So...it's come to my attention that fascist dictatorship isn't the only possible horrifying outcome of the second Trump administration. We could see a second civil war here. Heck, we might already be in one...
So, let's walk through my thinking. First, the discussion the other day on a national divorce. The first civil war was an attempt at a national divorce. And it led to the two factions duking it out. The union refused to let them leave, and then basically turned up the heat by abolishing slavery, which they did when they won, nationwide. Ever since then, the south has been bitter about it.
Racial tensions have remained high into the 20th century, and civil rights legislation inflamed them further, leading to the modern political landscape. The republican party became ascendant, but kept a lid on the racism outwardly. They didn't go explicitly racist. Instead, they sounded like Charlie Kirk in his jubilee debate going on about how bad the inner cities are and going on about welfare splitting up black families. The talking points are laced with implicit racism, but it's just subtle enough to give some plausible deniability.
Trump is a return to the bullhorn, and he's aligned with a lot of southern style factions who are explicitly racist. And the racists have felt emboldened since then with charlottesville, january 6th, and now with trump's second term, they're just becoming explicit about it. And trump's second term is laced with a narrative of revenge. Revenge on his enemies, on minorities, the left, etc.
Related to this specific issue of a civil war, what alarms me most is Trump's use of putting troops in blue cities/states without permission. While so far, the left is taking it in stride, and quite frankly, this "occupation" is more of a meme at this point where these troops are picking up trash, in another set of circumstances, this WOULD be war.
A few realizations of mine come from this. First, take the first civil war. I had an unrelated convo with friends where one of them said trump is the worst president ever. And as someone who understands the history of the country, at this point i unequivocally agree. Like, people say Buchanan is bad since he didnt so enough to stop the civil war and stop the confederates from leaving, but if you brought buchanan to the present day, he'd be fairly mediocre. If you put trump back in the 1850s/1860s, he'd be siding with the confederacy and invading northern cities. And I mean this unironically, because he's doing that now. But if he did that back then, yeah, that could've been interpreted as a sign of war.
Another historical example of this comes from the new Sabaton album. People might wonder, what does music have to do with it? Well, Sabaton writes songs about history, military history to be exact. One song on their new album is called "crossing the rubicon". It's about julius caesar...crossing the rubicon. What's the historical importance of this moment? Well, let's go back to the past. Caesar was originally a governor of a territory that rome didnt directly control but was directly north of Roman territory, and was aligned with Rome. When Caesar's term ended, he was supposed to return to Rome and disband his military. Instead, he took his army and crossed the Rubicon, a river that separated his territory and Rome proper. By crossing the river, he went past the point of no return, so to speak. Basically, he sparked a civil war. He literally invaded Rome with his troops. And he won, and what happened when he won the civil war? He disbanded the senate, destroyed Roman democracy, and became the first roman emperor, or a dictator, if we wanna be blunt.
And this has relevance to the modern day, because again, what is Trump doing? Using federal troops to invade blue cities and states because he wants to make them miserable. He's literally trying to be a bully, if we wanna be blunt. You see, we have a federalist system. The federal government is not supposed to be superior over the states. Rather, it shares power with them. It's another check and balance on the federal government, beyond the three branches of the federal government. And the federal government...isn't supposed to be doing what trump is doing. Case in point, who remembers hurricane Katrina? People might wonder why the federal response was such a disaster, and to be blunt, it was because the different levels of government weren't communicating properly. You see, the feds can't, or shouldn't, just send in the troops uninvited. They have to ask first. There's bureaucracy there. And something got lost somewhere. So Bush wasn't cooperating with mayor Ray Nagin properly, he wasn't talking with Kathleen Blanco (the governor) properly, and the whole delayed response was in part because no one was taking charge and no one knew wtf they were doing. Bush shoulders a lot of the blame himself, but so do the local governments.
Either way, we get the point. You're supposed to ASK FIRST before you send in troops. because we're the United STATES of America. We have 50 states. They each have their own governments. We're not a unitary government like say, Canada. And normally, given the democrats are typically the federalists, I know I balk at states rights a lot, but here, it kind of is that last check and balance against Trump. Right now, 23 states have democratic governors, and 27 have republican ones. Legislatures can get a bit more complicated, but given the red state/blue state dynamic, I would expect the results to be somewhat similar, although there can be some differences. For example, I know PA here has Josh Shapiro, a democrat in charge of the governorship, but republicans control the legislature. Still, once again, we get the point. We got red states, we got blue states, and what Trump is doing could, in another context, be interpreted as a declaration of war against the states. A "crossing the rubicon" so to speak.
Of course, the democrats are currently taking the high road. They're trying to take his buffoonish actions in stride, pointing out that they dont approve of this incursion, but not fighting. But, let's face it, Trump is closing his grip around our democracy. And this is going to get progressively worse. And I wanna be once again clear I'm NOT inciting violence here. Im not inciting anyone to do anything. I'm describing the situation. For all the talk of the violent left, if anything, I think trump is being the violent one here. He's provoking this, when it's completely unnecessary. He's using troops as a show of force in blue areas. But what would a "true crossing of the rubicon" look like? Federal troops firing on protesters at a future rally? We had something like that start the first American revolution. The boston massacre followed by "the shot heard around the world" so to speak. Will it be Trump trying to undermine the integrity of elections? Right now, we have red states looking to gerrymander in red states, seeking to overturn civil rights legislation, and now blue states are considering doing the same in retaliation. It's not a "crossing of the rubicon" moment, but it is increasing tensions. But what if trump rigs it? or cancels elections? What if, in 2028, he DOES run again, in violation of the constitution? What if he loses, or pence loses, and they refuse to leave? What if another January 6th even happens again? Like, this is TRUMP we're talking about. He's shown his willingness to do such things before. And what happens when the blue states decide enough is enough and decide to try to evict the federal troops trump is invading with? Are we in a civil war then? Are we crossing the rubicon then? Have we crossed it already, but because cooler heads are prevailing, we're just avoiding such a war for the mean time?
Like, this is what scares me. Trump, in general scares me. As I said, his actions remind me of hitler in his early days, like 1933-1934. But when I think about this specific issue, this invasion of federal troops into blue states and blue cities without permission, this is actually NOT good at all. In another context, this could literally be a provocation for war. With Julius Caesar invading Roman territory proper and "crossing the rubicon" in a literal sense, he literally made civil war inevitable. Perhaps we're already there, with trump crossing the rubicon now and we don't know it.
Either way, I hope cooler heads prevail here. I dont WANT this. I dont want ANY of this. I wanna make that clear. But the more I look at the situation, studying history, I see a few ways this can go and most of them aren't good. Not at all. I mean, what would a 21st century civil war even look like? The first was horrible. A second one with modern weapons would make ukraine look like a paradise. It could literally be an israel/gaza situation with the blue states being the gazans. And we're not even talking about nukes. What if trump starts nuking American cities? Now im getting REALLY out there. But again, this dude is an unhinged psycho. That's the point. He could blow up say, Chicago or NYC or something just to send a message.
I mean, this is insane. This whole thing is insane. But again, I'm really starting to be concerned about this. Am I wrong? Am I exaggerating? I don't know. The point is, the possibility for any of this stuff is greater than zero, or even near zero, and that's scary. We could be in a civil war within 4 years at this rate, within his term, or at the very end of it if he refuses to leave or something. Idk, it's just something to think about.
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