Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon
science.org
science.org
> Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel.
8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for.
Given how weird some of the internet surveys have been in the past year, I don't take singular polls all that seriously. These polls seem to end up extremely skewed toward subjects who overestimate small probabilities.
For a reality check, consider that 1/8th of respondents said they would be willing to commit political violence themselves and 7.1% of respondents said they'd be willing to kill someone over politics.
> 12.2% were willing to commit political violence themselves ″to threaten or intimidate a person,″ 10.4% ″to injure a person,″ and 7.1% ″to kill a person.″
And to cap it off, 4% of respondents were pretty sure they were going to kill someone soon:
> and 4.0% thought it at least somewhat likely that ″I will shoot someone with a gun.″
Yeah, I don't think so. This feels like a survey of people who consume too much news and social media and have become increasingly disconnected from the reality on the ground.
It's one thing to be willing to fight in a civil war, which involves all of the things you just mentioned, and another thing entirely to want to instigate those things.
For some lesser cause? Another murder of an unarmed black person, even by police, seems unlikely to cause it. Economic inequality? Doesn't look like it. Illegal aliens? Again, probably not. Climate change? Also no.
That would have to be one hell of a mob. How would they exert pressure? Unless their "pressure" is lawful then they'd just be arrested like the Jan 6 people.
How many Senators are willing to die for the Electoral College vote? How many are willing to do so after they just saw several other Senators shot dead in front of them?
Virtually no political polling is. I know of no political polling agency/company that submits their polls to peer-reviewed journals.
Plenty of people are willing to say "I am willing to commit violence" on social media. My gut feeling is that if 4% say they will shoot someone, < 0.4% will actually do it.
But, I think it's a bit unfair to make, what appears to be, a very bold assertion, without explaining it or allowing criticism. I have no interest (or qualification) to criticize your sources, but I would hope that someone would criticize mine.
The two commonly cited books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Killing
r/AskHistorians doubts it: https://redd.it/22o24j https://redd.it/2od6eg
edit: for an example, the entire US military is around 0.45% of the population. Only a small fraction of that is not purely support. Around 0.2% of the population are police. The vast majority never kill anyone.
There are more people in the army then there are women having abortions, so if abortions is a big enough issue to address, people killing in the name of should also be considered an issue.
gestures broadly at the entire history section of the library
God help us. It's almost impressive how biased this sample is. I'm dying to know what else the "Ipsos KnowledgePanel" thinks. Will report back with any eye rollers.
I can only assume it's that low because people tend not to think very hard about poll questions, so are considering only some narrower-than-the-actual-question version of it that they've replaced it with in their heads. Or else a whole lot of people are very honest and don't think they'd be able to actually do it—should, yes, but would? Doubtful enough that they'd answer "no" to the question.
I suspect it's the former because I doubt that many people would be open and introspective enough to admit they don't think they'd have the stomach to do things they think they should do. Try another angle with some extreme but plausible hypothetical scenarios rather than such a general question, and I bet that number shoots way up.
Nearly all the places that talk about secession are the same states that generate less federal tax revenue than they spend. Which is both why it would be a terrible idea, and why people get upset about it. Few people who know they are getting a handout enjoy having everybody else know it, and it makes them bristly.
Generally, in the country in the Europe I've lived in, the people who want to secede are those who don't want to see their taxes go to the country's lazy and scammy region (almost all countries have one).
For all its touted net-contribution to the federal budget California would not survive on its own, as it depends on electricity from other states and water from the Colorado River (a shared resource between several states). To be sure, California puts these shared resources to extremely productive use and pays back the value to its neighbors, but this kind of interdependence probably would not exist if California went rebel.
but they want to secede from existing states, not from the union
If a civil war or rebellion did break out I don't think it'd happen along state lines. The kind of power the states now wield actually depends on the existence of the union, so I don't see them wanting to destroy that relationship.
Now, of course, if you were at war, such dependency would hurt, for sure. But on the long term, country borders don't mean that much to capitalism.
A lot of that money goes to roads and infrastructure, so it's a little more dramatic than it sounds, but importation of goods would take a hit if those roads degraded, let alone if someone put Czech hedgehogs and foxholes at the state line because your stupid ass didn't look at the logistics of secession.
If you think Brexit was stupid, imagine Idaho deciding it didn't want food from out of state anymore.
How is this any different than when some rich techie on HN says "I know it's not good for me personally but I want higher taxes because that's the right thing to do"?
An explanation I've heard for this is that the people upset with overpaying taxes aren't the people getting welfare benefits, but they see those people and think that the benefits are not deserved.
And medicare/medicaid/social security total to ~half of all Federal spending in the US, so that's not nothing.
(I have no data, but as suspect it's actually only a small minority of local politicians clinging to keeping a large part of a the small part of the pie.)
I suppose the metro government has something to keep in here too (national waters in Mediterranean see, maybe ? Links to the drug cartels ? No idea.)
But I suspect the French government that will announce true indépendance for Corsica would be met by forks and pitches _from_ the Islanders.)
I live in Texas and had a couple friends who were on that bandwagon. I asked them had they thought about going toe to toe with the US Marines while bombers are over Austin and drones over everywhere else. All i got back was silence. The union will be preserved at any cost, there's precedent for that. No state will secede without defeating the US military first.
And unlike the first Civil War, the United States didn't have the means to destroy the rest of the world should their weapons fall into the wrong hands. The world has an interest to concern itself and intercede. When you say the end of the empire is going to be bad, that's not the half of it - it's almost unthinkably bad.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/costs/soc...
You assumption that Texas would have to go toe to toe with the US Marines is a big assumption when many Marines are from Texas or would be politically sympathetic. If it came to it, the US Military would likely face a large breakdown and crisis within itself.
I just don't think the secession people have thought about the level of violence required to actually secede. And even then what happens next? A blockade and sanctions then the entire state slowly starves to death or submission. Maybe Texas could form an alliance with Mexico.. ok now the United States declares war on Mexico. I don't think Mexico would want that.
the whole secession story just falls apart after 10 minutes of thought.
If the US didn't goto war to preserve the union then the US, as defined the US constitution, ceases to exist. There is no provision in the constitution laying out the right (or even the method) for secession.
Sure there is. It is called the amendment process, and requires a supermajority vote.
Unless, you are going to claim that using the amendment process, officially, as laid out in the constitution is some treasonous act, that the military would stop.
(Funnily enough, I have see people make this silly argument! That it is unconstitutional to use the official constitutional amendment process, and is treason!)
That's not true. The overrepresented regions are basically the South and the West. The Midwest “flyover states” and Northeast are the most underrepresented areas.
And while the South is overrepresented, (Also, military recruitment isn't necessarily politically representative of the states it is drawn from; sure, the Deep South is overrepresented, but that's also a big part of the reason the Blacks are super-overrepresented in the military (making up nearly triple the share of the military as of the country at large.) And Southern Blacks politically don't look the same as “the South” more broadly.
Texas has a bit of a unique history compared to other states, it was it's own country at one point and they made sure that we learned it, even in US history courses. Part of what makes the idea realistic is that the state could support itself, if it had too. There are major air & sea ports/trade, energy, food, defense, medical, technology, research, etc. While it seceded from the union, it really didnt do much in the civil war - but the most telling is that it still went with being a part of other states instead of becoming a Republic again. The idea of being an independent country is more of having this mental place to escape too when things are not going their (currently republican) way. The 180 the state did from its heighten Independents/secession rhetoric during Obama to going full-on Trumpism kowtowing is dizzying.
You can't aim a gun at someone to changing their beliefs, much less kill your way toward that goal. What you will do is create more and more costly asynchronous warfare, as we have seen with people in other nations that our military has tried to subdue (ie Hearts and Minds). Modern communication has created and maintained rebel organizations over great distances with little investment and minimal effort. What's worse is modern warfare usually empowers the targets of that military effort. eg Running some tanks over to Texas is basically agreeing to destroy those tanks when they are inevitably captured or left behind, because it's too vulnerable and expensive to bring them back from the front lines (which would be everywhere), as the Russians have learned.
Obviously a lot has changed since 1861 but it seems odd to act like it's totally inconceivable
The incentive and reasoning is a lot weaker than in the 1800s, so I wouldn't say similar. Now it's more of a nostalgic fantasy and it's known that the sentiment endures.
> Obviously a lot has changed since 1861
That's the point.
There are things that can be done with no dependency, but they themselves are not as useful without dependants. Take cobalt mining for example; it's not something you need anyone else for, but once you got all that cobalt, who's going to process it? Who is going to buy it?
Same goes for more fundamental things like wheat and corn, either you do it at a small scale where you can't really live off of the returns, or you do it at a large scale but now you need dependants to buy it off of you.
(in the concepts I wrote I assumed independence from an isolationists perspective which isn't realistic but somehow does seem to coincide with the not-very-well-thought-through independence wishers)
> the same states that generate less federal tax revenue than they spend
False.
While you're right that polling that has traditionally been spot-on, or very close in the past has occasionally been way off in the last five to ten years.
However, isn't Ipsos a fairly well-respected organization in its field? The kind with enough experience and resources to account for any kind of biases?
I'd like to see another big polling organization as the same questions and see if the results are the same.
4% of respondents were pretty sure they were going to kill someone soon
So, if there's a 4% margin of error, it's could be either 8%, or 0%.
This is from the PDF listed on the page that you linked:
To establish a nationally representative panel, members are recruited on
an ongoing basis through address-based probability sampling using data
from the US Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File. Recruited adults in
households without internet access are provided a web-enabled device and
free internet service. A probability-proportional-to-size procedure was
used to select a study-specific sample. All panel members who were aged
18 years and older were eligible for selection. Invitations were sent by
e-mail; automatic reminders were delivered to non-respondents by e-mail
and telephone beginning 3 days later.
A final survey weight variable provided by Ipsos adjusted for the
initial probability of selection into KnowledgePanel and for
survey-specific nonresponse and over- or under-coverage using design
weights with post-stratification raking ratio adjustments. With
weighting, the sample is designed to be statistically representative of
the noninstitutionalized adult population of the US as reflected in the
2021 March supplement of the Current Population Survey.>Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who was also not involved in the study, agrees. But she suspects the survey responses overrepresent the number of Americans who would be willing to turn to violence because, she says, surveys tend to overstate what people actually think. “The numbers always tend to be shocking, but in essence, are probably not true.”
Hardly sensational to lead with "all this is probably BS" but that probably wouldn't get as many clicks. For sure the alarmist title got me to read it, only to wind up feeling I wasted my time.
That said, I don't think the results are crazy, on their face (though I don't myself expect a civil war). There are a number of groups openly proposing political violence, increased partisan polarisation, and a breakdown in the normal political processes (Congress has been essentially non-functional for a while, the Supreme Court have taken a decidedly activist turn, state legislatures are actively discussing subverting the next Presidential election, and trust in politicians of all parties is at historical lows). It's not clear how these will be resolved, and a further increase in political violence is certainly a possibility. Will that amount to civil war? Not close, in my view, but we live in unusual political times.
Gerrymandering for example is extremely beneficial for elites in both political parties, but increasingly corrodes peoples faith in the system. It’s the perfect example of people actively harming the United States, and never spoken about in those terms.
I don't know why people are still pushing this narrative when the hearings have made it perfectly clear at this point that there was orchestration and support among the government, Capitol police and likely even the Secret Service. The "crazy people dressed up as Indians and cowboys" were useful idiots meant to make the whole thing seem like a clumsy farce.
Nobody takes the hearings seriously since they're political theatre. But if what you say is true, I definitely look forward to those people in government and the secret service to be charged with treason or sedition. It's been 18 months, so when should we expect that to happen?
We can also observe the reaction (overreaction) that turkey had to the coup, and how the world perceived those actions.
Now compare that to what ever secret conspiracy that led to a bunch of useful idiots making a clumsy farce. How realistic is it that those events will be the start of an US civil war?
...Can you explain this?
My brain translates that to "We fudge the numbers because we know dome portion of them are being deceptive."
I'm pretty sure that isn't what that's supposed to mean is it?
If actual views on the target issues are predicted well by demographics and independent of the response biases beyond their correlation with the demographics, this should work well.
If they aren't, though, this potentially magnifies the impact on the overall result of subsamples that are potentially most unreliable because of small size.
Having just read about the Spanish Civil War, I can see how this will potentially play out.
It will begin with a high profile assassination, then the extreme right will use the protests that will follow as justification for escalating violence, similar to the BLM protests. More violence. Maybe another high profile killing (on either side). Tit-for-tat murders begin, as they have in various government collapses around the world, especially in the 20th century.
The extreme left will undoubtedly respond in various ways beyond protests as tensions grow and the right will use whatever happens as propaganda to enrage their already agitated base. Whacko conspiracy theories and disinformation will make Trump’s term seem like the golden age of truth. Moderate conservatives, moderate liberals and disengaged independents won't know what to believe.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the conservatives who gain control in 2022 will grind the federal government to a halt with hearings and procedural moves. Then they’ll shut down the government with the budget. For months.
While the federal government is incapacitated, there will be a huge right-wing rally in some red state with full-throated attacks on the left. The ramped up crowd will head off afterwards and destroy a bunch of businesses and homes of people they suspect as being “pedophiles”. There will be violence and killings, recorded and shared freely as conservatives celebrate, similar what happens with Kyle Rittenhouse's actions. The state’s governor and local law enforcement will make minimal effort to prevent it and results in no prosecutions, and the fed response will be slow, as usual, and ineffective despite presidential condemnation.
This inspires other big events – full on Nuremberg style rallies – all over the country with similar results. Soon there will be skirmishes in the streets of major cities. The propaganda will be out of control, with front page stories, prime time videos and millions of social media posts filled with dead children and other atrocities, real or imagined.
Then it will really hit the fan when a group of black or Latino protestors attack a group of random white people who they associate with the right-wing. This causes irrational fear among the white population, and seemingly overnight, every other white “liberal” across the country will become suspicious or outright fearful of anyone of color. Mothers will pull their children from schools, or insist on “temporary” segregation for their child’s safety. Who knows what those children of color might do. The violence ramps up as POC communities are targeted, with the justification of “proactive self-defense” Law enforcement does nothing beyond platitudes and Uvalde like responses to shootings. They may even be at the forefront of the effort.
Fast forward and the 2024 election is fucking chaos. The entire right-wing will now accept nothing less than a win in literally every race, and it will be a presidential landslide anyways, because the Republicans are “pro law enforcement”, which, by this time means enforcement targeting mostly people of color and other “potentially dangerous leftists”. Americans have shown the memory of a goldfish and are easily scared. With violence spreading across the country, they’ll react by voting conservative, similar to after 9/11.
Then the right will have full control of all branches of government and start to pass all the laws they want. In addition to their current agenda, they will pass laws which essentially allows legalized vigilantism and an Amendment which cancels presidential term limits and other restrictions. Trump is pardoned.
California and other blue states respond, but the authoritarians in charge this time aren’t as stupid as Trump, learned the lessons he taught about the fragility of our laws, and use the power of the federal government to cripple the left through various voting restrictions intended to remove Democrats. It will all be “legal” and “constitutional” according to the right-wing SCOTUS. Eventually, the Democratic party will be officially declared an illegal organization because of its support for immoral lifestyles. The more the people rebel, the harder the states and feds crack down.
Then, it’s all a matter of rounding up the remaining resistance and the country becomes a de facto authoritarian regime. That’s when politicide turns into policide.
This is all a very probable future. We'll know it's starting with that first assassination. Look for it.
It won't be like that. It'll be exactly what you described....this isn't new - it's the way it always plays out in authoritian regimes....
It's not something unique to only one side.
If you go to reddit.com/r/all you'll find lots of user accounts saying the same about Republicans; not that they're wrong, but that they're evil.
(I don't identify as either side, but I've had to block nearly 100 subreddits from showing up in r/all because of the constant hate, and even then there will be random subreddits that make to the front page of r/all because it's about hating another group. I want to see interesting things, not witness an echochamber.)
https://nypost.com/2022/07/06/house-candidate-jerone-davison...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/marjorie-taylor-gree...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/us/politics/gosar-violent...
One can only hope; though it might have terrible consequences, like the republican's mask slipping more than it already has, leading to more violence.
> the conservatives who gain control in 2022 will grind the federal government to a halt with hearings and procedural moves
that's why I'm hoping the Jan 6th folks actually get Trump in prison, to get us back to some believable "hey your actions actually DO have consequences" normality. Listen, I can dream, right?
Politicide is like genocide, except you target only members of a specific party, like how the Trotskyists were killed by Stalin, or what Pinochet did to Allende's party in Chile. I haven't read this anywhere, but I assume that one usually follows the other.
I may have actually mixed them up in my original comment now that I look at it. Serves me right for spending too much time on Wikipedia.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/us/politics/gosar-violent...
“Policide” (and, confusingly for the distinction you are drawing, with near-equal frequency “politicide”) is used to refer to the analogy of “genocide” as understood in internation law where the target, rather than a people as a people is a political entity (almost exclusively in the examples I can find a polity, whether a sovereign state or some less polity, not a political faction or party.)
> Politicide is like genocide, except you target only members of a specific party
This is confusing (even leaving aside the problem that “politicide” is also a synonym for “policide” and is also used as a portmanteau of “political suicide”, giving it three distinct definitions in the same general domain) because you are using “genocide” in the sense of the frequently encountered mistakenly-narrow definition, and not the sense in which it is used in international law, to wit, to mean extermination of the members of a people rather than attempts to destroy the people as a people. But, yes, politicide has this sense with regard to extermination of members of a political faction, but it is not particular analogous to genocide.
> I haven’t read this anywhere, but I assume that one usually follows the other.
“Policide” doesn’t seem to generally be used when the target is a political faction, but if it were, politicide (in the relevant sense) would be an extreme method of policide, not something that follows it (a successful policide would make politicide superfluous, as there would be no one to target, the group no longer existing as a group and thus not having members to exterminate.)
One would imagine that the usual course would be escalation to politicide when other means of policide failed, though there are certainly instances where its pretty much zero to politicide.
(As far as the GOP goes, I think policide/politicide of a particular opposing faction isn’t necessarily wrong as a description of part of what they are headed toward, but misses the point. What I think they are headed for, unless saner heads within the party or defeat and replacement of it as a major party change the course, is an Christian Right American quasi-capitalist corporatist version of the Cultural Revolution, suppressing, violently where necessary, anything seen as ideological dissent from a particular authoritarian ideological vision.)
Nah, you've described the first 15 minutes, which is all that will happen. After that everyone will buy popcorn and go home to watch TV.
What a total utter crock of shite the posts on this topic are! YC needs to pay better attention to nutball posting on their website.
Checking your comment and post history it's quite obvious why you've taken exception to it. But you're a long-time HNer, maybe you're reasonable. Could you talk to your fellow conservatives and ask them to stop threatening the lives of their fellow Americans? People have been killed this year already by real nutjobs who were inspired by it. Just a thought.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/us/politics/republican-vi...
I don't know any conservatives who are threatening anyone. But I'm talking to you and so I ask that you tone it down and quit promoting paranoid BS. If your news stream frightens you, then I suggest you take Joe Biden's advice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mztxHgYQo
(pretty good song, eh!8-))
The URL you posted
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/us/politics/republican-vi...
mentions no particular killings. The article states that threats are being made from the right. It fails to mention threats and real violence from the left(e.g., BLM rioting, etc.). The article is a slightly better-written continuation of the river of bullshit being posted on this HN topic today.
Also, consider your source: nytimes is shifting further and further left each month.
Dang needs to step into this gusher of BS and cap off the well. Why is this topic not yet closed? It is clearly not useful to a rational person (yes, yes, I have ceased to follow it), it being little more than a venting of anger on all sides, esp. the liberal side.
Or maybe this HN topic is a honeytrap intended to lure out whackjobs from all sides, so our friends in 3-letter agencies can practice using the Internet tools that Snowden et al gave away?
You've called me a nutball and whackjob (directly or by innuendo), which as I'm sure you are well aware, is against HN rules of civility. I actually accidentally break this rule all the time, but in this instance I really don't need to worry, as I'm sure you already know exactly what I think of you, so I don't need to elaborate.
You're taking this discussion personally. Don't!
I don't intend to "cancel" anyone and think the whole idea is a breach of rationality, ethics and etiquette. Just some good manners is necessary. Even a heated discussion with overreach is good. Discussion w/o emotional motivation/expression is rarely productive.
And remember, in any discussion, it is clear that you should not care (beyond etiquette and the law) what anyone else thinks of you. Otherwise you will censor your own true thoughts and others will fail to get your message. Then we all lose. That is part of free speech (an old idea, but a good one, perhaps not commonly in use currently).
This says it all. The talk is there, social media (or any one who will listen) seems to be a popular public journal for people to vent feelings and use it as therapy. I even have friends that txt their anxiety about the political situation and when it reaches peek anxiety, the words civil war get thrown in there. But, it's clearly just a way to release the temporary anxiety they are feeling after having spent too much time consuming click-bait media - most people are too comfortable and self-serving in their lives to engage in long term life and death violence.
People here really did not do well, mentally or physically, when they were told they could not gather at bars or restaurants for months. And they really didnt like the disruptions to the sports seasons. The majority are not the extremist (be its very definition) that would actually be willing to give up football on Sunday to cosplay civil war 2.0.
Also, the logistics are not there - not that I can see anyway. Many people would defend their home and cities, but wont be motivated to march thousands of miles into unfamiliar neighborhoods to get shot at by g'ma and a 8 y/o. I think people, even other Americans, underestimate the actual patriotism of people in this country.
Whether you believe he was an actual time traveler (or more precisely, a multi-verse traveler), is a whole different story…
If creating parallel world is new normal for journalists then loosing trust of public in news is natural.
I hope that manipulation and government propaganda pushed in news will be naturally eliminated. The question is, how far they will go to keep our attention.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
Americans need to wisen the fuck up that so much of this "America divisive, we disagree so much, civil war coming" is manufactured. Especially in the age of GPT-3 where it can be as simple as telling an AI bot to "make an article that Americans are divided" and then spreading it on various social channels.
Even HN falls for this shit without any sort of discernment. Even if this article is genuine, ask yourself what benefit does it bring you or America to believe that we are more divided and want to go to war? Absolutely none. Time to start pushing back:
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/29/america-pa...
[2] https://thecorrespondent.com/197/more-divided-than-ever-the-...
If questioning why certain people + orgs want to push/parrot a self-fulfilling narrative is "wearing a tinfoil hat", I'll gladly buy the whole tin foil aisle in the local grocery store.
You don't even know which came first, the facts or the belief. Stop pretending like this is "science" when the only thing that matters is whether or not we choose to believe we can find common ground.
> Stop pretending like this is "science"
The organization in question is literally called the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It doesn't really get more science-y than that in America.
And surveys in general are very much science (without quotes) indeed. Even if this one isn't peer-reviewed yet, which would be a criticism that I'd accept, but that doesn't seem to be what bothers you.
"What a total utter crock of shite the posts on this topic are! YC needs to pay better attention to nutball posting on their website."
I was clearly referring to YC posts on this topic. But now that you mention it, the entire source of this discussion is/are also an utter crock(s) of shite.
And I assure you, the term "crock of shite" indicates a serious questioning of the referred item(s).
So, FTFY!8-))
But the poster was only questioning the publisher's motives (which I think can't be done without looking at who the publisher is and what their incentives are, which the poster didn't do), without discussing the evidence at hand at all, and without any acknowledgement of the fact that their own reaction to this news might also be driven by what they want to be true.
To be honest I see these journals as getting to full of themselves and are turning into any other member of the American media.
Not to mention 2000 was also the presidential election that would throw all future elections into doubt.
More frequent and extreme episodes of violent civil unrest? Yes. I think it's going to get worse.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-...
In the civil war you had various clearly defined government apparatuses that chose to withdraw themselves from the union to form a new nation state. This time however it isn't a certain group of geographic area it is divided along urban vs rural lines. If a "civil war" were to come again it is much more likely that we'll see something more along the line of the "The Troubles" that happened in Northern Ireland than anything approximating what happened in the 1860s.
https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/shays-rebellion https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/whiskey-rebellion
Were those civil wars? Or did they fall short? There's no simple, clear line. What we can almost certainly expect is terrorism, civil unrest, and moves toward legal autonomy short of actual secession. It will probably be a decade or so before we can tell whether those things (plus the reactions to them) are leading to an actual civil war.
Americans just don't seem to want to get along and understand on any side of the aisle. I can't talk politics to my family since they're all charged on their views and if I differ we just argue.
Why, I wonder.
/s
That's... quite a bold assertion.
But also, overturn of RoW is long term work of evangelicals.
If for instance you were to look across recent world history you will find many communist ( left ) groups/factions are exceedingly violent toward civilians and account for millions of civilian deaths.[0]
In this country very recently, "...New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio... blamed anarchists and "far-left extremist" groups, including antifa, for inciting and organizing violent riots"[1]
I am not say that violence is not perpetrated by those on the right but your statement is a gross misrepresentation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_controversies_dur...
Also, I said majority and I stand by that. The terrorism in USA is more likely to go from right wing then from anything else (including muslims). It is right wing media and politicians who promote violence. It is right who is actively talking about violent usurpation of power and builds militias. It is right wing who engineered 6.1. and repeatedly tried to blame left and "antifa" for it. It is right wing who is trying to get control over education by harassing and threatening (actual physical threats) opposition.
There is also no symmetry in who gets promoted and wins elections on either side. The more aggressive and radical side on right wing is having control over the party. As much as they try to make it look like there is symmetry with Democratic leadership, there is none. If anything, democratic leadership is incapable to stand up to them and constantly looking for non-existent bipartisanship. America does not have actual communist party or activism going on to speak of. Communists are not getting votes. It does have fascist politicians getting more and more votes within GOP. And it does have right wing trying to frame any social system they dont like or public education as "communist" to make it look like there is symmetry.
The point is not that it is coming from one side or the other but rather to blame one side is to loose site of what is happening. My post was simply to show there is violence all along the spectrum. The post following my post regarding Anti-Communist mass executions is a good example of bringing balance to the conversation with evidence/sources.
If you are to "stand by" your statement then provide some evidence.
>Communists are not getting votes I feel the Communist Party USA would like to differ. [0]
Furthermore, marxist/communist voters since "1988 to present: Voters urged to support the Democratic Party"[1]
Therefore, your statement about fascist ( not sure your intended meaning ) can be said about marxists/communists. Event the communist party wants you to vote for Democrats.
[1]https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/government/elections/pr...
One side has tried resorting to violence in order to prevent the other side from voting, enshrine one religion as the law of the land, guarantee one "race" its supremacy, and literally overthrow the legitimately elected government.
The other side has tried resorting to violence when the first side asserted control over half of their bodies, murdered them in the streets while under the supposed motto of "serve and protect", and tried to take away their right to vote and literally overthrow the elected government.
Yes, I can see that "both sides" are clearly equally bad. After all, if someone stabs you in the gut, and you punch him in the face, you're just as bad as he is, right?
I always try to remember that survey science simply tells us what people say on surveys, not what is actually the truth.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/killing-does-not-com...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Percenters
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...
[1] From https://www.gwern.net/docs/history/s-l-a-marshall/1988-spill...:
> His surviving field notebooks show no signs of statistical compilations that would have been necessary to deduce a ratio as precise as Marshall reported later in "Men Against Fire".
For those still reading, the controversial aspects that grandmczeb speaks of (and which Grossman has addressed) is discussed here:
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall#Research_metho...
Consider a scenario where the government is increasingly turned into a mexican standoff between completely entrenched branches of government. Supreme court is completely doing its own thing, the president starts abusing emergency powers to circumvent a ceaselessly filibustering congress and senate. Nothing gets done, and the country starts suffering from neglect and mismanagement.
It wouldn't be unheard of for a military coup to occur in such circumstances, in fact, it's a rough parallel to Julius Caesar's coup d'etat, which resulted in a civil war because some people didn't like the idea of having Caesar as a dictator and wanted to remain a republic, even if it was incredibly corrupt and dysfunctional.
Whether that is realistic today in the united states is another thing.
I didnt think a land war in Europe was a realistic thing in today's world, but here we are.
Trump is talking about running in 2024 because it's the only way he can escape being destroyed by January 6 and various related legal problems.
Now, Trump isn't a general of an army. Yes, he was commander in chief, but the army would (I presume) not have followed him to the extent of obeying illegal orders. But if Trump wins and gets increasingly legally cornered, he's going to try to find a way out, no matter what laws it breaks, and some of those ways are going to tear the country apart.
- is your proposed "military coup" a "civil war"?
- This entire discussion is fruitless b/c no two of us have the same definition (or even a clear conception) of the term "civil war". And we have for reference only past civil wars (especially the USA's war between the states).
- We could speculate loosely using and poor surveys unleashed on the great unwashed masses (and us) by surveyors interested less in their agenda than in raw screen-clicks. Instead why not pass by this article, leaving it to dry up and blow away in the dessicating winds of e-space?
I do agree that speculation is sort of pointless. I think circumstances may increase or decrease the likelihood of such an event, and circumstances look like they are more conducive to one now than in 1992, but I don't think you can say that when such-and-such happens, civil war is almost inevitable.
First, civil wars in fact happen despite the above. Second, badly trained soldiers go to wars and then commit horrible atrocities there.
Seeing the kind of insurrectionists that tried to take over the Capitol in 2021, I'll say the bar is very low. If there's a civil war, it will probably be an astroturfed takeover so the worst people can hold even more power.
If we do wind up in some sort of civil conflict, I imagine it will look a lot like Ireland from the 60's to the 90's, which was by no means a good time.[0]
> POLITICO: You’ve written about how mass shootings are always acts of violent suicide. Do people realize this is what’s happening in mass shootings?
> Peterson: I don’t think most people realize that these are suicides, in addition to homicides. Mass shooters design these to be their final acts. When you realize this, it completely flips the idea that someone with a gun on the scene is going to deter this. If anything, that’s an incentive for these individuals. They are going in to be killed.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/27/stopping-m...
I've heard people jokingly say, "One side collects guns and the other collects mental disorders."
That's obviously an unfair shot but there's some truth to it.
Left leaning areas tend to be centered around city centers where right leaning areas tend to be rural and control things like shipping and food production.
The police and the military all have a noticeable conservative bend at least at the lower levels.
This wouldn't be a north vs south situation where each side would be roughly equally matched.
In a true right vs left civil war, at least as the politics line up right now, the right faction would win by simply isolating and choking off the cities.
Also, just because some guys in rural areas collect guns compulsively doesn't mean they are remotely capable of becoming an organized militia.
Plus, there's a lot that happens between farm to table in modern agriculture.
COVID showed us just how sensitive our lifestyle is to disruptions.
I don't think it makes sense to draw up a hypothetical war this way based on how interconnected and interdependent the economy is.
Firstly, a tremendous amount of American food is imported and threatening the food supply would draw the ire of Federal forces, which would be counter-productive to a militarized movement. Secondly, raw food ingredients tend to travel very far distances in order to be processed for consumption. If supply chains were disrupted this way, you'd have a lot of raw food going to waste that can't be consumed on its own (most commercially produced corn in the US cannot be eaten on its own because it's designed to be converted into corn syrup). Third, global shipping hubs and large airports tend to be in urban areas, not rural. Rural shipping centers tend to be secondary or tertiary.
> That's obviously an unfair shot but there's some truth to it.
No truth to it at all really. I'm pretty much a full-on socialist and I own firearms. In fact, I'm not sure I know anyone who doesn't own a firearm.
There are more firearms in the US than there are people, so what kind of fool honestly believes they are all in the hands of less than one half of the population?
Seeing as how only 30% of Americans own guns [0], all the guns are literally in the hands of less than one half. So it’s not foolish to believe that. But it’s true whether I believe it or not.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-dem...
But yes it would appear that "less than half the population" is actually correct.
I think this is the gist of of it, i.e. what the leaders of the forces holding the monopoly on violence really believe, no matter if the lower levels are right-leaning (and I agree with you on that). If the majority of those leaders (both at the federal and at the state level) are pretty much on the same page I don't see any chance of an actual civil war, no matter the actual political hatred between the civilian factions.
But, and it's a very, very big but, it those US military and police leaders were to get divided, like really divided, the same as it happened in Spain in 1936 with Franco, then all options are on the table. Again, I don't think there's any remote "chance" for that happening, but imo that's the only way a civil war can start (in the US and in most other places). If it matters I'm not a US citizen, but I am interested in US politics.
He was once at a very right-leaning event and someone suggested we need a civil war. He's very right leaning himself but he immediately shut them down essentially saying they have no idea what they're wishing for or even talking about. Needless to say everyone there was well aware of his experience and credentials so that immediately closed the discussion. I don't know that it changed any minds but they at least shut up about it...
Whether this data is accurate or not, the fact that anyone is suggesting or frankly even mentioning a civil war in the US is so flippant, macabre, and ignorant it makes you question whether such a person lives in reality. Anything approaching an actual civil war in the US would be an absolute bloodbath.
You see the same thing in a lot of app development frameworks / languages being more homogeneous in features these days after github and open source has really taken hold. Its much quicker to see something working in another ecosystem and then adopt it into your own.
and cancel culture made it worse.
So, a lot of self-censorship is happening...
I expect future historians will point to Nixon's pardon as the beginning of the end.
Part of me thinks this is the result of countless foreign adverserial brainworms slowly trying to push Americans over the edge.
Do you have plans if civil war were to break out?
The dark part of me thinks it would be interesting to see how a modern civil war would play out in the US. My good side just thinks it'll be a waste of human life which is unlikely to meaningfully affect the ultrarich and powerful.
I'm reminded of that Seinfeld episode where George tries to break up with his girlfriend and she says no. What if the other half of Americans just said: no, we're not going to civil war. It's not necessary, stop LARPing. Stop and think about what you're getting us into.
> which is unlikely to meaningfully affect the ultrarich and powerful.
Or perhaps non-foreign ultra-rich and powerful whom see creating divisiveness as a sure means to retain their status. I am not so quick, personally, to point the finger at those outside the US and see far more obvious evidence of it being perpetrated by domestic actors. Russia does not control what broadcasts on ABC each night, and they don't control what trends on Twitter.
However, anyone following the story probably did expect it. Russia has been in Ukraine since 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War
It's not just Ukraine. In 2008 they entered Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#Russo-Georgi...
https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-repor...
28% of Americans say they believe that seeing a shooting star brings good luck.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/jmh49rcs2g/toplines_Luck_and_Sup...
24% of American millennials say they have an actual plan for the zombie apocalypse.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/d7rutytxs2/Zombie-Plans-Data.pdf
The message to take away from this, I hope, is that people who answer these surveys like to troll.
The flight of capital to the most productive and/or cosmopolitan locations (domestically and globally) and the increase in immigrant representation in positions of influence threatens the cultural centrality of the part of society that has traditionally occupied it, and they would like to have that status restored any way possible.
Does that outweigh the tremendous destruction (and loss to everyone) that would ensue? Perhaps not. Depends what enough people think they have to lose.
And what would have happened when the Confederacy demanded that the United States return escaped slaves, and the United States refused? How long before Southerners decided that the North was an existential threat?
There's a similar situation coming up regarding gay and trans rights. Some states will continue having equal rights. Other states may not. This situation will get even worse if the Supreme Court overturns gay marriage and sodomy law precedents.
All of this will create even further division. One of the harbingers of a coming civil war will be internal refugees and increased internal migration. If people start fleeing the red states in noticeable numbers, then that's the time to start getting worried. Especially if some of those fleeing make their moves suddenly. If you start seeing hundreds, or even thousands, who leave their homes in the middle of the night to escape, then you know something bad is coming.
There's already a trickle of such people. A few in Texas did just that. Parents of trans kids who wanted to get away from a situation where the state posed a threat. And they felt like they had to leave immediately with no notice to anyone. We'll start to see more of this if some states decide to ramp up prosecutions of women and investigations into miscarriages.
The elites of the South wanted to keep their slaves and their wealth. Many of them ended up having their plantations burned down or seized. Their wealth diminished or vanished. Their cities occupied. They lost control of the situation fairly quickly.
And it's not like the wealthy are unified exactly. Some, maybe most, would like to avoid future conflict. While others give money to the groups that seem hellbent on creating a conflict of some sort.
You're correct. No one's going to immediately start the civil war based on abortion. But, to me, it feels like dry tinder being set. Just needs a spark.
I'm not saying it's a certainty by any means. We have a decent chance of muddling through the current crises. But it does feel like the stage is being set.
They probably intended this to be a little tussle to show everyone they were serious.
But it's interesting how they lost control of the situation over time. Not just in the battlefield defeats and the industrial machine crushing them. But also in other ways. The Confederate government was short of everything and turned towards a centralized economy to produce what it needed. The elites found themselves constrained by the wartime needs.
By 1865, they were planning on arming black men to fight in the Confederate forces. Had this plan succeeded, it would have meant the end of slavery in the Confederacy. The very reason why the war was started by the elites in the first place.
No, it doesn't.
A regional separatist movement (which the first ACW was, but not all civil wars are) generally is top-down organized, with a specific conscious elite decision to break away, but civil wars more generally don't need to be, at least to get started.
EDIT: In general, the discourse around both revolutions and civil wars in America tends to be full of misconceptions driven by the fact that both the American Revolution and the American Civil War we're elite-driven regional separatist movements, which are not the norm for things labelled as either “revolutions” or “civil wars”.
Doesn’t mean that today is perfect, lots of problems to address: housing, income, healthcare, global warming, destruction of the ecosystem, list goes on…
And this hasn't even touched on the ground-shaking effect this is going to have on women's ability to participate fully and equally in society.
There are certainly issues currently, and the state laws against abortion are part of that, but I think the 21st century is overall better than past time periods.
But I guess if you compare it to when we were all hanging out in trees, it's better.
20 years ago - 2001 end of the Internet bubble, many people lost their jobs. 2003 the US was waisting a lot of government money on an unjustified war in Irak blaming them for 9-11. Bush unnecessarily destroyed a positive government budget for a war that solved nothing.
Civil war will only achieve the opposite: many deaths, expect 50% of your family to die including small children, and afterwards people will no longer care about abortion: freedom, a roof over your head, income, safety are the only topics that matter coming out of a war.
At the same time china, Russia and other countries will use US’s internal struggles to increase their global control, US economy crashes, everybody ends up poorer, everybody is worse off.
Groups are not seeing eye to eye on the fundamental role of government, and lines in the sand are being drawn.
I don't think the US can have a proper "civil war" there are too many disparate groups.
But then again, Germany was very divided before WW2, so maybe one of these charismatic cult leaders could to come along.
I wish it were that. Having differing opinions on the fundamental role of government would be a good thing in a normal, functioning political environment.
What's going on now is that each side fundamentally believes the other side is rigging the system against them. Trump-siding conservatives believe (provably false, I might add) that the voting system is "rigged". Those on the left believe (but, this is actually provably true) that the voting system is also "rigged", albeit that "rigged" here is exactly how the Constitution intends (e.g. a voter in a small state has a vote worth ~50x a voter in a large state in the Senate, and that the winner of the presidential popular vote has twice in the last six elections lost in the electoral college).
https://brilliantmaps.com/2020-county-election-map/
A civil war isn't "every Republican vs. every Democrat." It'd be rural areas vs. urban ones, and it wouldn't really be a fight. One side has substantially less land, guns, and fighters than the other. It'd be unwinnable.
That’s not to say it wouldn’t be dangerous, both to the US and the stability to the rest of the world. So please wait until Germany have rebuilt it’s army, otherwise the UK is going to get very busy, covering for an absent US.
Given the number of mass shootings and who is usually behind them, you could say this has been already happening for years.
What's supposed to happen? Texas is going to invade California?
For example, California has prohibited any official or municipality in the State doing any business or sending any representatives to the red States. None of the red States have done exactly that thing, but, for example, red border States are exploring programs that, for example, bus illegal migrants into blue States.
This sort of behavior will probably escalate.
Twitter doesn't count!
Being disenfranchised sucks. The system is designed to prevent you from having any ability to even change the system by using the system.
If everything is "ok", then people just ignore the political system. Buuuut... when people get scared (reasonably, or not), and the system is fundamentally unfair, their only option is violence.
I plan to start rolling out fair systems locally (my water district) so that people can familiar with both how easy they're to use; and, more importantly, how they're obviously fair. Right now, we're looking at proportional random selection.
In states with legislatively controlled redistricting (the bulk of them) without controls on the redistricting process, the disenfranchisement is global to everyone — even if you're a blue voter in a blue district, or a red voter in a red district. The person who wins is the incumbent.
For instance, based on ACS and latest CVAP, my district is ~65/35. More importantly, my representative explicitly drew several GOP contenders out of his district to seal his re-election chances. I know he did this, because he had this conversation with Abbot (Governor of Tx) while I was standing a few feet away from them.
The point of a gerrymander is to maintain power, not to have some sort of ideological, or political stance.
This is such an incredibly fundamental part of the US political system that it amazes me that it isn't more widely talked about. It means the US is effectively not able to pass any laws that are even mildly controversial, because it's the only (supposedly) democratic political system in the world where the opposition party has to consent to any law. This effectively disenfranchises everyone, and is the root cause for the comically over-powerful judiciary and executive (because the legislature is structurally incapable of properly doing its job, the other state organs have to take its place lest the country be completely ungovernable).
For some reason people really don't talk about this issue enough, and continue acting as though the legislature operates as it does in normal democracies, and then getting confused by its behavior. For example, lots of people ask "why doesn't the US ban guns" or "why doesn't the US legalize" abortion, and often just chalk this up to some moral failing of American culture and ideology, rather than recognizing the root cause of the issue: the US can't pass laws, at all, even broadly popular ones!
Given this issue, I feel like the US is best considered a hybrid regime like Hong Kong than an actual democracy. Although at least in Hong Kong, someone is in charge...
Why?
The House, for all it's flaws in being capped so low, at least has the advantage of being more representative of the population, having a clearer majority, and being large enough to support factions within the parties.
And here's a big "Howdy!" from Texas to all of you in the great state of Vermont!
One thing that Trump's presidency has taught me however, is that, despite the shenangigans of some of the election apparatus in individual states, it was much much harder for Trump to subvert the election process than it would have been had everyone worked for him.
FWIW it wouldn’t be called the federal government in that case, since the country wouldn’t be a federation. It’d just be “the government”.
But the best solution to that is to just invert the system so that the federal government has the least impact, the states the second least, and the local municipalities the most. Which was what the last civil war was fought over.
I don't think this idea is compatible with a decent-to-live-in, modern economy and state, as nice as it may seem in the abstract.
I've seen an awful lot of posts by both flavors of political partisans that "we're already in a war, we're just losing because we refuse to fight back"
A rise of fascism and a rural urban divide. A lack of trust in fundamental roles of government. A federal judiciary that abdicated their role to check legislatures against undemocratic structure. A potential ruling in Moore v. Harper that would allow state legislatures to literally, blatantly and without any check on power dispose of a representative government.
I don't want a civil war, I want radical reforms at every level of government which put faith back into the function of government and the will of the people. I'm ready for cities in fascist states like my home state of Texas to blatantly disregard immoral state regulations and become city-states. And in the face of right wing extremist protests and feckless law enforcement, I think the left wing should arm themselves.
I would like to think it could never happen. But I also wouldn't have ever expected to see the halls of Congress violently trespassed by a bunch of rednecks with confederate flags.
Just imagine if the Jan 6 insurrectionists we're organized and not completely inept at accomplishing their goal.
How the military and cops will react to orders coming from someone who plainly stole an election according to every norm we have about how our government is supposed to work, and who sure looks like they're sending us toward single-party dictatorship on fast-forward, but maybe is kinda, sorta, technically doing all this legally, or at least has sown enough confusion that you're not sure whether they're legitimate or not, is anyone's guess.
EDIT: I'd highly recommend How Democracies Die, The Revolt of the Public, and Why We're Polarized for understanding the current circumstances.
We've raised and trained the next generation to feel very strongly about many things, understand very little and believe they can define what "truth" is instead of discovering it.
That said, in the '70s it was probably 80%+
I don't see an ACTUAL (declared) civil war happening. None of the participants actually could I think, nor would they benefit from taking anything.
Would Texas try to actually take Washington DC? Nah. Could they? No chance.
Would the Feds do anything but setup sanctions/blockades and wait for Texas to beg to come back if they tried to leave? Nah. They might arrest a few key leaders or 'leak' a bunch of embarrassing intel too, of course.
Simmering 'fuck yous' and 'civil disobedience' I see building though, with the occasional unhinged terrorist, and a lot of folks haven't deal with conflict enough to see the difference between that and civil war.
Given the current state of upcoming election polls, local politics, and the supreme court, the right leaning states are going to get most of what they want.
They have no reason to secede, when they are winning the current politics battles, and are likely to win future elections in the next few years.
There has been rhetoric from right leaning people, for decades on this,yes.
But the point is, that from the actual on the ground political reality, the right is winning.
They are winning in the courts, local/state power, and based on current voting polls, they are going to win in the upcoming federal elections.
There is no need to secede if you simply control all the levers of government. And the recent facts are that the right is only going to get more power.
Therefore, despite the rhetoric, right leaning places have no need to secede, when they can instead just take over the government the regular way.
There is a lot of complaining and grumbling, and ideological disagreements. Maybe there could be a ‘crusade’, but doesn’t seem likely right now.
If we’re talking elections, that’s the opposite of civil war.
Right now it just seems like an old bitter married couple bitching about each other and talking about how they want to split. Far cry from actually doing it, let alone paying the legal bills.
No one seems interested, in a physical space way, at least so far.
Would the feds fight Texas over texas? Doesn’t seem like it.
Would texas go to the Feds, or New York, or whatever, to fight to take it? Doesn’t seem like it.
Seems more like everyone wants to lob angry messages at each other from over the border.
Cities, for sure, and there were low level versions of this kind of unrest, though nothing that got too widespread.
But where would the ‘civil war’ happen in this scenario now?
Online? If so, hard to cause much actual blood here.
Texas represents two trillion dollars in revenue, billions of dollars in taxes, a big chunk of American agricultural, manufacturing and tech infrastructure, miles of coastline and ports and military assets like Fort Hood. The premise that the US would just let that go is laughable.
I’m not saying they’d let it go. I’d saying, they wouldn’t need to cross the border to make the impact felt of trying to leave.
this has been happening since i've been old enough to remember though. "unhinged terrorist" = unibomber, the OK city bombings, the list goes on. Fuck yous and civil disobedience are basically constant with some ebs and flows around election time and current events.
https://man.fas.org/dod-101/fac/conus.htm
Also, what would Trump's tomb look like (assuming he's leading one side and wins). For example:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/24/franco...
That said, unless someone is planning to do more than vote (volunteer, run for office, etc) then keeping up with news more than weekly is simply exhausting.
Your last sentence is priceless!
After many insightful chapters laying out the depressing state of the situation, Tim Urban was a on the brink of publishing the articles where he was going to suggest ways things could, maybe, be improved
And I was foolish enough to actually _expect_ some great idea, some "out of the box" light bulb, some glimmer of hope.
Instead, Tim, apparently, decided to never publish the end of the series, and instead package the first few chapters as a bone fide book. Which is all good for him, I suppose Patreon and speaking gigs can only go so far when trying to make rent.
It's all on me for having unrealistic hope in the self professed king of procrastinators.
But maybe we should be jerks and blame the coming Second Civil War on him (for not having blogged the solution sooner ?)
Still, Tim, if you're wasting your time on HN, please publish _something_.
(Also, is there a support group somewhere for people waiting for Tim Urban to publish something ? Asking for a friend.)
Also, how many are capable of organizing a civil war. How many are willing to take orders that would send them off to die for the cause. How many are willing to take orders at all.
Final test would be how many people are willing to just sit outside in August heat for an hour with no internet.
Edit: Dreher has an excellent book called "Live not by Lies", that explains a theory of soft totalitarianism. Combined with the devestating power of weapons, the reluctance to use them, the powerful surveillance state, and the strong desire to live in comfort means that we might not see a conventional civil war.
As an example: gun owners largely fear getting raided in the night and a violent standoff like Ruby Ridge. I suspect much more likely, they will get a call from CPS notifying their children are being held until investigators can confirm the reports of firearms in the house -- or perhaps credit cards and finances being shut down. Why go for a risky confrontation when you can bring someone to their knees with a button push?
If there is a cold civil war, I expect it will be waged asymmetrically instead of conventionally.
Also, to even entertain this idea, where would the battle lines be drawn? Political differences aren't even blue state/red state anymore, let alone North vs. South: it's more like urban vs. a spectrum of less urban.
There is a power imbalance in the country and that imbalance can’t last long without some sort of backlash.
I found this interesting:
> more than 40% agreed that ″having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy″ and that ″in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants.″
and
> Among 6,768 respondents who considered violence to be at least sometimes justified to achieve 1 or more specific political objectives, 12.2% were willing to commit political violence themselves ″to threaten or intimidate a person,″ 10.4% ″to injure a person,″ and 7.1% ″to kill a person.″
Here's most of the rest of the abstract:
> Design, Setting, Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel.
> Main Outcomes and Measures: Weighted, population-representative proportions endorsing an array of beliefs about American democracy and society and the use of violence, including political violence, and extrapolations to the US adult population.
> Results: The analytic sample included 8,620 respondents; 50.6% (95% Confidence Interval (CI) 49.4%, 51.7%) were female; mean (SD) age was 48.4 (18.0) years. Two-thirds of respondents (67.2%, 95% CI 66.1%, 68.4%) perceived ″a serious threat to our democracy,″ but more than 40% agreed that ″having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy″ and that ″in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants.″ Half (50.1%) agreed that ″in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States.″ Among 6,768 respondents who considered violence to be at least sometimes justified to achieve 1 or more specific political objectives, 12.2% were willing to commit political violence themselves ″to threaten or intimidate a person,″ 10.4% ″to injure a person,″ and 7.1% ″to kill a person.″ Among all respondents, 18.5% thought it at least somewhat likely that within the next few years, in a situation where they believed political violence was justified, ″I will be armed with a gun″, and 4.0% thought it at least somewhat likely that ″I will shoot someone with a gun.″
(Normally, you wouldn't want to so heavily skew your responses towards "agree" by having two "strongly agrees" but zero "strongly disagrees")
I don't wish for a civil war, either. That doesn't mean I don't expect one to happen given the current conditions.
The upshot is that not all of these factors seem possible at once today.
I don't know which states have actual fighting forces that makes a civil war like situation possible, there is the whole mob mentality thing where maybe a group of really angry citizens would start to take actions on their own. Something else to consider is that the bluest of states still have a fairly large red contingent (north of 30%) and the same is true for the reddest states. I think that dilutes the mob. There might be places like rural Montana and Idaho where things could light up but I couldn't see Texas taking up arms against New Mexico. I think there would be a lot of obvious build ups.
The abortion laws create a lot of interesting inter-state problems. If we were willing to have a shooting war because of "property," it doesn't seem far fetched that there could be one if one state supports the "murdering" of "killing" of lives from another state that tries to protect them.
This was by Supreme Court decision by the way. Also, the judges making decisions in runaway slave cases were financially motivated to rule that "this person is ex slave", so kidnappings of free black people were common. (Man, children, women were kidnapped in free states and sold in slave states.)
The slave states had slave patrols - armed men looking for escaped slaves. They would also check people on trains and borders, whether no one is escaping. It just so happen that slavery don't hold itself - it requires a lot of effort, arms and violence to keep slaves.
Generally, the coastal states have significantly diverged from the rest of the country, at least politically. As such, they tend to house and draw people with similar values. Value-based migration is not inherently problematic, as the population shift will increase competition between states and force reevaluation of certain policies, both among states losing and gaining different population segments. Real issues may start if a governor decides (and the associated governing apparatus then complies) that certain federal laws and judicial rulings will be ignored. We may be moving in that direction right now (see the NY governor's views on constitutional carry), and I hope we turn back.
I mean, how would you even organise it?
There's not two sides which could cohere into organised military forces. Worst scenario will be an increase in temperature to what we already have now - anti-federalists who might engage in intimidation, street fights with rival groups and perhaps acts of sabotage and terrorism. In the grand scheme of things, fairly low wattage stuff
In both countries, pleadership seen issues years and years before but was incapable to fix them.
Also, the way people talk about is as if hunger implied revolution. Most hungry places most of the time are just that - hungry and disordered. Organized revolution requires pre-existent groups, arms, competent leadership and especially weak state. When state is not weak, it will suppress the revolutionary activity with zero issues.
It gives a more global perspective and only covers things that are important, also I follow tech websites like the absolutely awesome "The Register".
Now all I hear about the US is someone got shot or there is a new school shooting, which is actually important although its a bit ridiculous that its like a daily occurrence at this point.
In general, the US is so divided, its starting to look something will happen, maybe a bigger jan 6.
However, civil wars usually occur in poorer countries [1][2]. Also the proportion of the world in civil war is 1% and falling exponentially [2].
Finally, Metaculus gives a 5% chance of US civil war before 2031, where a recent July bump is discussed in the comments (Roe, Jan 6) [3].
[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/463608a
[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/political-...
[2] https://www.nber.org/reporter/2011number3/economic-shocks-we...
[3] https://www.metaculus.com/questions/6179/second-us-civil-war...
Notes: The Harvard December 2021 youth poll participants gave as 35% chance in their lifetime: https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/fall-2021-harvard-youth-p...
Rasmussen 2018 poll: 33% likely, 10% very likely before 2023 https://www.newsweek.com/second-civil-war-likely-one-third-a...
Does anyone have a graph of this probabilty over time from a consistent source like rasmussen? https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/que...
"Civil war"... oh please. The people flying their private jets to the capital have ZERO reason to upset that status quo. They're just a bunch of narcissists who want attention and to dominate others. Once it gets hard they will start apologizing.
Frequent outbursts of fascist violence similar to "The Troubles"? I could see that happening.
People don't want to discuss or make any compromise whatsoever. Either my way or the highway.
Say whatever you want but this behavior is more in line with the left than the right.
The survey was not primarily about this question, but here's how it was worded:
"In the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States."
The allowed responses were: "Do not agree", "Somewhat agree", "Strongly agree", "Very Strongly agree"
47.8% said that they "Do not agree" and a further 36.4% responded "Somewhat agree". A further 2.1% did not respond. So, only 13.7% gave one of the top half of the answers ("Strongly agree" or "Very strongly agree").
This paper was just posted to medrxiv today, but I've seen this list of survey questions elsewhere (perhaps this was posted elsewhere a month or two ago?). It's not a great paper -- many of the survey questions are pretty slanted (though this civil war-related one is not), and they're slanted exactly the way you would expect given the conflicts-of-interest disclosure in the paper that every author on the paper is a member of multiple left-wing anti-gun political organizations.
Still, have a look at the actual survey questions and responses. They're somewhat interesting despite the study's problems: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v...
This survey is a good example of how you should think about most survey data. And crowdsourced predictions, for that matter. But not much more.
Who gets the nukes?
They're willing things to happen, as Q predications let them down.
Usually one side of the political spectrum gets progressively reactionary (no pun intended) and extreme, while the rest of the political spectrum reacts mildly to that extremism.
The media then creates a bizarre narrative that there are in fact two warring political factions, both equally extreme, one the mirror image of the other. That is almost always a strange fantasy. There is really just one radical side in most countries right now, the rest are just trying to keep things sane.
On a careful reading of the lengthy 2nd amendment ("A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."), I realized that ownership or property is not actually enumerated here. But when I visit with my peers, what is emphasized is gun ownership. "My" guns, is the important piece that is shared with me. The ability to exchange wealth/property for a mechanism that can assert violence helps gun owners file safe, strong, secure, even if it comes at some risk to self. The gamble seems to be that they're more willing to pay this price for this comfort.
So the thought experiment I walk them through goes something like this: "You know, you're right! Guns are good! This 2nd amendment thing is awesome. Power to the people, ya know? I think everyone should have a gun" (and this is where the expression starts to shift from glee to suspicion) "I support funding that provides everyone with guns. Everyone gets a machine gun. And a days worth of ammo. The Canadians will definitely think twice before invading then." At this point, there's a look of horror on their face as they begin to ponder a world where the threat of violence is equalized throughout the entire country. There's a weak laugh as the satire I'm pushing dons on them.
Suggest that everyone own a current and power weapon, and you'll see the suggested legislations to limit who participates start flying.
Sometimes More is Less
Re: funding that would actually be pretty easy. An AR-15 from PSA is like $400-500 and the manufacturing cost between a semi-auto and auto is negligible. There's about 258 million adults in the US, so that puts the cost at roughly 125B, or under 3% of the federal budget and well below what was spent on COVID relief. With every citizen armed with a a machine gun, and by ending unnecessary foreign military operations I'd say we could easily shrink the military budget enough to make up the difference. Bonus points if the Department of Labor, department of Education, department of energy, medicaid/medicare, food stamps, ATF, DEA, CIA, and other costs were slashed to make way for supporting arming the citizenry.
I think they'll be instrumental in starting it. I think they'll get huffy when an election doesn't go the way they want, declare it a crisis, and governors will activate the National Guard to try to enforce it.
I wouldn't say it's probable, no more than say a 10% likelihood. But a 10% likelihood of a truly awful thing is too much to ignore.
We're not.
The most likely geographic split would be urban/rural, cities against everyone else. Around half the population is tightly concentrated and align mostly with the Democrats, the rest are spread out and align mostly with Republicans. Even blue states are mostly red outside of cities.
For just one example of something that could spark it, the current hot topic of abortion access: the often-disregarded side sees abortion as killing babies, not even close to how the other side sees it. With that viewpoint and tensions rising in general, how long do you expect such a huge number of people to simply endure?
But a 'civil war' doesn't necessarily happen all at once, with a frontline, with conscription, etc.. It can happen slower, in separate places, with small skirmishes or only with 'occupying' a state legislature. It can also be fought with different weapons, for example electronic warfare and disinformation. With the latter in mind, some think it already started. You don't need North vs South or Left vs Right for a civil war. You need a group of 'rebels' vs the government and to some extent we kinda have this, considering that some of the 'rebels' are already part of the government and actively trying to topple it.
If you look at things from a different angle, for example the rise in extremist violence, the well organized (and well armed) far right groups, the various instances of local government refusing to enforce federal regulations, the repeated increasing 'states rights' arguments thrown around during high level political discussion (by elected officials) and elephant-in-the-room sized January 6 and the widespread loss of trust in government due to disenfranchisement, the infiltration of the far right fringes in law enforcement/military and even elected officials, the repeated secession bills proposed by idiots in eastern WA or Texas just for the purpose of getting people riled up, increasing income inequality, it's easy to see how things are going in the absolute wrong direction. Couple all of that with loss of income and you're gonna have a really bad time keeping the plebs in check. It's all 'Bread and circuses' until the bread supply chain is disrupted or the money to buy it becomes worthless.
But I'm optimistic because the people who actually run the country still want to make money and making money during something like a civil war is way harder. So something large scale will definitely not happen. I think we'll have a better chance to die in the 'water war' or just a heatwave than in any 'civil war' on US soil.
As a Canadian all of these things are extremely concerning, I can't imagine how Americans are feeling.
Can you give an example of this?
How did their ruling infringe on the separation between church and state?
Well, that's some blatant bias.
> Regulating social media to avoid “incendiary” misinformation from spreading could also help
Widespread censorship? Liberals used to be against that. I guess we all just need to burn the "right" books.
A civil war means you will kill other people and also volunteer to die over something that was irreconcilable through *all* other means. It also means being able to distinguish in a crude and unsophisticated what team everyone is fighting on.
It is truly remarkable how much damage a bad faith president can do to a democracy. But honestly, I wonder that he didn't do much more damage. It's almost incredible to me that we're in as good of shape as we are right now; the fact that it's even possible that Trump could be arrested for insurrection is a very hopeful sign. This has all been a great test of our spirit, and I think we get a strong "B".
The white supremacist "race war" thing is bullshit. The civil war I see coming is a deep division between mostly rural white americans and everyone else. There are things these people say in public and things they say in private. They have been brainwashed by the likes of steve bannon who believe a pure white and euro centric nation must be established.
A lot of their supporters only support them because they worked hard to pack courts and get rid of abortion, gay marriage and other things. These are "single issue voters".
And on the left, based on what I hear on CNN/MSNBC and the sentiment on sites like reddit and even a little bit on HN, the disconnect from reality couldn't be any worse. What I am saying is, sure the issues leftwingers care about are important but I am worried about is concentration camps and states firing nukes at each other.
Let's look at religion for example, leftwingers are incredibly bigoted. Replace religion with race in the same context and you will see what I mean (not that the two are comparable but in America they are both protected groups, where religion is the second right of the people). The things people ask and answer about Christianity could not be more wrong, almost reads like made up fiction to me, this is important because of how important religion is to the other side. They literally believe relgion has no place in government, I mean sure religious orgs have no place in government but individuals have every right to represent the beliefs of their electorate religious or not.
Look at TV, netflix, popular social media. They are all progressive friendly. They make the other side feel extremely excluded. And it was things like this russia and white supremacists have been exploiting.
I expect them to slowly make things like interracial marriage, EEO, EPA regulations,etc... a states issue. And then democrats will try to reverse it but the states will refuse to comply and order their national guards to resist that order. Now, if cops have been inflitrated by white supremacists to the point where they maim white journalists in broad daylight on purpose at a blm protest and get away with it, how much of southern states' national guards (which have little diversity) do you think have been infiltrated?
Even if you don't buy anything I said until this point, the sentiment and propaganda on the right is "white christian purity" and on the left is "anything but straight-white-male or Christian" if this was a marriage it would end in a divorce due to "irreconcilable differences".
I don't even vote because I disagree with both sides strongly (I am not a centrist). But it comes down to Republicans accepting black and latino people are here to stay and "dillute" the "white race" by way of marriage (although "pure" "white" people will never be replaced by this, they will just be less percent of the population) and democrats need to accept you can't progress and change everything and exclude everyone who disagrees and use racial divisions for votes.
Last take: The amount of people that believe joe biden is not the president of america is enough to start a civil war in america. The last civil war was between white americans over slavery, the demographics have changed. Now it will be an even deeper divide. To the majority it will feel like a large amount of crazy people took over a few state governments and started an insurrection but like a wildifire it will spread.
I hope I am completely wrong on this but this is whay the right wing wants. Both sides think they are right and both sides are wrong. There couldn't be a better time for either party to risk losing am election cycle or two by splitting (e.g.: progressives splinter off from democrats or social conservatives split from GOP).
Really last take: some states splitting is a good idea. Split texas in four, washington,oregon,vermont, colorado and florida in two and california in 3 and then admit Puerto Rico, Guam+American Samoa+USVI (three as one state),DC as states. Which gives each party close to equal additional states but also solves a lot of gridlocked issues and allows more swing states.
> But it comes down to Republicans accepting black and latino people are here to stay
because, at least in Texas, Democrats have been losing black and especially latino voters to Republicans hand over fist. It's borderline racist to assume black and latinos are automatically Democrats and not accepted by Republicans.
Even the proudboys had a black person as their leader who supported them all the way until they called him a "token negro" and had an internal coup lol.
For what it's worth, the US have been judged as a "high risk" country for social unrest escalations even before the current mess with inflation, the bogus "stolen election" claims, the open partisanship of the Supreme Court and barely after the George Floyd murder [1]. I would not be surprised if a more recent study similarly based on quantifiable data would indicate an even greater risk factor... and depending on how the elections in November this year and especially 2024 turn out, IMHO there is a definitive and massive risk of widespread unrest.
The Republican voter base is riled up on the "stolen election" claims - 70% of them believe Joe Biden is not the legitimate US President [2]. It is possible that the Republicans manage to gain control of the Senate this year, but (assuming the Democrats put up a halfway decent candidate, which means neither Biden, Clinton nor Harris!) they may not win the Presidential election in 2024. And at that point, the situation can get really nasty really fast. Republicans are already openly thinking of putting up laws allowing state legislative bodies to overturn electoral college votes, Trump's associates attempted to subvert the electoral college process [3], and we've seen on Jan 6th that it was not just Congress which was threatened by violent protesters but also other parliaments. Both of these scenarios are something that can serve as a trigger for massive outrage.
Add on top of that the risk of unpredictable event chains like yet another school shooting with a dozen kids ending up dead or yet another instance of a police officer getting filmed executing someone on camera... I would not want to live in the US in these times.
Please let me say one thing as a German here: Take care of your democracy and protect it. The history of my ancestors should be more than enough proof where a catastrophic loss of trust in democracy can end up.
[1] https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/us-named-as-hig...
[2] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/70-percent-republ...
[3] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-ex...
"Firearm deaths in the United States grew by nearly 43% between 2010 and 2020,[...]" conveniently omits the distinction between homicide, suicide, and accidental deaths. It also ignores any type of comparison between criminal gangs having a turf battle, mentally ill people shooting up schools, and Nazi/Antifa type disputes. It conveniently lumps all into a single "guns are bad" bag.
Their assertions about conspiracy theories all conveniently target conservatives as well as ignoring the possibility of any truth in those perspectives. With a reproductive replacement number below 2.1, the US population is shrinking. Adding more than 1M who crossed the US southern border this year already and were processed, with an additional number nearly half that size who avoided he border patrol completely, most who have historically supported a single party... what would informed people think?
Also entire states rely on mail in voting as the primary method of voting. If mail in voting was so fraught with fraud every one of their election would be suspect but they aren’t!
- There was once a time when most every American believed that anyone could be elected President, then the following happened:
- Donald Trump was nominated for the Presidency,
- Prior to the election, branches of the federal government began investigating candidate Donald Trump(and everyone around him) for what?? - Anything and everything! False and misleading information was released to a press that was largely hostile.
- Donald Trump won the Presidency after a close election. The transition was difficult. Many in the federal bureaucracy opposed his incumbency. He and his continued to be under investigation as before, even though nothing tangible came of these investigations. Nonetheless Trump took to the office surprisingly well. The press continued their hostility.
The common man now saw that, while not anyone could become President, at least most any person could become President, but that person would have to have a very thick skin and be very rich b/c it was clear that, for the Swamp, the Press and the Democratic Party, a war on Trump had been declared. The common man felt a sharp twinge of unfairness to his very bones.
- After 4 years another hot election campaign was fought. Trump et al were still under investigation with promises of indictments daily. Democratic opposition leaders in Congress used their only significant tool, investigative committees, to question every move and more of the sitting President, his lawyers, friends and past friends. Meanwhile Democratic majorities in various states were modifying election laws to be more lax and lower scrutiny. This was noticed by even the Press.
- Joe Biden won the election by the slimmest of margins. Had it rained in a few states more the election could have gone the other way. such is the nature of politics in the USA. Federal agencies and Congressional committees continued their investigations of Trump et al, the Press continued to harass, and bureaucracies continued to balk at the reins.
- As the scales fell off his eyes, Donald Trump saw the incredible viciousness of politics in a free democracy. Being who he is, he fought with every tool he had to continue his Presidency, pursuing even the slimmest of options for hope. Judging from his competitive background in business, I would expect no less in politics. But it was for naught. He stepped down.
Today, 4 years after he left office, federal agencies continue to investigate Trump et al, as do Congressional committees. The Press continues to publish every lie and rumor, never looking back to consider that nothing substantial had ever been uncovered. Do you see a pattern here?
Common man sees his myths broken, sees that a fellow man, even one who is wealthy, cannot be President of the USA unless something changes. What must be done?
If voting margins are so close then the sanctity of the vote must be guaranteed. Ergo, moves to reduce/eliminate fraud.
If bureaucracies are reaching into the political realm for poltical reasons then they must be more closely monitored. Some may need to be eliminated, purged or reorganized.
If the Press has become captive to one party or one candidate, measures must be taken. Here I'm talking about FAANG as well as the usual Press.