The United States is Again at War…With Itself

In recent years, there have been any number of apocalyptic warnings that the United States might be heading toward a second Civil War.  These are incorrect.

It has already started.

The battle lines, which for the moment are (mercifully) largely quiescent, are sharply drawn and each army has chosen its leader.  While it might be a bit of a stretch to equate Joe Biden with Abraham Lincoln, although both were reluctant combatants, it is less difficult to cast Donald Trump as Jefferson Davis. 

Recognizing that the current political animus goes far deeper than the ordinary left/right squabbling is vital, since at no other time since 1860, not during the Depression, the McCarthy era, the Vietnam War, or even the Florida hanging chad election of 2000, did those on each side see themselves as members of a different country.

As in 1860, moral issues are at the core of a political bifurcation that festered for decades.  Then, of course, the linchpin was slavery and when no means to find common ground could be found, not even the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which tried to maintain a balance between slave states and free, violence became the only alternative. 

The two questions at the core of the current split are an odd combination indeed—whether the United States should continue as a democracy or a Putinesque autocracy; and should the nation be secular or theocratic. These may not seem as stark but they have the potential of being equally destructive. 

There are differences, of course.  In 1860, each side occupied a contiguous group of states so, when the explosion came, the ensuing war could be fought territorially.  That gave the free states—the Union—an enormous advantage in that they were far more industrialized, had 10,000 more miles of railroad track, and 10 million more people.  Bloody and horrible though it may have been, the outcome was inevitable and the moral blight of slavery was doomed.

In the current civil war, while there are clumps of states on each side, in many cases the antagonists are marbled into the same geographic areas.  This means that if violence does erupt, it will not be confined to specific battlefields but will pop up in places that may have been considered dominated by the opposite side.  It could take the form of riots, terrorism, self-styled militia activity, or, in extreme cases, officially armed personnel—police or national guard—trying to overturn legitimate authority.  If this occurs, no American will be able to fully ensure his or her safety by living behind geographic barricades.

And that is why it is so important to realize that, as in the decades before Fort Sumter, the civil war has already begun and that it must be won now, before any spark is set.  The nation is fortunate that the January 6 uprising—because an uprising is what it was—did not prompt further outbreaks.  We might not be so fortunate next time.

For the present, however, the war remains winnable without pervasive violence and primary vehicle to blunt the Republican anti-democratic/theocratic spear is the ballot box.  Americans who want to maintain our current form of government and avoid a state religion—since that is what the phrase in the First Amendment was actually about—can go a long way to achieving those goals by the seemingly simple act of voting intelligently.

Perhaps the most frightening thing that can be said about current-day United States is what a tall order that has become.  Despite common perception, omnipresent social media and waves of disinformation are not the problem, although they are surely contributors.  More to the point is how few Americans bother to spend any time learning about the issues that impact their lives and instead content themselves with dealing with crucial political questions as if they were episodes of reality television.  That many news organizations have responded by devolving into reality television, with NBC hiring the likes of Ronna McDaniel, does not help one bit.

The question then becomes how all this pandering and trivializing will impact turnout, the key to victory come November.

For some groups, seniors for example, a robust turnout is relatively predictable, but with most other demographics, it will largely depend on the degree of passion one or another of the candidates arouses, especially if there is an incendiary issue or issues on the ballot.

At first glance, it would seem difficult to come up with an election more incendiary than that which will take place later this year, yet unlike in 2020, the year of the pandemic, many pundits have remarked on what could be a substantial number of voters who choose to stay home.  Thus 2024 might be the year that passion and apathy become intertwined.

The anti-democrats and theocrats are not without problems.  Already the minority party, Republicans risk losing a substantial number of moderate voters who, while relatively conservative, are appalled by Donald Trump and his braying chorus. 

Democrats, on the other hand, must convince progressives who are furious with Biden for not initiating policies that match their Bernie-esque quasi-socialist agenda, as well as backing Israel in what they insist has degenerated into a genocidal war against Gaza’s Palestinians.  One should not forget that it was the progressives and the 97,000 votes for Ralph Nader, not the Supreme Court, which allowed George Bush to defeat Al Gore in Florida in 2000.

Biden has an additional problem.  Black voters, who gave him a win in Georgia in 2020, and likely in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well, have grown increasingly disenchanted by Biden’s unwillingness or inability to pass legislation to redress the obvious racial inequities that exist in the United States.

But anyone on the left who refuses to vote, or worse, is deluded into thinking Trump is the better choice, risks their own future as well as the country’s.  Can any reasonably aware Black or progressive voter really believe Trump and his minions will do more for their causes than Biden?

There is an old bit of folklore in which Canada Bill Jones, a 19^th century gambler, was asked why he was playing in a game he knew was crooked.  “Because it’s the only game in town,” he was said to reply.  Conservative accusations notwithstanding, Biden isn’t crooked, but nor is he a strong candidate, suffering from the widespread perception that he is a weak, ineffectual leader who has allowed the nation to drift into economic malaise while refusing to stem an invasion of migrants that pour across the southern border.

Still, for anyone who believes in this country and does not want to lose America’s second civil war, Joe Biden and the Democrats are the only game in town.

For the sake of the nation, we can only hope that message gets across. Trump cannot win the coming election—he doesn’t have the numbers. But the rest of us can lose it.