The Simple Reason Why a Second American Civil War May Be Inevitable

Daniel Lang April 21st, 2017 SHTFplan.com America has always had its divisions, and Americans have never really been a monolith. We’ve always been a nation of many nations. The culture of New England is different from the culture of the Deep South, which is different from the cultures in the West Coast or the Midwest. People living in the cities have different beliefs than people who live in the countryside. Within those areas, there are ethnic, linguistic, and religious enclaves. It’s always kind of been like that (probably to a lesser degree in the past), and somehow we’ve been able to find enough common ground to keep this country together for more than a century. However, something has changed. You can feel it in the air. Our nation has clearly never been this divided since the Civil War. A lot of people noticed it after the last election, but the truth is that these divisions have been deepening for decades, and they’re just now reaching a very noticeable breaking point. That’s obvious enough when you look at how the left and the right have been going at each other. It used to be a war of words, but it’s turning into something very dark. Consider what happened last week in Berkeley after Trump supporters and counter protesters clashed for the third time. 21 people were arrested and 11 were injured (that we know of), six of who had to be taken to the hospital. At least one person was stabbed. The police confiscated confiscated knives, stun guns, and poles. One Trump supporter admitted to being surrounded, pepper sprayed, and beaten with sticks by a mob of “protesters.” But wait, that’s not the dark part. After these groups clashed, the leftist protesters took to Reddit and admitted that they lost this particular battle (I can’t believe I’m using the word “battle” to describe it), and that it was time for them to attain more combat training and better weapons, including firearms. Do you see what’s going on here? Conservative demonstrations, which used to be placid affairs (remember the Tea Party protests?) are now turning violent as conservatives grow tired of restraining themselves, and are no longer afraid to hit back. Liberal demonstrators are responding by ratcheting up the level of force that they’re going to bring to the next street battle. It’s a tit for tat that keeps escalating, and I shudder to think of where it’s going to end up. Honestly, I think we’re in the early stages of a second civil war. I can’t say what it’ll look like precisely, but I can tell you that our nation is on this path, and it’s not clear how we can get off of it. In fact, I fear that it may be inevitable, and there’s a very simple reason why. It’s because Americans have been self-sorting themselves along geographic and political lines for a long time. A book titled “The Big Sort” made light of this trend back in 2008. Basically what’s going on, is that Americans are moving to communities that align more with their politics. Liberals are moving to liberal areas, and conservatives are moving to conservative communities. It’s been going on for decades. When Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976, 26.8% of Americans lived in landslide counties; that is counties where the president won or lost by 20% of the vote. By 2004, 48.3% of the population lived in these counties. This trend continues to worsen. As Americans move to their preferred geographic bubbles, they face less exposure to opposing viewpoints, and their own opinions become more extreme. This trend is at the heart of why politics have become so polarizing in America. We’re also seeing the same trend emerge online with social media. Despite the fact that the internet allows us to be exposed to more opinions that ever before, people choose to follow online voices that they already agree with. They’re slipping into digital bubbles that are comparable to their geographic bubbles. This trend is irreversible as far as I can tell. That’s because it’s tied to innovation. As our country became more interconnected with roads and Americans gained more mobility, we chose to move to like-minded places. We’re given the internet, the greatest source of information in human history, and we use it to seek out only the information that reinforces our current beliefs. We’re self-sorting at every level. Because of this, Americans are only going to grow more extreme in their beliefs, and see people on the other side of the political spectrum as more alien. You can see how this is creating the perfect breeding ground for a real, physical war. The polarization makes it easier to dehumanize the other side. The self-sorting creates definable geographic boundaries that are necessary for a war. It spawns two sides with beliefs that are so divergent, that they cannot coexist. We’re becoming two distinct nations with two competing visions for what the country should be. Two visions that are diametrically opposed. We used to be a nation of many nations that was held together, because there was still some common ground on what it means to be an American above all else. Now we can’t even agree on that. Once the last shreds of common ground and understanding dissipate, a moment that is rapidly approaching, another civil war will be impossible to avoid. I wish I knew what the solution is, but I don’t. All I can say is, unless Americans go out of their way to listen to people on other side, whatever that side may be, there’s going to be a lot of blood in the streets.

The Simple Reason Why a Second American Civil War May Be Inevitable

Daniel Lang April 21st, 2017 SHTFplan.com America has always had its divisions, and Americans have never really been a monolith. We’ve always been a nation of many nations. The culture of New England is different from the culture of the Deep South, which is different from the cultures in the West Coast or the Midwest. People living in the cities have different beliefs than people who live in the countryside. Within those areas, there are ethnic, linguistic, and religious enclaves. It’s always kind of been like that (probably to a lesser degree in the past), and somehow we’ve been able to find enough common ground to keep this country together for more than a century. However, something has changed. You can feel it in the air. Our nation has clearly never been this divided since the Civil War. A lot of people noticed it after the last election, but the truth is that these divisions have been deepening for decades, and they’re just now reaching a very noticeable breaking point. That’s obvious enough when you look at how the left and the right have been going at each other. It used to be a war of words, but it’s turning into something very dark. Consider what happened last week in Berkeley after Trump supporters and counter protesters clashed for the third time. 21 people were arrested and 11 were injured (that we know of), six of who had to be taken to the hospital. At least one person was stabbed. The police confiscated confiscated knives, stun guns, and poles. One Trump supporter admitted to being surrounded, pepper sprayed, and beaten with sticks by a mob of “protesters.” But wait, that’s not the dark part. After these groups clashed, the leftist protesters took to Reddit and admitted that they lost this particular battle (I can’t believe I’m using the word “battle” to describe it), and that it was time for them to attain more combat training and better weapons, including firearms. Do you see what’s going on here? Conservative demonstrations, which used to be placid affairs (remember the Tea Party protests?) are now turning violent as conservatives grow tired of restraining themselves, and are no longer afraid to hit back. Liberal demonstrators are responding by ratcheting up the level of force that they’re going to bring to the next street battle. It’s a tit for tat that keeps escalating, and I shudder to think of where it’s going to end up. Honestly, I think we’re in the early stages of a second civil war. I can’t say what it’ll look like precisely, but I can tell you that our nation is on this path, and it’s not clear how we can get off of it. In fact, I fear that it may be inevitable, and there’s a very simple reason why. It’s because Americans have been self-sorting themselves along geographic and political lines for a long time. A book titled “The Big Sort” made light of this trend back in 2008. Basically what’s going on, is that Americans are moving to communities that align more with their politics. Liberals are moving to liberal areas, and conservatives are moving to conservative communities. It’s been going on for decades. When Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976, 26.8% of Americans lived in landslide counties; that is counties where the president won or lost by 20% of the vote. By 2004, 48.3% of the population lived in these counties. This trend continues to worsen. As Americans move to their preferred geographic bubbles, they face less exposure to opposing viewpoints, and their own opinions become more extreme. This trend is at the heart of why politics have become so polarizing in America. We’re also seeing the same trend emerge online with social media. Despite the fact that the internet allows us to be exposed to more opinions that ever before, people choose to follow online voices that they already agree with. They’re slipping into digital bubbles that are comparable to their geographic bubbles. This trend is irreversible as far as I can tell. That’s because it’s tied to innovation. As our country became more interconnected with roads and Americans gained more mobility, we chose to move to like-minded places. We’re given the internet, the greatest source of information in human history, and we use it to seek out only the information that reinforces our current beliefs. We’re self-sorting at every level. Because of this, Americans are only going to grow more extreme in their beliefs, and see people on the other side of the political spectrum as more alien. You can see how this is creating the perfect breeding ground for a real, physical war. The polarization makes it easier to dehumanize the other side. The self-sorting creates definable geographic boundaries that are necessary for a war. It spawns two sides with beliefs that are so divergent, that they cannot coexist. We’re becoming two distinct nations with two competing visions for what the country should be. Two visions that are diametrically opposed. We used to be a nation of many nations that was held together, because there was still some common ground on what it means to be an American above all else. Now we can’t even agree on that. Once the last shreds of common ground and understanding dissipate, a moment that is rapidly approaching, another civil war will be impossible to avoid. I wish I knew what the solution is, but I don’t. All I can say is, unless Americans go out of their way to listen to people on other side, whatever that side may be, there’s going to be a lot of blood in the streets.

America’s Second Civil War Has Already Begun

March 1, 2019 Repost From https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/americas_second_civil_war_has_already_begun.html

In an excellent article by Jeff Lukens here on American Thinker, he asks the question, “Is a second civil war coming?”  In reply, I say that America’s second civil war has already begun.  Its opening shots were fired by Barack Obama when he stated, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Most of this country is center-right and never considered America a place that needed transformation.  Most people can think of things they would change but few believe the nation needs to be torn down and rebuilt.  Obama failed but the left soldiers on in its quest for a new America remade in their own image. When Obama went on his world apology tour, he wasn’t apologizing for America, he was apologizing for Americans.  This is the essence of this second civil war.  Leftists are demi-gods who believe they are America and that anyone who does not believe in them cannot lay legitimate claim to this country as their own. Yes, this war has begun.  The opening skirmish was the Obama presidency itself, which history will see as a failure, despite what the media want us to believe in the here and now.  Sure, he passed ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, overregulated, and ruled by executive diktat to great media acclaim.  Yet, ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank have been whittled away by legislation and judicial rulings, while Trump has prioritized deregulation and reversed many of Obama’s illegal executive orders. The war’s second battle was the 2016 presidential election when Hillary Clinton, Obama’s chosen successor, lost to a television personality whom very few took seriously as a candidate.  Trump won despite the Obama administration conspiring with the Clinton campaign to steal the election and has remained as president even as that conspiracy fundamentally transformed into a failed coup attempt to depose him. Trump’s presidency has been the third battle and with his string of successes, the battle is being won.  This, despite near-universal acrimony and condemnation among the media, the Democrats, and the left. But, “what difference, at this point, does it make?” because these victories are pyrrhic.  As the eminent Michael Walsh said of the left, “they never stop, they never sleep, they never quit.”  Democrats are chipping away at this nation with their policies.  This is a war of attrition and we Americans are being attrited. For example, their “open borders” policy is effectively importing a new electorate — one guaranteed to vote for them.  The left agrees with Obama, there is nothing wrong with America, it’s those damn Americans, so they are going to drown the conservative vote with new Democrats.  It’s the same with their policy of “everything should be free.”  Why vote for someone who promises equal opportunity when someone else promises a better outcome? Nuclear winter became global warming became climate change became “we want total control over everything.”  The reason why Democrat candidates for the presidency so quickly signed on to my congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is its promise of comprehensive control over every aspect of our lives.  Eliminating planes, trains, and automobiles will keep us close to our homes and jobs or for those “unwilling to work” in their basement enjoying their “universal basic income.”  Dependent people without mobility are easier to control. The 2020 election looms as the next battle and it will be hard fought because Democrats have myriad policies that may sound great but are really about control.  They have always been masters of micturating down our leg and telling us it is raining. Yet, they don’t need to trick us into acquiescence, because even should Trump win, without a complete reversal by the Democratic Party, a renewed free and fair media, and a return to the principles upon which this nation was founded, this war will continue, and it is only a matter of time before the left again wins the Presidency, or the House, or the Senate — or all three. When that happens, this civil war will become hot because the Democrats are going to come for our guns.  An armed citizenry is a free citizenry, and they can’t have that. The third most populated nation with 330,000,000 people, America has an estimated 350 million guns in circulation; any effort to seize them will call for the total mobilization of our armed forces, city and state police, and the National Guard. People are not going to turn in their guns and politicians who think they will do so are being naïve.  Fighting will surely ensue as the forces of the regime go door to door to try to take them. Many of those empowered to confiscate weapons won’t obey orders.  Defections will be common and there will be fighting in the streets, limited at first, but it will soon break out into open rebellion.  The regime will become increasingly strident and many states will refuse to comply.  Using Democratic-run “sanctuary cities” as an example of state nullification of federal law, talk of secession will become rife. The ruling leftists will, of course, be surprised, and orders will be given to the remaining loyalist forces to put down the rebellion.  In the end, the death toll will far exceed the 620,000 people who died in our first civil war. To people who say it can’t happen here, I say history is replete with examples of places that no longer exist where people believed “it can’t happen here.” It can’t happen here?  Open your eyes, it has already begun. Please follow William L. Gensert on Twitter at @williamlgensert.