As a recent transplant to Maine (though I did grow up in southern New England), I would happily secede to Canada at this point.
I didn’t read it, I just glanced at it. I disagree it undermines my argument. Its optimistic hope that we can find a way to map our way through this and boost mental health as a priority. I love that idea, and I love optimism, but its not really addressing the core issue, of the national identity fracture and growing hostility, Its hope for a better tomorrow, I agree with that, but I don’t see that without proactive action from both sides of the divide. Finding a way to mend fences and have a joint respect.
I think giving up teams would be a good first start, and getting rid of pundits on TV and limiting editorials in the news networks/papers. A lot of people out there like the idea of joining a team and don’t like the idea of learning enough about a subject to offer thoughtful analyses so they allow the pundits they like to do their critical thinking. In my mind, this has devolved into the mess we are in now.
I’m actually of the same mind, if that looks likely I’m moving ::) immigrating to Canada looks unlikely, last time I checked.
I won’t say a civil war is impossible in this country. I mean, they happen elsewhere so it’s not a matter of modernity or lethality. However, the threshold of strife to reach critical mass is considerably higher than anything we’ve experienced thus far. As noted above, it’s much more likely for “Troubles” scenarios to play out.
What really bugs me—and this is NOT a slight against the OP or anyone with the concern—is when fear of a civil war is used as an end-around to avoid confrontation on politically and/or emotionally charged issues. These issues need confrontation. Please note, confrontation doesn’t denote violence.
I tend to agree with you, except I worry that while it has started, I worry it will get far far worse, before it starts to get better. Not Purge level crayness, but maybe somewhat in the ballpark in some parts of the nation.
Unless Canada will have me, I’m attempting to offer civil discourse and consensus building where I can. On the other hand, I have no idea how to respond to loony toon conspiracy buffs that are becoming more and more common in online and even community based discussions. This is what alarms me most, and I have no idea how to combat that…and they appear to be growing to mainstream dominance
The most likely cause of “civil war” would be a large body of states (say, Cali, Wash and Oregon) uniting to oppose very specific Federal policies. There are only a few regional areas (Pacific, New England area, Texas, old South) united enough in population, culture and economics to make a stand; the other areas would probably spin off if the US broke apart but would unlikely to be the first to make the leap.
Right now though, with Republicans in charge it’s extremely unlikely a conservative region like Texas or the South would leave first.
That’s kind of the only actual threat of civil war. And, tbh, i’m still not sure a shooting war would actually happen even if Cali seceded. I imagine what would happen is that a Republican administration would “send in the tanks” but what the state government would essentially do is mass resign in protest and bring the whole state to a halt. They’d hire some private contractors to “run” the state, and there would be some quislings and some desperate people that needed a job they could hire to run the state but it would be at such a poor level and at such a high cost at some point the Fed would be forced to concede. There’s enough private wealth in Cali CEOs and technocrats could privately fund food kitchens and protest to keep the state alive if everyone essentially protested and refused to participate in the Federal government any longer, and they couldn’t arrest everyone. Basically mass protest until independence.
Once that happens, it’s likely Texas would consider splitting off just because. And once Texas leaves, all the states will start wanting to leave on their own terms; mainly for economic reasons, because the debt is so large whoever last one without a chair is stuck with debt they won’t be able to pay. Pretty quickly everyone realizes it’s best to declare the old country bankrupt.
They say that when America sneezes, the whole world catches cold. This is especially true for Canada.
I honestly think Pennsylvanian are more likely to join Ohio, rather than any of the other states. NJ and NY are out, and so is Maryland.
The problem with Pennsylvania, is that Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have very different politics, compared to the rest of PA.
America is already in a civil war. One third of the nation has decided that it is so vehemently ideologically opposed to the other two-thirds that they’ve taken their victory at the polls as a sign to move the fight out of the voting booths and editorial pages and into the streets. All these horrific stories we read about people acting overtly racist, homophobic, ignorant and hostile are the first salvo in said fight. It’s going to get worse, especially now that some of the other two-thirds are beginning to fight back (Maxine Waters for example) on the same level. Frankly, it needs to get worse. The two-thirds need to speak up and speak out. They need to crush the one-third, or at least the most reprehensible members of the one-third, and call them out on their bullshit over and over and over until it’s blatantly obvious that it is, indeed, bullshit. In order for decorum to reign again in this country, we’re going to have to get our hands dirty and our knuckles bloody (figuratively speaking, though possibly literally in a few cases). Americans need to stop letting the very vocal minority of racist idiot voices in this country control the dialog.
As to an actual Civil War…that’s extremely unlikely to happen since our military is highly distributed and decentralized. Even if we had a POTUS stupid enough to try to declare his political opponents traitors and demand the military round them and their supporters up, the actual military is made up of people from both parties, and the layers of command built into the military would insure that rule of law would be respected and such an unconstitutional order would be disregarded. You might see militia groups attempt violence, but that would only unite the military and much of the country against whichever party said militia group claimed to be a part of. A Civil War between the Conservative Right and the Liberal Left in this country would not be fought along territorial boundaries or even between classes, it would literally be fought between neighbors, friends and family members. That’s not going to happen.
This is true of many if not most states, though. Minneapolis::Minnesota, Detroit::Michigan, Madison/Milwaukee::Wisconsin, Chicago::Illinois, you name it.
I think its worse in PA. It doesn’t help that PA is pretty much divided into Steelers, Eagles and to a lesser extent, Raven’s country.
I actually tried to divide the midwest up along “city axis” lines rather than geographic lines.
For ex., if Minnesota joined with Chicago, Minneapolis-St Paul would just be one of several large metro areas around the orbit of Chicago. By itself with a bunch of smaller farm states it would be the “capital”. St. Louis is a midwest city with some southern ornaments but culturally it seems far closer to Chicago than to anywhere else.
Dividing up the midwest i tried to keep a Chicago centered view.
Okay. Why? Having lived in Minneapolis and (near) Detroit, I’m not aware of anything that makes PA substantially different or exceptionally vitriolic. But I don’t know PA, so I’d love to hear about it.
Or Houston/Austin::Texas, Atlanta::Georgia, Miami::Florida, Detroit::Michigan…
That’s why the idea of an actual Red vs Blue “war” is ridiculous. How do you expect Houston, Detroit, and Chicago to unite and support each other in a battle against their own collar counties. Or vice versa?
It has happened. it was our first civil war. Just pointing that out. If its happened, it could happen again…
I have family/and extended family on both sides of the partisan so ‘righteous’ that I would not be surprised if at some point it descended into violence…
CA is the exact same way, sadly.
Pennsylvania, on the whole of it, is a pretty toxic state. They hate pretty much everyone that surrounds them. They’re not even super fond of each other. Philadelphia is especially toxic in some respects. It’s just…not a great place.
To my mind, “Civil War 2.0” is a bunch of hilljacks with AR-15s discovering what the minigun in an A-10 does, and that drones can launch Hellfire missiles from American airspce.
Is that a net positive or negative? Having trouble deciding.
Its in my nature to view any death of humankind as regrettable and never a positive. Maybe necessary in some cases, but always regrettable.