matter who that is. It won't be the Great Pussy Grabber.
5. The insurrectionists. Let me start by calling Ashli Babbit what she was; a traitor, who died a traitor's death. An underperforming, lower intellect Senior Airman. PLEASE, Senior Airman after 12 years of service, active, reserve and National Guard? Please, not even a Sergeant, which is the "other half" of the E-4 rank. You almost have to try to not make Sergeant in under 4 years, let alone 12. Yet by getting herself shot dead inside the Capital, she is the martyr for the insurrectionists. They were the gullible, led by a cadre of true insurrectionists who actually did want to overthrow the government and the election.
When a "real civil war" starts, they will be isolated and tracked down by real police and real military units, trained and with the intel on their side. Their leaders will flee to Canada or Mexico as if it was a bad snowstorm. Government institutions will not support the insurrectionists at any level. A secret about the "Deep State"; as government service tends to be more of a meritocracy, those who rise in the "Deep State" tend to skew right on the intellectual bell curve, and they tend also to support the Constitution and rule of law. This is going to make it difficult for the insurrectionists to gain the kind of traction that they will require to actually enact and complete an effective insurrection or secession.
Summary
Will there be a new Civil War in Amerika? Probably. Will it last as long as the previous one? Probably not. Will states secede from the Union? Possibly. Will the Union accept it? Not a chance. Will the secessionist states be able to survive or will they lose the Second Civil War? They will be crushed. The Union will be restored. The insurrectionists will be crushed.
In fact, it may already be happening. The investigations by the DoJ may be the counteroffensive that will lead to the restoration of the Union and the destruction of the insurrection. Time will tell.
