Four million nine hundred thousand hits appear if one googles ‘new American Civil War”.
I’ve been passing over and occasionally dipping into these announcements for, analysis of, a percentage likelihood of , and cheerleading for (and against) Civil War for some months now.
A new American Civil War between Republicans and Democrats seems impossible to imagine as anything other than a bad movie or as being representative of the current fascination with dystopias. I do not know a single person, suburban Republican or left-wing firebrand who wants this. Only fools and fanatics.
There are no clear geographic delineations as there were between Slave States and Free States. For example, in 2020 John Cornyn, Republican, won re-election to the Senate from Texas, a deep Red State, with 53% of the vote, about 6 million total votes. His Democratic opponent came in at 44% and almost 5 million votes. In the event of a new Civil war, where do those 5 million Democrats go? In Pennsylvania’s Chester County, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 17%. Lancaster County, right next door, went for Trump by 16%. How do those counties break down or apart in a new American Civil War? My Township went for Trump at 55%. What of those on my road who went for Biden – in a new American Civil War, what happens to them?
In two recent examples of civil war, Yugoslavia and Iraq broke apart street by street, neighbor by neighbor, Muslim against ‘Christian’, Croats against Serbs, Shia against Sunni, friend against friend. Both conflicts were bloody and protracted. Both sides committed atrocities. Everything broke down and apart.
There is nothing exceptional about Americans as human beings or as a nation, nothing that would make us different from Serbs or Iraqis. There are close to 450 million guns in private ownership in the US, more than 1 weapon for every person. They would be used.
Some partisans of both sides dream of a peaceful divorce. That is even harder to imagine than a violent separation. What politician will want to keep the peace if he or she believes in a zero-sum game – I win, and you must lose.
In writing about France just prior to WWII, Simone Weil described a dominant mood in a significant percentage of the citizenry: “A nationalist obsession, the adoration of power in its most brutal form, the camouflaged deification of death.” This estimation sounds too familiar of one side in 2022 in our fracturing nation.
I have no idea what will happen, but the number of articles out there about a potential American conflict within our borders tells me that anxiety and fear are indicating something awful and beyond our ability to imagine might be coming. Sometimes fools and fanatics see their wishes come true.
