by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Almost all this blog’s traffic comes from people who think the United States is on the cusp of a modern civil war. The question is, of course, why is this? Why do a growing number of people think that American are going to start killing each other for political reasons?
There’s a lot going on with this subject. Some of it is the established glorification of violence found in the Far Right is becoming more and more mainstream. It’s drifting mainstream because MAGA is now a violent personality cult and they no longer see our traditional democracy as legitimate unless they win. Even though there are a lot of conservatives who don’t see themselves as either MAGA or fascist, they definitely know watered down versions of the talking points found within MAGA fascist circles. These conservatives can be so oblivious to this to the point that they get very offended if you reference the obvious source of this bullshit: Fox News.
Another thing going on is the abstract fears that a lot of conservatives have about what’s going on in the United States right now is so potent, so all powerful that a lot of them start to game out the endgame of Cancel Culture or Critical Race Theory or whatever bullshit of the month MAGA thought leaders have come up with.
This leads them to think, in abstract terms: civil war.
It’s the worst possible thing they can think of, but they don’t even know what it would mean in real terms. Now, obviously, there are some actual violent people within the MAGA movement who know damn well what a civil war would be like. But, for the average conservative in fear of going viral for some casual racially tone deaf statement, the idea of a “civil war” is something they think of when pressed by their buddies about what will happen if Cancel Culture isn’t outlawed. “Well, we’ll have a civil war.”
But all this civil war on the brain is definitely a bad sign in general because it gives a sense of the general direction of American politics. For a lot of people, even in abstract terms, to think of political violence as a viable option for solving the country’s problems Is Not A Good Sign.
Our fate in most of the scenarios I run in my mind about a civil war rests on MAGA state legislatures. If they take Trump both seriously and literally about being “reinstated” after Cyber Ninjas “prove” that he “won” the state, then, well, we’re pretty fucked. That would be the conditions for some sort of secession crisis between Trumplandia and the United States.
And, yet, I dunno.
For the moment, all of this civil war talk is just that — talk. It’s all very nebulous and I still don’t know which direction it will go.
