So after reading, listening to documentaries and podcasts and learning a bit more, and watching the current situation in the U.S. in the past couple of months, not to say, the past couple of years from an outside point of view, there are many indicators and conditions showing that the U.S. is set and ready for a new civil war. It may sound from a fiction story, but I see that many of the following conditions for a civil war to start are now united, especially when we look at what happened in history and elsewhere around the world, when neighbors turned against each other in a same country. And these conditions for a civil war to start in the U.S. are the following:


1. The perception of moral righteousness and superiority:

At least one part of the population believes that they are morally right to fight and take over the other group, its property, resources and lead them. This group thinks they are entitled to take over the other group and their belongings and punish them for their “sins”, for not agreeing with their beliefs and ideas, which, they think, are morally superior to the other group. In history, religion and ideology have been used as symbols or justifications for this moral superiority and right. Today, many people, both on the right and on the left in the U.S. are now so far in both extremes: on the right, people still believe in Christian religion and evangelism, that America’s prosperity was traditionally founded on a white middle-class (that has been destroyed because of the changing economy during the past 20-30 years) with the whole white-supremacy ideology in the most extreme cases. While on the left, the whole “woke thing”, like social justice and racial justice (mixed in with some Marxism ideology) and movements like SJW, BLM and Antifa, some perceive this as some kind of new religion, or has all the trademarks of some kind of religion. People tend to find a justification, or some kind of moral justification, to take on a fight against the other group and eliminate it, even if it justifies making the worst atrocities by dehumanizing them. And we alreay signs of dehumanization such as: "you're a radical left and communist if you support this political agenda", "you're a loser if you believe that", "you're a racist or a white-supremacist if you say that", etc. In history as well as in literature it has been demonstrated that people who radicalize and dehumanize the other never see themselves as becoming evil making atrocities, but are rather convinced (not to say fanaticized) that they are doing good.


2. The living standards:

At least one of the group that are revolting, rising up, or starting up a conflict, needs to be above a minimum level of living standard which is the case in the U.S. In history, when looking back, contrary to popular belief, starving people and making them poor like for example in North Korea, the former Soviet Union, Mao’s China or in Irak under Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War in 1991, are easier to control since the first priority for the people will be to survive and find something to eat and feel better, than trying to revolt against their leaders. If people can be starved, they are easier to control by throwing them some food. This isn’t the case in the U.S. when there’s still a somewhat middle-class and people able to still find and buy some food. So people can focus on other stuff like revolting against their leaders or taking on the other group they perceive as their “enemy”.


3. The winner wants to take the whole country and not compromise:

In this case, the whole country is perceived as the prize to win. At least one of the group views the ownership of the country as the ultimate goal. The group thinks that if they win the conflict, they will be in control of the state and its resources and gets to decide for the other group or the ones they see as “their enemies”, even if it means eliminate them.


4. Misinformation and propaganda:

The news and information broadcasted on the mainstream media and on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Youtube, etc.) have become more and more misleading and propaganda for all the conflicting groups, emboldening the different groups and becoming more and more divided, no longer able to establish a dialogue between each other and understand each other, rejecting immediately different point of views. Even contradictory facts or evidence to one’s belief doesn’t matter anymore when for people. Facts and the truth becomes what people make of it: it’s rather what those people wanted to hear and believe to feed their narrative. This where my point #1 comes in when people think they are morally superior to the other. So at some moment, they are deciding that the only way to solve their differences is through force. I see this on this forum with some people becoming more and more agressive in their posts here, I see this on social media, as well as on the mainstream media as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc., with people becoming more and more emotional and being closed in an echo chamber, and trying to suppress any alternative point of view or shutting up other people. This goes as well with conspiracy theories, playing with people’s emotions than trying to inform them and being able to form a well-informed opinion and decisions. You can watch the recent documentary “Social Dilemna” on Netflix as well with shows that social media has brought its on negative effects on human society by dividing further people than trying to unite them by making communication easier. What is especially problematic with social media is that it no longer allows people to see themselves human-to-human when discussing or talking to each other, so it makes it easier to dehumanize the other as well.


5. The acceptance of violence, as the only way to solve the differences:

Violence as a solution is accepted by many people, there can’t be anymore dialogue and understanding of each other. Or, at least, the use of violence is being instantly forgiven by the group since it is seen as the ultimate way to win the fight. We see this with physical fights between Trump supporters, democrats and BLM, in the riots and looting, by burning down buildings in cities in the past few months, with people asking to “overthrow the U.S. constitution”, demolishing statues, not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere, here in Canada and in Europe as well, polarizing further the public opinion and alienating others. And at the same this violence occurs, while it’s true it is being condemned by the rival group, it is not being condemned by the mainstream media for example, calling it in some cases “peaceful protests” while at the same we can see violence and cities burning.


6. A failed leadership above:

People above, in order to gain or keep their power, also being fed by misinformation or having bad intentions, will do everything on their hands to keep or gain the power: this is both true on the left and on the right, on the Democratic and Republican side in the U.S. And by feeding their supporters with the same discourse over and over again, whether it’s through social media and mainstream media, they will push people further to the extreme.


7. The easy access to weapons:

In the U.S., this is the biggest issue since anyone can easily have access to a gun and it's right being protected by the constitution. And this is not only true to the right-wing or white supremacist, it’s also true to the left-wing as this story of a Trump supporter being shot and killed in Portland at the beginning of this month.



There might be other points, but at least, all the conditions I’ve mentioned above seem to be currently united and in place for a civil war armed conflict to start. But also, historically, the U.S. has a bad history of trying to solve its internal conflicts through violence. We can look for example at The American Civil War in the 19th century for such an issue as slavery. And historically, civil war is one of the most deadly conflict that a human society can create, since we tend to dehumanize our neighbor and those who might different from ourselves, even if we live under the same nationality or country.


So, share your thoughts.

 

My thoughts: maybe, but better change the name of the thread anyway.

 

Eh, people too lazy to get off their couches to do battle. Wait until the yanks have personal attack drones, then we got a problem.

 

How can I do that? I can only edit the text, not the title once I posted the thread. Or maybe the mods can do that...

I will admit the title of the thread might be a bit disturbing or straightforward, but I couldn't think of any other one...

 

Probably not.

I don't think there are any states that are willing to fight other states, or the federal government at this point, in warfare. And any individual rebel fighting, will be put down but local and national government should it come to that.

 

Probably not. The "first" civil war happened because of one major issue, the states had a lot more autonomy and people being loyal to their states, and two factions of the ruling class were opposed to each other. The legality of secession is also a settled issue. What do we have now? The government is much more centralized and few people are more loyal to their state than to their country. The military is loyal. The ruling class' interests largely align, and a lot of Americans follow their lead.

I don't see how MAGA idiots waving rifles around is going to lead to full-scale conflict in a short time. I think at most we're at risk of civil unrest and small-scale conflict with the closest analog being the South during Reconstruction. But I guess I can't be sure. Inequality is getting worse, climate change is getting worse.

 

A shooting war, no. But if Trump appears to have used the Supreme Court to steal the election and Democrats retain control of the House, I could see Speaker Pelosi refusing to recognize his legitimacy and grind the entire federal government to a halt in response. At that point, I’m sure Trump would attempt to have her arrested for treason, which would likely lead to violent protests across the nation.

But two armies going at it, each claiming to represent the ‘real’ America, with the country as a battleground? Unlikely.

 

Why is "no we are too lazy" not an option

 

I didn't think about that, but it's true that there is some kind of truth to that statement.

 

We aren't there yet. But we are on that path.

 

I think if it does happen, it’s not going to be a conventional war so as much something along the lines of The Troubles.

 

No, America is not on the verge of a civil war. Think about what civil war is. People literally organizing int

I don't see Pelosi doing that at all. She's done almost no resistance to Trump in the past, she's doing nothing now to stop his Supreme Court appointment, and she'll do nothing in the future to resist Trump.

 

I really don’t see this happening. I think even in the worst, most obvious case of cheating by Trump and co., Biden would concede after a Trump victory in the Supreme Court. He’d couch it in terms of “national healing” or whatever, and the Democrats would shift their focus to winning the Senate in 2022 (which they would also find some way to screw up).

We don’t have a single person among the Democratic leadership who’s willing to fight like they care about the outcome of any dispute with Republicans,* even if the only weapons they use are procedures and papers. God help us if we rely on them to fight when actual fists and bullets could possibly be involved.

I don’t think there would be a real Civil War II in any case, pretty much for the reasons DG mentions. I also KNOW it won’t happen, because the Democrats would capitulate at once if there were even the slightest chance of fighting breaking out.

I can imagine more skirmishes between civilians, and between civilians and cops, which we have already anyway. If Trump is still in the White House after January of 2021, he’ll eventually have some of his Blackwater Feds mow down protesters in someplace like Portland or Seattle, and then everything will go quiet.

It will all be okay. Most people almost never used their civil rights anyway.


* The DNC will fight against those lousy Commie center-left Democrats, though.

 

Pelosi definitely won't be shutting down the government

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/20/politics/pelosi-government-shutdown-supreme-court-seat/index.html

 

I hope not.

 

No. Not a chance.

The necessary components required for that type of conflict to occur simply aren’t there.

 

Only in the fever-addled minds of right-wing white supremacists that have read the 'book'[sic] The Turner Diaries, or at least a Reddit post about them.

 

You know what they say, the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.

 

I voted for the wrong option. No I don’t think a civil war will happen America is to divided if always has been. I just think Trump has shown us how divided we were. There won’t be a war out of it

 

You’re referring to letting government funding expire. I’m talking about Biden clearly wins and the Supreme Court throws out literally millions of votes. You’re probably right that she and the rest of the Democrats will fold, but what I outlined is far more likely than an actually shooting war.

That is to say, it has a non-zero probably of occurring as opposed to a zero-percent chance of a shooting war. Just wanted to clarify what I was going for here.

 

If it happens, it will be between half-assed left and right wing militias. Basically just citizens going at each other, like Kenosha but shooting back and forth. It will be about killing each other. Loyalty to the state or government won’t matter, it won’t be government vs government, it will be citizens vs citizens with no government leadership or attempts to overthrow the government. The military would be used by the government to crush everyone, but by some odd coincidence left wingers/black people will take much heavier casualties from government forces.

What components are required? It could stimulate organized discussion.

 

How long before that escalates? We've already seen Trump and Barr smear peaceful protestors as "rioters" and "violent criminals". How long before they begin calling them "terrorists" and start shooting them? Because that's exactly how the civil war in Syria got started.

 

Describe the escalation here you have in mind? Are you suggesting that it'll escalate to more people participating in these fire fights? Because it won't. The vast majority of people literally have too much to lose to go out there and start shooting people.