There’s talk of such a polarization within America that we are on the verge of a civil war. Sometimes the statements of some pretty famous politicians – like former Alaska Governor and VP candidate, Republican Sara Palin – who suggested that if Trump is convicted anywhere, that would trigger that “civil war.” But what, exactly, could a civil war within the United States even look like? A clear, even uniformed, demarcation between two massive and clearly defined segments of American society – a literal blue-gray delineation with marked borders? Armies facing each other? Or something else that could vary between state and local jurisdictions that simply defy federal mandates to that “two major parties” simply killing each other?
US miliary bases, many with nuclear weapons, are scattered throughout the 50 states, with many bases and warships overseas. What happens to those installations and military forces? Forgetting about the complexities of “two Americas” (tax base, national debt, federal assets, currency, international trade agreements, treaties… well beyond just military assets), what else can civil war look like? Texas Governor Greg Abbott marking the Texas border with barbed wire floats across the Rio Grande, then defying a federal order to remove them? Add Texas law enforcement guarding against federal troops removing those barriers? Local (mostly rightwing) militia using armed force to resist legal mandates from the feds? Individual citizens, armed to the teeth, defying federal orders that contravene their values? Does the defiance grow, linked by social media, into a larger skirmish/all out war? We don’t know.
The Civil War of the mid-nineteenth century was a totally different era. The United States, like most of the rest of the world, was not defined by global communications, ships and aircraft that could cross continents in hours, a profound global interrelationship based on trade and treaties, and weapon systems capable of destroying entire cities if not more. The rise of wealth from corporate growth was decades away. Borders were vastly easier to defend without the threat of aircraft and paratroopers. But many Americans who contemplate the possibility of our polarization rising to the level of a civil war still cling to a visualization of a simplistic “us vs them” civil war, often forgetting about how the rest of the world would react to a violent American internal domestic dispute.
What would Europe do? Russia? China? North Korea? Israel? The rest of the Middle East? Would there be foreign forces literally aligning and supporting those violent American factions? But my belief is that this civil war is more clearly understood as civil strife arising locally in defiance of orders and mandates from the federal government or even state power over local rulings. It’s messier, not as easily assessed and may more resemble nations where chaos rises and regional warlords battle for regional turf. More banana republic and less organized and clear unified factions.
There are little disagreements, like those found in frustrated red communities within blue state California. School districts applying Florida anti-CRT/woke restrictions on lesson plans and assigned reading in defiance of state rules. Local communities refusing to accept state laws mandating looser building restrictions to address housing affordability… but decimating upscale communities fighting to preserve their long-standing way of life. The metastasizing of conspiracy theories is the fuel for the transition of polarization into ultra-violence. Look at the examples of such defiance today.
There’s the “control of our border” dispute between Texas and the feds. Or the ferrying of undocumented immigrants from Texas to blue states. Red states’ seeking to extend the reach of their anti-abortion laws by following and then prosecuting their own citizens to cross a border to reach a “free choice” state to secure an abortion. This nascent more formal resistant to unpopular laws and judicial rulings can be found in the rising popularity of so-called “sanctuary” cities and states, where local authorities formally announce a local refusal to follow such outside mandates from higher authorities.
One of the most interesting municipal acts of defiance has been the decisions of the very conservative Shasta County Board of Supervisors against a liberal statewide set of mandates. Writing for the July 31st Los Angeles Times, Redding resident Susanne Baremore explains: “In any other county, a resolution proclaiming a 2nd Amendment sanctuary might have been interpreted as a routine symbolic gesture allowing veterans, gun owners and sundry other ‘patriots’ a public moment of pride in their heritage and rural lifestyle. In Shasta County, which passed such a resolution [in late July], there is a lot more to it.
“Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shasta County’s Board of Supervisors has made global headlines for strange happenings and curious decisions… There was the meeting in which local militia member Carlos Zapata told county supervisors and citizens that overcoming the supposed ‘oppression’ unleashed by public health precautions could necessitate ‘blood in the streets.’ There was last year’s recall of longtime conservative Supervisor Leonard Moty for not ‘standing up’ to the state over COVID guidelines — never mind that Shasta County never really shut down commerce the way others did. There was this year’s misinformation-driven decision to remove Dominion voting machines from the county’s elections office without devising another system to take its place.
“The Board of Supervisors is currently led by a 3-2 majority that is ideologically further right than anything that used to be called Republican. Its members are also extreme examples of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, whereby a lack of knowledge leads to an overestimation of one’s competence.
“In dumping the voting machines, for example, the board largely dismissed county Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen’s nearly 20 years of relevant experience. A recent “elections town hall” held by Board Chair Patrick Jones did not even include a presentation from the registrar but did feature a discredited election denier.
“Likewise, during the same meeting in which the board declared the county a safe space for the 2nd Amendment, it approved a 30-year agreement with a local Native American tribe to provide public safety services at a future resort casino next to Interstate 5 south of Redding. This agreement was passed without input from the county sheriff, fire chief or district attorney and without the approval of the county counsel or risk manager.” The small agricultural counties in California have been striving for years to separate and create a new state, one that would redefine the red-blue national divide and one that most Californians are very unlikely to accept.
But it is in this microcosm of defiance that the potential for violent reactions, local at first, then striving for some kind of nationwide linkage, resides. This could be a fractionalizing that decimates the United States, pulls it out of the ranks of a world power, and creates a long-lasting roiling level of violent strike… without any short-term solution. When we are willing to replace democracy with autocracy, we just might disable our entire American values forever. Special interests, which currently are funding much of the polarization, just might begin to understand that in doing so, they jeopardize their very existence… and the very existence of the United States of America.
I’m Peter Dekom, and unless we wake up and accept the notion of democracy and the standard of a “loyal opposition,” we face a future where politically and environmentally, we lose it all.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment