The grievances and gripes people have which are highlighted as the likely cause of division and a speculative civil war are mostly smokescreen culture war bullshit that exist for media spectacle and politicking. Beating up on minorities isn’t something that’s going to drive a big chunk of liberals to fight. Material issues are not seen in class terms. It’s seen in matters of bickering about policy like tax policy or war spending which is true to a degree but it’s a lost in the illusion thing. Conditions worsen but the illusion remains.
The media and parties and grifters stir up mild tension for profit and distraction but have little real interest in it coming to an actual protracted fight. Sure reactionaries wouldn’t and don’t mind killing some progressives or leftists now and again but the left isn’t large enough, organized enough, etc to actually fight back nor the citizenry informed enough outside the bourgeois press propaganda bubble to get involved after an outrage.
The mythos of the holy American institutions, the holy government, the holy constitution and system still holds strong. As long as that is the alter at which all Americans worship at I don’t think a civil war can happen.
Only when a significant part of the population make a sustained break from that might something happen. And for that to really occur you need much worse material conditions. There are cracks, the Republican resistance to Ukraine and increasing skepticism of neo-cons (which probably won’t last beyond the day Trump is elected), the crushing of Palestinian student protests and the disenchantment that has. But neither I see as things that can grow in the short term.
If there is a civil war it will be decades from now when the contradictions have heightened, the empire has visibly fallen and Americans can only bicker among themselves and fight over increasingly limited spoils and take from each other. But it will take a severe split in the bourgeoisie or genuine anti-capitalist sentiment that rocks the youth of that time. Frankly with how atomized the population is, with technology, with the surveillance state, it’s going to get really, really, really bad before it gets even a little bit better in terms of people pushing back.
If anything I think all the mainstream talk of civil war is yet another sign we’re not headed there soon. It’s a kind of outlet, to let the public collectively explore the idea, enjoy it, hate it, fear it, whatever rather than actually experiencing it. It’s part of the broader attempts at controlling the narrative too. There is this idea being pushed that the reason we’re at risk for civil war is not any of the real problems like fascists, bigotry, support of genocide, living in a genocidal violent empire, BUT that people are seeing outside agitator “propaganda” from Russia, China, etc. It’s part and parcel of the push to ban Tiktok, to crack down on anyone spreading views counter to the state department line, to label them a real enemy. Because by tying it to that they’re no longer just a “kook” with a weird conspiracy opinion but a danger to the precious and holy American institutions and a threat of causing civil war if we don’t crack down on them and crack down on those giving them those ideas. So it’s really part of a push to control information, to control it online in social media, to block foreign media and perspectives. And to censor and deplatform anyone deviating from the “bipartisan” imperialist consensus as a foreign agent, as a chaos actor, as someone trying to destroy the US. It really all started with Trump and the liberal derangement and Russiagate hoax around him.
No.
The grievances and gripes people have which are highlighted as the likely cause of division and a speculative civil war are mostly smokescreen culture war bullshit that exist for media spectacle and politicking. Beating up on minorities isn’t something that’s going to drive a big chunk of liberals to fight. Material issues are not seen in class terms. It’s seen in matters of bickering about policy like tax policy or war spending which is true to a degree but it’s a lost in the illusion thing. Conditions worsen but the illusion remains.
The media and parties and grifters stir up mild tension for profit and distraction but have little real interest in it coming to an actual protracted fight. Sure reactionaries wouldn’t and don’t mind killing some progressives or leftists now and again but the left isn’t large enough, organized enough, etc to actually fight back nor the citizenry informed enough outside the bourgeois press propaganda bubble to get involved after an outrage.
The mythos of the holy American institutions, the holy government, the holy constitution and system still holds strong. As long as that is the alter at which all Americans worship at I don’t think a civil war can happen.
Only when a significant part of the population make a sustained break from that might something happen. And for that to really occur you need much worse material conditions. There are cracks, the Republican resistance to Ukraine and increasing skepticism of neo-cons (which probably won’t last beyond the day Trump is elected), the crushing of Palestinian student protests and the disenchantment that has. But neither I see as things that can grow in the short term.
If there is a civil war it will be decades from now when the contradictions have heightened, the empire has visibly fallen and Americans can only bicker among themselves and fight over increasingly limited spoils and take from each other. But it will take a severe split in the bourgeoisie or genuine anti-capitalist sentiment that rocks the youth of that time. Frankly with how atomized the population is, with technology, with the surveillance state, it’s going to get really, really, really bad before it gets even a little bit better in terms of people pushing back.
If anything I think all the mainstream talk of civil war is yet another sign we’re not headed there soon. It’s a kind of outlet, to let the public collectively explore the idea, enjoy it, hate it, fear it, whatever rather than actually experiencing it. It’s part of the broader attempts at controlling the narrative too. There is this idea being pushed that the reason we’re at risk for civil war is not any of the real problems like fascists, bigotry, support of genocide, living in a genocidal violent empire, BUT that people are seeing outside agitator “propaganda” from Russia, China, etc. It’s part and parcel of the push to ban Tiktok, to crack down on anyone spreading views counter to the state department line, to label them a real enemy. Because by tying it to that they’re no longer just a “kook” with a weird conspiracy opinion but a danger to the precious and holy American institutions and a threat of causing civil war if we don’t crack down on them and crack down on those giving them those ideas. So it’s really part of a push to control information, to control it online in social media, to block foreign media and perspectives. And to censor and deplatform anyone deviating from the “bipartisan” imperialist consensus as a foreign agent, as a chaos actor, as someone trying to destroy the US. It really all started with Trump and the liberal derangement and Russiagate hoax around him.