People keep talking about “Federalizing the National Guard” and now you’ve got other States pledging their NG to Texas in defiance of the Supreme Court (see image).
So is this what CW2 looks like?
P.S. I’m a Brit
You must log in or # to comment.
Highly unlikely this is what the civil war would be like. It’s not a state v state thing necessarily although that might be a small part of it. In the first civil war, the south unified and its people largely supported the war, except their slaves. It’s unlikely something like that will happen again. It’s not impossible but unlikely.
What is much more likely is rural v city. Even in red states, cities are blue and will often vote for blue policies. Rural areas are where things get dicey. They’ve been largely left behind by the surge in industry and general expansion of the capitalist economy we currently have (they’ve had a lot of businesses (including grocery stores) close because more people are leaving, and their rural towns are frequently having their hospitals close leaving large swaths of areas where the nearest hospital is an hour away). As such, they’ve got a grudge against the cities. What’s likely to happen is rural counties and their local governments trying to cut off their food supply, starving the cities to win the battle. There’s tons more possibilities, but this one I think is the one that’s got the highest likelihood.
Another possibility that is scary, but is highly dependent on the party of the people in power, is the government using their power to actually strike the cities, like in Syria where Assad bombed and used chemical weapons on his own people. Syria is actually a pretty good example of what more modern civil wars are like, or can be like. Governments v rebels and militias, and cities v rural (although there’s much less rural land in Syria).
If you’re interested, the podcast It Could Happen Here has a great first season where they go over possible disasters including a civil war and a pandemic (it was actually made in 2019 so before covid). It’s really helpful and can teach a lot, especially for an outsider from across the pond. It also does a lot better job giving an explanation and actual sources.
Hope this helps since it didn’t seem like you were getting a real answer.
The geographical separation of slave states by an actual border allowed the first Civil War to take place on a stage perfectly suited for traditional warfare. North/South division and the formal joining of the Confederacy by state governments kept it all straightforward. Point South and tell the generals “Go.”
It definitely won’t be that simple again.
Another thing the world ought to know is that the folks who are identified by “red” and “right” in America are in the minority.
Significantly so.
However our voting system uses geography / land as a modifier so while there are less of them they occupy a larger land mass and have an outsized vote strength because of that.
When total votes in a state can be split 45-55 but the delegates go 90-10 there is a problem
Another fun thing about that is that most folks who identify “red” or “right” actually aren’t paying enough attention to know that. Go ask them, they think people like them make up 70% or more of the country. If they do try to activate their little civil war they are going to find themselves very quickly surrounded by folks who do not like them at all, as their expected 200-million strong army ends up actually only being 1.5 million people spread out over 30,000+ square miles. Watching the realization dawn on them might actually even be fun if it weren’t a herald of Troubles for America.
What is much more likely is rural v city.
Isn’t it even more likely trump disciples vs reasonable people?
So if you break it down (based on the last I looked at it, Pew Research iirc):
- Urban counties are twice as likely to be Democratic
- Suburban had leaned Republican for years, but suburbs have been leaning Democrat for a bit under a decade.
- Rural (on the same timeframe as the suburbs) has been going more Republican, though just a bit less in the ratio as Urban.
The most Trump support is in rural, where more than half support him fully (so full maga territory). Republicans there are more likely to be full maga than in suburbs or urban areas, where republican maga support drops by about 10%.
Democrats in the same areas are fairly equal across the board in their lack of support for trump, about a 50% greater dislike by Democrats in those areas then liked by Republicans.
The urban, suburban, rural breakdown is very accurate as a representation of maga enthusiasm.
EDIT: I though it important to mention too that Republicans in rural areas have an age split as well. Gen X-ish and up is where the support for Trump is, about 50% more than the millennial and under Republicans.
“Fuck yeah, secession!” Says the Texan from the comfort of their lounge chair, beer in hand.
These people are too comfortable to ever be willing to die for their stupid ideals. All it took was one MAGA idiot to get blasted on Jan 6th and then they all scattered like roaches. As soon as their lives were on the line, it was no longer a matter of grave importance. They all firmly believed that democracy was at stake, but were unwilling to fight for it to the death because they somehow must have known that it was bullshit, somewhere in the back of their pea-sized brains, they knew.
By the time Texas starts asking people to show up to mustering fields, rifle in hand, the facade will fall apart. Biden doesn’t need to do anything. This sideshow of bluster and saber-rattling will fall apart on it’s own.
Also, millions of people living in Texas are not originally from Texas and have no particular allegiance to Texas.
Also millions of people in Texas and are FROM Texas don’t want this.
And the economic powerhouses of the state (Dallas, Houston, Austin) all lean democratic. This will just make skilled, educated people leave the state and accelerate the brain drain that’s been happening since the 40s.
You’re thinking first civil war. This civil war is going to be about bombing and terror. And it will be MAGA idiots bombing govt facilities. But they’ll start first with places like gay bars and libraries.
THEN the federal govt will get involved and it will devolve into a shit show from there.
The federal government is already involved. The FBI has been a thing for decades. Are we really going to compare the pathetic levels we have now to the 1950s with the KKK?
Here is the truth to any wannabe terrorist: none of you have gotten smarter but the federal government has. You are one guy, the government is a whole mess of guys spending decades studying ways to stop you. No company has any incentive to help you and has a big incentive to report you. Everyone is tracked now, every transaction recorded, every internet post, heck our very movements.
Random acts are going to happen and it is awful but any kinda coordinated resistance will fail.
Plus you know we are all fat now. Successful resistance movements are led by poor people who can live off the land. That Bundy Ranch ordering takeout thing really illustrated it well. Who do you know in your life that is capable of living in the woods as a revolutionary? Do you really see someone like Hannity or Ted Cruz sitting in a cave somewhere to lead his forces?
texas, or any state, would be crushed forthwith.
It’s not a totally unreasonable impression, but no, this will not turn into a second civil war. The Guard units of each state can be called up for federal duty. The National Guard is part of the US Department of Defense and thus ultimately answers to the DoD and the US president as commander in chief. The US military has multiple components, including regular services (eg the full time Army), reserve components (eg US Army Reserve) and National Guard components. The latter two are part-time military with one weekend per month training duty plus an annual training. Guards members and Reservists hold regular full time jobs.
The Guard units are deployable by the governors of their respective states, and so can be used in emergency situations like natural disasters. They have also been deployed against what have been perceived as riots that threaten lives and properties of the individual states.
However, they are subject to activation by order of the US president and they fall under the national command authority. Guard personnel take the same oath to the constitution as other military personnel, and cannot legally refuse federal activation. Guards personnel would be subject to courts martial and face potentially extreme penalties including being discharged from service under criminal conditions, being stripped of rank and benefits, and jail time in federal prison. This would be what we call a career limiting rule.
So, if push comes to shove, Biden can activate the NG and order them to stand down or to implement policies to maintain order. Thinking the NG units and in particular their commanders would disobey a presidential order because they just love their state governor and hate the president so much is getting into Turner Diaries levels of right wing apocalyptic fantasy.
All of which misses a critical point:
The forming of the Confederacy wasn’t “legal” either.
We can handwave away concerns about mounting threats of violence by citing regulation and law, but none of that actually addresses the underlying issue that if these people want to start shit, they will find an avenue.
And let’s also not sit here, in 2024, and assume the institutions, norms, checks, and intended safeguards in our system will always work when they need to. We’ve seen far, far too many breakdowns and failures in our system over the last decade to believe otherwise.
That’s what frustrates me so much about the framing of the situation we’re in right now: most people - and the vast majority of major media organizations - are fully intent on presenting this as “normal”, but it’s very fucking clearly not. It’s assumed by so many that the rules will simply be followed… and then they turn around and cover Trump, whose whole bit is to not follow the rules because he doesn’t feel like it and wants to stay in power forever. It’s like being unconcerned about standing 3 feet away from an uncaged, unleashed siberian tiger because someone once told you at one point that it had been “trained”.
You have to understand that the US military today is a very different organization than it was in the 1860s. I know - I served and majored in military history for my first undergraduate degree, and studied the civil war in particular. I also come from a military family with a father, grandfather, and uncle who served as officers until retirement age.
Far right domestic terrorism is a real and developing threat coming from both former military personnel and from civilians. The election of a far right government that shreds the constitution is also a major threat to American democracy. But if the shit does come down, it’s not going to be because some Guardsmen decide that they’d follow DeSantis over Biden.
Military justice is no joke. Falling on the wrong side of it can end people. The military is also very integrated and has political as well as ethnic diversity. I’m not saying you couldn’t find an Army colonel who wouldn’t want to engage in an armed rebellion, but the country today is very, very different than it was mid-19th century, and so is the military.
Please do note that I do see the rise of American fascism as a real threat. It’s just not going to manifest because state Guard orgs decide to disobey orders.
Thank you for sharing this insight! It’s frustrating to hear everyone everywhere speculate about how easily the active military would turn, not considering…well, everything you wrote.
Yeah, ex-military of course is part of the brainwashed; nowhere else in the civilian world (outside of mercenary work) is warfare conducting knowledge of direct use.
Add that our Government has not always done even the bare minimum for our vets, and you got a recipe for the radicalization of the “disenfranchised warriors” (quotation because I don’t consider oathbreakers worthy of any title).
They’re gonna fall and listen to the honeyed words of Fascism in a different, harder way than your average civilian. That’s a call to something they amongst the rest of their group are genuinely and tangibly valuable for–until they aren’t.
Please do note that I do see the rise of American fascism as a real threat. It’s just not going to manifest because state Guard orgs decide to disobey orders.
Same, and I do still worry for the death tolls. That “theirs” (the civilians, who can be said to not know better) would be orders of magnitude higher than any on the military’s side doesn’t mean I’d like to see deaths on either side.
Since you studied the Civil War, I got a book from my grandfather before he passed, Don’t Know Much about The Civil War, by Kenneth C. Davis, and was wondering if you’ve read of heard of this book and if it would be a good resource or not to read about the Civil War? Or if you can recommend another book or author that is great for learning about the Civil War, I’d appreciate any helpful insights as I’m curious to learn more about the Civil War, thank you.
The Battle Cry of Freedom is pretty widely seen as being one of the best introductions to the civil war.
Thank you! Luckily it’s at my local library so I’ll pick this up first thing tomorrow if they’re open, appreciate your help!
Unlikely, but if those ng declined federal call up, then all bets are off
You’ll find some dumb schmucks that refuse, but there’s no way the entire NG would refuse
Right but I’m talking about the mechanics of how it would happen. Agree, logically that many would honor the federal oath
They have also been deployed against what have been perceived as riots that threaten lives and properties of the individual states.
Yeah, like when they got called up against random citizens in Minneapolis…
I said this in another thread-
Most Americans aren’t interested or even capable of fighting in a civil war. When you live paycheck-to-paycheck, you’re not going to abandon your family to fight on the front lines.
And a huge percentage of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
Texas would have to have a draft.
Good luck with that.
The only kind of draft they’d take is the beer kind.
Not to mention states themselves are never more than 60%/40% leaning either way. It’s not like the more homogeneous populations of the 1800s.
Not to mention that most of them are probably too unfit to even be a soldier xd
The tech bros in Austin are not going to the front lines. Front line at airport, maybe.
You’re wrong though. The general public is more likely to engage in civil unrest when they’re struggling. The reality though is that while many Americans might be living paycheck to paycheck, they’re not poor and not struggling. They are just bad at managing their finances and they have a lot to lose.
If you have more to lose than to gain, you won’t participate in a civil war. But when you’re a slave working in a cotton field, you have nothing to lose, only something to gain.
The idea that your average American is so poor is just laughable.
Bad at managing their finances
Either you’re being purposefully deceitful, or you have a horrible understanding of macroeconomics. But please, let’s just continue to ignore the elephants named record-inflation, rent records and housing crisis in the room.
over half a million live on the streets. flat out homeless. and then, the working poor, which you are if you live paycheck to paycheck. also, if you can’t live unless you work, you’re the working class.
There is a term for this called the “Valley of revolt” basically a people need enough empowerment to revolt but not enough to feel heard.
Also it’s not necessarily just “bad with finances” it’s that our expected standard of living doesn’t match our actual standard of living. Rising cost and stagnant wages and all that.
My take on it is that the Republicans will do their best to drag this out until the election. No compromising or middle ground. Just make it out to be the crazy Democrats fault. This stuff gets to be very predictable after all these years.
Removed by mod
At current, this is all posturing. If Biden does engage the military to stop them. Perhaps lock up the governors for treason, maybe it could escalate somewhat. If something did happen that was in the line of being more serious, it wouldn’t be a long incursion as long as the military obeyed the commander in chief. The national guard is absolutely no match for even a small slice of the might of the US military.
If something does happen, hopefully they’ll shut it down quickly and bloodlessly, maybe finally gather enough strength to enable some Germany type of anti-fascism laws.
We need to fix gerrymandering, we need to fix people screwing with elections. We need to put some strong protections against the propaganda and opinion pieces flowing out of all the news outlets. We need to force free non-political basic education to the entire f****** country so people can make some informed decisions about s***.
I’m tired of everybody looking at politics like it’s a f****** football game.
What are the chances of China attacking us during the civil war? Or taking Taiwan (we NEED Taiwan for our silicon production)
We need to put some strong protections against the propaganda and opinion pieces flowing out of all the news outlets.
Something tells me this one is a non-starter, as any new laws will slam up against the Constitution, over and over again.
Having said that, I would love to at least seen a real-time label, in a large font size, on any monitor/tv that specifies that what’s being shown is an opinion piece, and not a factual article/show.
Something tells me this one is a non-starter, as any new laws will slam up against the Constitution, over and over again.
The first amendment states that congress shall not abridge freedom of the press. In reality it needs to be strengthened because speech and press isn’t free anymore, it’s overwhelmingly controlled by interest with huge amounts of economic power. The reason for freedom fo speech and press is that dissenting ideas and thoughts are heard in order to have accountability. Which the current interpretation is doing the opposite of.
For example you could pass laws that any journalist has the right to voice his own opinion and not be fired or discriminated against by his employer (as long as he doesn’t discriminate himself or uses hate speech). That would not abridge the freedom of the press. Basically give the journalists more freedom from their owners.
Or you could make a law that forces owners to sell their media empires into trusts that are democratically controlled by the journalists / workers, and finance it through a bank. This would not abridge the freedom of the press (which is not the same as the owner).
Of course this is unthinkable and the current supreme court would never allow it. But we shouldn’t accept the degenerate view that freedom of the press is the same as turning speech and news into a commodity that is owned by the elite. And especially in a plutocracy that basically is state owned media.
You could appoint a 100 young people as new supreme court judges and then pass these modern laws and election reform also limiting the future excesses of the supreme court. There isn’t really anything stopping the Democrats from doing that.
If we go into a civil war, the Constitution’s going to slam up against a lot of changes.
GOP is ignoring the shit out of the Constitution already why should it protect them? They already tried to dismantle the executive branch and turn the presidency into a dictatorship. Now they’re going after the judicial branch. Nah, they’re going to game the Constitution until the US is forced to change it. It’s either going to happen slowly over time, or quickly after a pretty substantial bloodbath.
We can’t just sit here and go oh look It’s Hitler incarnate, but you know first amendment, oh damn, they ignored some laws and found some loopholes I guess we had just better conform to oppression by the minority. We better all get some swastikas.
This country isn’t going to go quietly into dictatorship for fear of failing to make everyone happy. The Democrats are weak because they try to follow the rules, They try to give breaks to the people that f*** them over because they don’t want to hurt the other people, but like everything else there’s a line. When Americans are shooting each other over propaganda, The propaganda’s going to have to f****** go.
No this is all Republican division. It’s their only playbook to rally their base. The take home message for everyone is VOTE, VOTE, VOTE. Before the election started up we had a nice quiet 2-1/2 years. This kind of shit only appeals to those that love the chaos that Trump will bring back.
It’s very tiresome. This also feels a lot more agro than interrogating a president about getting a BJ.
Why are your lunatics so energetic, crazy and numerous? They seem to be getting worse. Some BJ obsessions in the 90s. Then tea parties in the 00s. Now it’s full-blown inssurection with Texas wanting to secede.
Now that all the crazies have joined their “god army” and trundled down to the border would it be a good time to nuke them? Just wipe out all the lunatics in one go. Problem solved.
Why are your lunatics so energetic, crazy and numerous?
Simple, Russian and Chinese bots on social media designed to foment division, anger, and the destruction of western democracy. It’s the exact same thing that led to Brexit and the election of Trump. And it will get worse until we get a handle on blocking bad actors on social media.
It’s not Republican division. A lot of Americans are disgusted with the open border and the gross inaction of our government.
lol. Every additional illegal immigrant makes Texas SAFER. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2014704117
Why?
Can we just have a normal, boring year for once, please? I’m so tired…
Better yet, can we have a government that doesn’t pretend things are fine and actually doe something about the fucking fascists?
Please let us have a normal election season
With the Trump? NO WAY!
I think you’d have to relocate for that.
What planet do you recommend?
Closest would be the Moon. I heard it’s pretty boring. Aside from the occasional rover visits.
Any “first world” country that will accept you.
Can we just have a normal, boring year for once, please? I’m so tired…
I’m right there with you.
But at least you can think of this to console you: You’re not actually fighting in a world/civil war, down in some troops trench somewhere, reading this (at least that’s my hope for you).
Other generations have had to go through major wars, but so far we’ve been dodging that bullet, for the most part.
Things could be a lot worse.
A lot of you all must be too young to remember. This isn’t a new thing for Texas to do. They threatened to secede at least once (maybe twice) while Obama was president. Once it was straight out of the North Korean playbook, claiming a training exercise the military was conducting was a cover for a military invasion of Texas.
And thats why I’m not worried about them doing anything other than what they’re already doing. They know they would be fucked if they leave.
And if they do? Well then we deal with it when that time comes. Hopefully a bunch of left leaning people leave, including my brother and his wife, and a bunch of MAGAts can go there and talk about how much they love America while also leaving it.
They’d have no issue, they already consider everything outside of their small town to be Fake America.
The Dollop did a podcast on Jade Helm as it was happening. Definitely recommend listening to that one if you like American history podcasts. It’s episode 100 I believe
Those states are going to be in a rude awakening when they realize they are broke because the blue states are by far the largest contributors to federal funding. When they cut that off, the welfare state will come crawling back quickly.
The welfare states regularly turn down federal funding because they do not care about the lower income portions of their state. Alabama will just have fewer people able to feed their selves.
Which they will blame on the blue states.
Texas gets $53,000,000,000 in federal funding every year. They’ll cave.
Seems to be a distinct possibility. Posturing prior to the election, rattling sabers, they’re spoiling for a full-on shootin’ war contingent on losing the election, in my opinion.
edit: I dare say, it might even be strategically advantageous for them to intentionally try lose, claim it was rigged, and use that to go live with the 4th riech.
I think the tactical nukes will slow their ambitions for another hundred or so years. We can’t take these posturing fools seriously.
No one is using a tactical nuke on US soil. We have enough conventional bombs to destroy ourselves anyway.
We can’t take these posturing fools seriously
Have you just not been paying attention for the last…decade?
Yes, we absolutely should.
And yet, we must. Assume your enemy will lose, but prepare for them to win.
It’s not a new civil war reason. It’s the same one as last time just packaged up a little different.
Racism
It’s not even a new civil war. The last civil war only ended technically. In reality it went cold and has still been being waged all this time. It turned from a war of the rural South against the industrialised north. To a war on the industrialized from the rural.
Minnesota looking across our western border like
Please hurry, I think our state needs help
This has to be purposefully not getting media coverage so as to not incite panic/public support, right? When I saw the first ruling posted by Gov Abbott it seemed almost like a secessionist rant, but it’s NO WHERE to be seen in MSM
I’d say its not getting coverage because Texas talks about seceding almost every year and states have been using their national guard as political tools for years now.
When the national guard was sent to DC after the insurrection, Texas pulled their national guard back because of “poor treatment”. I was there, there was no poor treatment. Texas (and several more states afterwards) used their national guard as a political tool to make the other side seem bad.
Texas doesn’t talk about seceding. A tiny miniscile handful of people who live in Texas talk about it.
Very good point. I’d like to also think it’s not getting attention as to avoid prompting more idiots from joining in on the idiocy, but that’s likely me giving MSM too much credit.
I read how most experts agree that there will be some kind of “constitutional crisis” within the next decade. The impeachment 1, impeachment 2, and January 6 attacks already show the rumblings of what is to come.
Personally I find it doubtful that a full civil war would be the means though bc of the disparity b/t military resources at the federal vs. lower levels. Thus, probably something else, perhaps extremely mundane e.g. Trump runs for President, and bc of the Israeli conflict in Gaza and whatever else Russia manufactures between now and then Biden loses, then Trump simply declares himself Emperor.
Or maybe even that much paperwork will not happen and the government will simply never pass another federal budget again, thus ending the federal level by default of obstruction.
So probably not Civil War, at this time and over this event (no matter how much the clickbait media tries to get its clicks), but even so… something is coming indeed, down the road in some form.
Honestly, it’ll probably wind up becoming an American version of The Troubles. Republicans are cowards, and I doubt there are very many who are truly willing to fight and die for their cause. However, there are plenty of people willing to commit terrorist bombings and acts of sabotage if they think they can get away with it, and the US is huge. There are still plenty of places to hide if that’s the case.
And if Trump wins reelection, I can’t imagine many blue states putting up with it, and the same thing will happen from the opposite direction.
I don’t know how liberals will react tbh. Usually they try to work within the system, but if that should ever prove to become impossible… I haven’t studied enough history to get any kind of accurate impression, but it’s worth noting that nothing like it has been needed (within the USA) in the last hundred years or so, so whatever might come seems hard to predict.
I should add that Democrats are also cowards too, as are most individuals - neither side holds a monopoly on that. That’s what makes this all so dangerous: if something could be accomplished behind the scenes, then 99.9999% of Americans will simply go along with the flow. Exactly like within Russia, even the thinnest vernier of respectability would be enough to forestall a large-scale conflict. So the “constitutional crisis” might take the form of a fairly bloodless (in the wider sense) coup.
Or Republicans could just keep turning the ratchet, making steady gains wherever they can, then locking in those gains and turtling, obstructing as best they can whenever they do not hold a majority, as they have been doing for decades now. In one sense that’s even entirely fair - a democracy should reflect the majority will of the people - except Republicans are aware that white people are becoming in the minority now and so have been changing more and more over time who gets to be counted as “people”. e.g. gerrymandering, with the stacked Supreme Court members not opposing it so now it’s “legal”. Though even that is becoming not enough lately thus they are having to adjust the stakes higher, possibly doing away with voting altogether (yes they are literally talking about that, hence all this discussion about Civil War). They have already been allowed to push that far, which leaves fewer options for them to move forward with short of something drastic.
The trick is that to the uninitiated, much of it sounds reasonable at first - e.g. “states rights” means that we all get to choose our own paths, and what is wrong with that, isn’t that “freedom” in the truest sense of the word? The trouble is how the lie is delivered along with the truth: for one, the means by which those gains were achieved has enormous implications, which feeds into two, it was actually always a lie bc they never stop there and always push forward after people accept the first push. i.e., if only appeasement would ever actually work! However, like that famous saying “first they came for…”, where even if you don’t care about those first few that were come for, eventually they will come for YOU too, and if you had been paying attention then there would be no need to be shocked, shocked I tell you, shocked! Leopards eat faces off, and just bc one hasn’t eaten YOUR face off, yet, doesn’t mean that it never will. They tend not to change their spots, only their current targets. Like Brexit, many people in the USA won’t know what’s happening anytime before, during, or somehow even after it has happened.:-(
And some are even joining in with the leopards, neither realizing nor seemingly caring that they are just being saved as future meals for those who are true predators. These “facilitators”, together along with the much more numerous “collaborators”, collectively are bringing literal (neo-)Nazis back into power.
