Not sure actual shooting between Americans will break out. It might. I hope not. I hope we avoid this alternative future. But I think any 21st Century civil war will be a cross between the starvation of the Kulaks in Soviet Russia (withholding food, water, electricity, internet connectivity) and Terminator-like killer robots/drones used to “clean-up” areas of resistance.
It’s a good article but loose in its definitions. By some definitions, we’re already in a civil war–the ongoing anti-constitution coup attempt against a duly elected president, the lack of enforcement of immigration law and a low-level rebellion in certain metro areas against it. It’s a soft coup and a soft rebellion: a soft civil war?
President Trump and other Republicans have tolerated this soft civil war. They have not arrested the anti-constitutionalists behind the coup (who VDH has argued are criminally liable). They have not invoked the Insurrection Act to enforce immigration law. I would not expect this to change in a second Trump term or under any other foreseeable GOP president.
The left, on the other hand, is more eager to invoke federal executive branch power. Look at the threat from onetime presidential candidate Eric Swalwell, who apparently is an actual Democrat member of Congress, to nuke recalcitrant gun owners. Look at the threat by R.F. “Beto” O’Rourke to confiscate AR-15s with trigger-happy SWAT teams. Look at the NRA being declared a “terrorist organization,” etc.
Some folks will posit the ’constitutional order began breaking down in earnest with FDR, further frog-in-the-kettle nudged along over the following decades and then placed on steroids when El Guapo took his eleventy-teen-brazillion-times-violated oath of office.
Not sure actual shooting between Americans will break out. It might. I hope not. I hope we avoid this alternative future. But I think any 21st Century civil war will be a cross between the starvation of the Kulaks in Soviet Russia (withholding food, water, electricity, internet connectivity) and Terminator-like killer robots/drones used to “clean-up” areas of resistance.
It’s a good article but loose in its definitions. By some definitions, we’re already in a civil war–the ongoing anti-constitution coup attempt against a duly elected president, the lack of enforcement of immigration law and a low-level rebellion in certain metro areas against it. It’s a soft coup and a soft rebellion: a soft civil war?
President Trump and other Republicans have tolerated this soft civil war. They have not arrested the anti-constitutionalists behind the coup (who VDH has argued are criminally liable). They have not invoked the Insurrection Act to enforce immigration law. I would not expect this to change in a second Trump term or under any other foreseeable GOP president.
The left, on the other hand, is more eager to invoke federal executive branch power. Look at the threat from onetime presidential candidate Eric Swalwell, who apparently is an actual Democrat member of Congress, to nuke recalcitrant gun owners. Look at the threat by R.F. “Beto” O’Rourke to confiscate AR-15s with trigger-happy SWAT teams. Look at the NRA being declared a “terrorist organization,” etc.
November 2020 will be an important election.
Some folks will posit the ’constitutional order began breaking down in earnest with FDR, further frog-in-the-kettle nudged along over the following decades and then placed on steroids when El Guapo took his eleventy-teen-brazillion-times-violated oath of office.