Civil War 2.0: Here’s What It Will Look Like
“A republic, if you can keep it” is the existential question facing us today.
In my last essay, “Fascism: Are We There Yet?” I discussed how far along the autocracy curve toward full-blown fascism we are as a nation (about half-way). Here, I delve into how we actually get there — via a full-blown civil war. (Bear in mind, I also write fiction.)
Civil war is coming to America, barring a national awakening that restores sanity and civil discourse. Whether it takes the form of the Spanish Civil War, in which foreign powers materially backed the two belligerents organized into armies, or the violent chaos of Weimar Germany involving urban warfare between ideological factions, which entailed a general breakdown of civil society, is yet to be determined. The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse formally legitimizes the exercise of violence in imposing political will in the eyes of the radical right, which is to say today’s GOP. At some point, there will be push-back, leading to the break-up of longstanding institutions of governance and widespread civil strife.
Robert Kagan, a Brookings Institution scholar, aptly captures our political zeitgeist:
The stage is thus being set for chaos. Imagine weeks of competing mass protests across multiple states as lawmakers from both parties claim victory and charge the other with unconstitutional efforts to take power. Partisans on both sides are likely to be better armed and more willing to inflict harm than they were in 2020. Would governors call out the National Guard? Would President Biden nationalize the Guard and place it under his control, invoke the Insurrection Act, and send troops into Pennsylvania or Texas or Wisconsin to quell violent protests? Deploying federal power in the states would be decried as tyranny. It is still all about Trump. The fact that he is not in office means that the United States is “a territory controlled by enemy tribes,” writes one conservative intellectual.
It would be foolish to imagine that the violence of Jan. 6 was an aberration that will not be repeated. Because Trump supporters see those events as a patriotic defense of the nation, there is every reason to expect more such episodes.
…the party’s main if not sole purpose today is as the willing enabler of Trump’s efforts to game the electoral system to ensure his return to power.
But this time, Trump would have advantages that he lacked in 2016 and 2020, including more loyal officials in state and local governments; the Republicans in Congress; and the backing of GOP donors, think tanks and journals of opinion. And he will have the Trump movement, including many who are armed and ready to be activated, again.
I can see Civil War 2.0 assuming elements from both the Spanish counterpart and Weimar, but mostly the latter.
The three-year Spanish Civil War was sparked by a right-wing (“Nationalists”) revolt against a dysfunctional leftist government (“Republicans”) which was trying to implement reforms opposed by conservatives. Stunted politically, the Spanish people were riven by class — big landowners vs small farmers, monarchists vs communists and anarchists, religious vs anti-clerical, and by region. Spain had been an unstable country for decades, its turbulent history marked by coups, civil wars, revolving door governments and authoritarian rule.
Extreme polarization of Spanish society in the 1920s and 1930s led to increased political tensions and left-right clashes. In fact, instead of playing “cops and robbers,” children sometimes played “leftists and rightists.” The 1936–1939 conflict was cast by Spanish Republican sympathisers as a struggle between tyranny and freedom, and by Nationalist supporters as between communists/anarchists vs Christian civilization. Moscow backed the Republicans, while Hitler and Mussolini gave material and military support to the Nationalists, led by Francisco Franco.
The biggest differences between the conditions that led to civil war in Spain and today’s political and social tensions in the United States are that armed camps vied with each other in the former, while that stage has yet to be reached here. Another is the lack of foreign military intervention in the U.S. — though interference by Russian intelligence has been well documented. And, say what you will about Franco’s Falangists, they were based in reality, unlike the mass derangement that has gripped the GOP and its supporters.
Not long after Donald Trump became president, I examined comparisons between the chaotic Weimar period in Germany and today’s United States; and laid out how our society might come apart as it did in post-World War I Germany in an essay, “Could Germany’s Past Be America’s Future?”
While history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, it does often rhyme. What happened to interwar Germany may provide a looking glass into what is now befalling America.
Donald Trump swept into office riding a wave of anger and resentment by those who felt disempowered by an out-of-touch political and economic elite. Media attention centers on the white working class, but, ironically, the median income of Trump voters was $11,000 higher than that of Clinton voters. In Germany, “the typical Nazi voter was a middle-class, self-employed Protestant who lived on a farm or in a small community,” according to sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset.
Job approval for Congress has been languishing in the low double digits for some time. Gerrymandering rigs congressional races to all but ensure that incumbents win, while direct primaries have led to entrenched radicals on the right who view compromise with Democrats as tantamount to treason. Voter suppression measures by the Republicans have helped stoke political polarization. The repeal-and-replace health care fiasco underscores politicians’ myopic focus on narrow political tactics over the greater national good. Big Money flowing to radical right PAC’s and politicians from billionaires-most notably the Koch brothers and the Mercer family-distorts the election process and favors the alt-right, just as it did in Weimar Germany. And Trump-friendly media outlets — especially Fox News and Breitbart — reflect the role that media mogul Hugenberg played in boosting Hitler.
The Charlottesville riots bring to the fore a resurgent open racism in American society. The white supremacist chant, “Jews will not replace us,” eerily echoes those of German brownshirts some eight decades ago. Finally, there is the odd alliance between American Evangelicals and the thrice-married, pussy-grabbing, biblically-ignorant and chronically mendacious Trump… Their virtual silence in the face of the president’s earlier racist dog whistles mirrors that of pre-World War II German churches to virulent antisemitism.
So, what faces us next? Will we be witnessing thousands killed in pitched urban warfare? Neo-Nazis emerging from the fringes and into the open light, ranks swollen with new members, coffers fed by shameless plutocrats? A subverted court system, a catatonic Congress, complicit churches? Is the world’s most successful democracy headed for the trash heap of history?
If we do sink into widespread civil strife, it will be along the lines of the deadly clashes that have already taken place in Charleston, Dallas, St. Paul, Baltimore, Ferguson, Baton Rouge, and Alexandria-urban riots as opposed to armies clashing on a field of battle. Recent violent confrontations between radical right neo-Nazis and radical left Antifa groups may just be a preview of coming attractions. Our political and civil institutions may prove to be too moribund and dysfunctional to deal effectively with the spread of violence, just as in Weimar Germany. And chaos will ensue.
So, here’s how Civil War 2.0 will look:
Voter rights legislation remains stalled in Congress. Close elections in 2022 lead to charges by both parties of fraud, rigging the system and unconstitutional acts. Militancy is egged on by partisan media outlets and QAnon mania. Russian, Chinese and other foreign actors help fan the flames. This leads to mass demonstrations — but not just between ultra-fringe groups like neo-Nazis and Antifa, but by a broader swath of American society encompassing, initially right-wing militias in league with a coalescing coalition of such pro-Trump groups as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, et al, followed by those average yet deluded middle class citizens who assaulted the Capitol on 1/6 plus thousands of armchair supporters of that failed putsch, riled up enough to now join in.
Fighters on the far left, initially Antifa, will be joined by the more militant factions of Black Lives Matter, university and other youth communities and progressives who feel they have had enough. In a nation saturated with guns, both sides will be armed to the teeth. Street brawls will morph into gun battles. Casualties will swell, easily matching the 15,000 Germans killed and 12,000 wounded in nine days of street fighting in Berlin in 1919. Terrorist bomb attacks, mainly radical right targeting government and other public institutions, take place. Also targeted assassinations.
The federal government succeeds in quelling the violence, but as the 2024 election approaches, civil strife re-erupts.
President Biden nationalizes the National Guard, but confusion reigns as some Republican governors insist they remain in charge of their Guards. The heavily Trumpicized police forces in some states, as well as National Guard members, either refuse to enter the fray or side with the far-right. Some right-wing politicians who are combat vets organize the hodge-podge of militias and hate groups into a more or less cohesive force to do battle with supporters of the administration. As the Democrats continue to argue among themselves and DOJ dithers, Trump foments another violent coup attempt in tandem with his abettors in Congress — and this time succeeds.
As Benjamin Franklin said in 1789 in response to a question as to what form of government the freshly minted United States had, “A republic, if you can keep it.” It is the existential question facing us today.
Originally published at https://jameslbruno.substack.com on November 26, 2021.
