It’s official: The Biden “return to normalcy” is more divisive than Trump’s tweets. America is now arguably more polarized than any time since the Civil War because of wide and deep disagreements over all three of the major sources of civil strife: ideology, race and religion. A large minority, more than prior to the Civil War, believe this will result in bloodshed. Tribal conflicts have been the order of the day since the beginning of recorded civilization. The development of nation states in Europe during the second half of the last millennium sometimes suppressed, other times magnified such strife.
Democratic politicians caused the first race war and are on the cusp of starting the second to overturn the existing political order of limited government, minority protection and opportunity based on individual merit that for over a century has defined America’s Exceptionalism and been a deterrent to the growth of their progressive administrative state.
The Cause of America’s First Civil War: A Disease of the Public Mind
The US has generally succeeded in uniting diverse populations because its Founding Documents protect individual rights regardless of race or religion, and the minority from majoritarian control. The majority of the original 13 colonies in the US were founded on the principles of religious freedom for various Christian sects. (By 2050 the number of Muslims is projected to double to about 8 million, a potentially politically divisive issue only if they reject America’s Founding principles and laws.) The US has assimilated virtually all races.
But it took a bloody Civil War to initiate the extension of Constitutional rights to slaves and their descendants. Battlefield deaths were at least one hundred times greater in America’s Civil War than the 7000 battlefield deaths in the Revolutionary War. Initially inclined to accept secession as the South’s Constitution emulated the libertarian US constitution but for the exclusion of slaves, the Northern Republicans formed a constitutionally dubious “nationalist” campaign to “save the union.” General Sherman’s “Total War” to impress and terrorize the civilian population with the moral superiority of the North created enmities that persist to the present. Both Northern policies set a precedent for subsequent inter and intra national wars around the globe.
Why did it take a Civil War? Less than 4% of slaves imported to the Americas ended up in what became the United States, the only country that fought a war (losing about 10% of its population) to end the practice. The War wasn’t fought over the issue of the abolition: only about 5% of Northerners were abolitionists, the same as in the South. Although most people North and South now recognized slavery as morally wrong, disagreements arose over the viability of various exit strategies (Lincoln’s plan to return slaves to African Liberia would have resulted in much higher mortality than slavery. Parenthetically, mortality rates were lower in the South than in African generally, much lower than in South America, and lower than for Northern slaves.) More free blacks owned slaves (7.5%) than did Southern whites (6%). Historian Thomas Fleming concluded that a Disease of the Public Mind, deep hatred caused by Southern Democratic segregationist politicians’ steadfast refusal to negotiate a future extension of rights to what they claimed were “racially inferior” African Americans made war inevitable.
What do Democrats Mean Today by “Our Democracy”?
The Democrat campaign of 2020 to “save our democracy” did not define it- the term isn’t mentioned in the Constitution so we can only infer their intent. Following the French revolution, Europe’s democratization in the late 18th and early 19th century; “so often resulted not in smoothly functioning liberal democratic regimes but instead in “illiberal democracies,” “competitive authoritarian regimes,” or “hybrid regimes,” where democratic and antidemocratic institutions, rules, and practices coexist” (pg. 313). These were precursors of American crony capitalism.
Democrats have re-instituted corrupting earmarks.
The first Progressive Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, a racist and segregationist, proposed to “make the world safe for democracy” by granting racially, ethnically and religiously homogeneous populations within definable borders their own democratic state. Tens of millions of people were uprooted and tens of millions killed, but the failure to achieve such homogeneity led to many subsequent civil wars and genocide. Such wars continue to the present day, particularly in the Middle East, motivated by racial, ethnic and religious differences.
Democrats support relatively open borders to non-white immigrants but oppose racially and ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods and schools in favor of “diversity.”
Democrats (and Americans generally) support the much greater professional and financial success of African Americans in professional sports, but they sue business as racist under the constitutionally dubious “disparate impact” theory when other market outcomes e.g., for housing, jobs, corporate boards, etc., “under represent” them. They simultaneously support the negative disparate impact of progressive policies.
Democrats continue to put barriers to African American participation in the labor force through, e.g., forced unionization, Davis Bacon wages, licensing requirements and the federal minimum wages while subsidizing non-participation..
Equal Opportunity not cultural assimilation – is the essence of America’s melting pot.
Contemporary Democrats apparently still implicitly believe African Americans are “inferior,” unable to compete without constitutionally suspect systemically racist favoritism,e.g., in higher education admissions or business contracting.
It appears “our democracy” means “majoritarian rule” only when they have it, and an autocratic “people’s democracy” where the state reigns supreme when they don’t.
The Contemporary Democratic Party’s Delusion of Moral Superiority
Since its founding the Republican Party has championed full rights for slaves and their descendants. The Democratic Party from its founding supported Southern Plantation slavery, then supported the expansion of slavery to new states on the basis of a white majoritarian rule. After almost a century of support for Jim Crow (to suppress black progress) and Eugenics (to repress black reproduction) Southern Democrats walked out of their own convention rather than admit segregation was wrong. The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 were passed over dogged Democratic political opposition. So what is the basis for the Democrats’ current presumption of moral superiority that is their apparent governing principle?
They claim America’s systemic racism a legacy of slavery – has failed African Americans and must be replaced with a regime that will provide “racial and social (economic) justice.” No human system of administration is perfect, but no legal framework offers more minority protection than the US Constitution. Some of the great African American economists of the past half century (e.g., Tom Sowell, Shelby Steele, Walter Williams) conclude along with most conservative analysts that it was the Great Society of LBJ, an FDR disciple, that extended the social welfare state – socialism – to make this population economically and politically dependent, financing this political bribery at public expense.
The Democratic Party can never openly embrace Marxist socialism because the Communist Party remains illegal in the US due to its fatal attraction, but its African American political factions do so. While Capitalism has provided a greater improvement in human living conditions in 200 years than the prior two million years of tribal hunter-gatherers, Marxist socialism is responsible for the deaths of 100 million and the suffering of hundreds of millions more. Nationalist Fascist movements arose to prevent the spread of Marxist socialism when democracies couldn’t. The US belatedly joined that fight to eradicate Marxist socialism, switching sides after WW II to launch a Cold War – global proxy wars – and the occasional direct wars (Korea, Vietnam) to prevent the spread of communism.
Progressive ideology is indistinguishable from Marxism in numerous ways:
- They both claim “moral superiority” over other systems based on their “intent.”
- They both promise Utopia but often deliver totalitarian dystopia.
- They deflect any responsibility for failure by manufacturing their own facts and history (e.g.,1619).
- They delude their leaders and followers, rationalizing failure with their own dialectic.
- If religion is the“opium of the people” Progressivism/socialism is the heroin/fentanyl.
- Marxism and Progressivism are both inherently racist.
- Sanders/Biden “democratic” socialism” is Marx’s
Arguing “systemic racism” with progressives is generally no more fruitful than arguing socialism with contemporary Marxists, They are both genetically addictive: tribalism embedded socialism in the human DNA; the legacy of slavery embedded victimization in the DNA of African Americans. It’s too late in any event. The Marxist roots of “critical race theory” were planted in the 1960s. It is now an intellectual weed intoxicating primary, secondary and university education, the intellectual elite and liberal media, and now the younger generation of Democratic politicians.
This has liberated its proposals from all the traditional economic constraints of a free market economy while remaining relatively mute about the necessary totalitarianism of a socialist autocracy. The “new” American Utopia proposed by the Biden Administration is the contemporary American equivalent of the old Bolshevik socialist utopia.
Liberal Rahm Emmanuel questions whether Biden’s intoxicating “new” New Deal: $8 trillion of new debt and taxes and repressive regulation, all fueled by a bottomless LSD-laced Federal Reserve punch bowl, is “making the most of the opportunity afforded by this particular (COVID 19) crisis.” To paraphrase socialist economist Yanis Varoufakis (Adults in the Room, 2017), socialist distribution without socialist supply is beyond human comprehension (except for corrupt politicians and their cronies).
This radical agenda and the Fatal Conceit of its administrative state promoters is more divisive than the Morrill Tariff of 1860 that led to Southern Secession and the first race war. And it isn’t just America’s second race-based civil war, but its second revolutionary war as well.
Institutional resistance is being eliminated. With the Supreme Court once again cowed by the threat of packing, demands that the Senate Republicans overthrow their “obstructionist” leader, legislation essentially making elections a Party affair, the First Amendment neutered and the Second under constant attack. Even crony capitalists seemed cowed by accusations of “systemic racism” into going along.
There is currently no serious nationalist (rebel or NAZI) domestic opposition political movement in the US mostly a progressive straw man. Either the voters will react before they are dis-enfranchised or the Democratic Party will have succeeded where Charles Manson failed..
No wonder the US ranking for political stability fell from 17th place in 2020 to 28th place in 2021 and the US ranking for ease of doing business of 20th could fall to 40,ht i.e., only “moderately free” in 2021.
Kevin Villani
—-
Kevin Villani, Chief Economist at Freddie Mac from 1982 to 1985, has held senior government positions, has been affiliated with ten universities, and served as CFO and director of several companies. He recently published Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue on the political origins of the sub-prime lending bubble and aftermath.
I am quite certain that Democrats, at least those running that party, are convinced of the inferiority of blacks. Ridiculous policies, like those presented to California school board, assume black children cannot learn mathematics.
For example:
The second chapter of the framework promotes instruction that “challenges the deeply-entrenched policies and practices that lead to inequitable outcomes.”
As part of the equity framework, teachers are told that attempting to “treat everyone the same” is considered “insufficient.” Instead, they must “counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities.”
Such as 2+2=4.
The Defund the Police thing results in the adventures of Farrakhan Muhammed, as he shoots and runs.
Peace and quiet do not involve the wishes of the Democrat Party. At least in black majority neighborhoods.
This is probably the most cogent article I have ever read. I wish that reconciliation could be found but doubt that it will. Democrats have ceased all logic and temperance, there is nothing to be debated with them. They have bankrupted our public financial basis for generations to come. They have allowed disorder and tyranny to run amok with no accountability or reversal of action. They have destroyed the public education system and prevented the advancement of skills in math, science, engineering, and medicine. They have politicized and fostered the spread of deadly disease. They have tainted the joy of humanity.
Marxism, ipso facto, demands “othering” as a condition of its continuing success. With its unlimited access to the MSM and large guilt-ridden, gullible swaths of America’ social and finanacial ‘s institutions, CRT is simply old school Marxist class hatred with an updated twist of race. Of course, CRT’s shiny allure is the promise of intstant political power to the relatively powerless: whilst the new acolytes falsely imagine that the socially sactioned othering does not include them. Tyrants, under what ever label du jour you subscribe to, inevitably elevate othering to a national disease. Sadly, the final cure always ends at the gates of the Kolima gold mines and at the Konzentrationslager’s like Auschwitz.
Millions of Lenin’s useful idiots are squealing in delightful glee at anticipation of their new positions of authority, naively unaware they too are being maniuplated by a handful of rutlhess Trotskyites, “Pied Pipers” leading them merrily toward a utopian Norte Venezuela : an electronic police state of 320 million souls, based on lies, corrution, poverty, crime and misery.
Already dozens of canaries are dead in the underground mines, we can clearly see our path toward an dystopian future. Our only remaining salvation currently lies with 400 million firearms in private hands and the moral compasses of their owners. The Civil War began with a stolen election, we just haven’t reached the section in the script where the bullets are flying and the bodies on both sides are stacked up like those in the Bloody Lane at Antietam.
you are right, but I am wondering where Fort Sumter is; and what this one will look like since the different factions are so intermingled.
“I am wondering where Fort Sumter is”
There is no Fort Sumter. The fact is the people are already divorced. Life in blue states/cities, and red everywhere is like on two different planets. Have you tried to look at the MSM recently? I never do, but this morning I took a glance at CNN’s website, and it’s all about Liz Cheney and Trump. Nothing about the fact that there are major gas shortages in the southeast due to a Russian hacking attack, that you think the Russia! Russia! Russia! MSM would be all over, but of course they can’t because it shows that Slow Joe is the most pathetic and feckless president we’ve ever had, and everyone knows it.
Here’s what will happen–for the next four years the federal government will trample all over states and individuals, then in 2024 when another GOP president comes in, the federal government will spend most of its effort fighting off that person’s agenda as much as they can, wash rinse repeat. When the consolidation of the non-PMC into the GOP, and the purging of the establishment remnants, is complete, then we’ll see where things stand, and whether there’s any hope for a slow decline, rather than a rapid one.
(Note: I saw two “Trump 2024: Take America Back” flags flying on my drive to bring kids to school this morning. Hadn’t seen those before. Can’t recall if they were houses that had been flying Trump 2020 flags since the election or not.)
I definitely don’t agree with everything. But it’s a decent analysis.
“Nationalist Fascist movements arose to prevent the spread of Marxist socialism when democracies couldn’t”
Mussolini was originally a Marxist socialist; he switched to nationalism in 1914. Unlikely he was motivated by a desire to prevent the spread of Marxism; more likely, he wanted to ride the wave of nationalist sentiment that went along with the outbreak of the war.
Peter Drucker, who was born in Austria and lived in Germany before coming to the US in 1933, wrote about the roots of European fascism in his first book, ‘The End of Economic Man.’ His take was that it was largely a nihilist movement, driven by the perceived failure of just about everything, specifically, the failure of Marxism.
There were a lot of people in Germany who wanted to be part of a radical ‘Change’ movement, and would go with Marxism or Naziism depending on who it looked like was most likely to win.
I suspect that, in the absence of hot civil war, we will see continued migration away from Democrat rule by normals, as Kurt Schlicter calls us, and increased concentration of dysfunctional cities with lawless orcs. I talked to my sister in Chicago yesterday. North Michigan Avenue, a high end shopping and tourism destination in the city is now boarded up and tormented by mass shop lifting. I have not visited that area in several years and don’t plan to this summer when we visit her. Her daughter, my niece, moved last year from the north side of the city to a far southwest suburb. Migration from Democrat areas will continue.
My concern is that big employers will also be migrating but will draw along with them employees who have not recognized the problem and will continue their Democrat voting habits. Thus the dilution of such areas areas as Phoenix AZ and Austin Texas. The question is whether middle class blacks will recognize what is happening and stop voting for the Maxine Waters and Hank Johnsons that constitute the idiot class of politicians. The days of Adam Clayton Powell, where “sticking it to the white man” was harmless fun in a functioning democracy could be tolerated, are over. The destruction of the public school system should be enough to open the eyes of black voters but will it ?
half this nation wants only to be left alone, while the other half cannot stand to leave the other half alone as it wishes.
put another way, one half of this nation wishes to shove its ideation down the throats of the other half who want nothing to do with it.
this situation cannot end well.
Jeffrey Carter: ” I am wondering where Fort Sumter is”
The situation today is a bit different from the US ahead of the Civil War. Certainly, in those days there were English rulers who were happy to see the rebellious former colonies fall apart — but nothing like the economic war the US people have been losing for several decades now. Look to the ports — that is where the final breakdown will occur, when the ships bearing all those essential imports from China and beyond stop arriving.
Production Precedes Consumption — but the US Democrat elite in the bureaucracy, big business, and the media have done their best to kill domestic production. Hey! Look at how proud they are about reducing the output of Greenhouse Gases! While our corrupt or misguided Best & Brightest have grown richer, the productive economy has been hollowed out and the US has been reduced to a Cargo Cult economy where most people are falling behind.
“Events, dear boy”, as former UK Prime Minister is reputed to have said. At some point, China will pull the plug on subsidizing the US. No more of the medications or nuts & bolts that the US can no longer produce for itself. When there is not enough to go around, it will be almost impossible to avoid widespread violence. However that violence ends up, the US will effectively have been removed from the world stage — and Chairman XI will smile.
Did the Chinese Communist Party plan this slow destruction of the US? Or did they simply opportunistically take advantage of the arrogance & stupidity of the US elite? Historians will discuss that for generations. In Chinese, of course.
All things that can’t continue, won’t.
Only question is; when does the “purge” begin in earnest?
We will go from wanting to be “left alone” to actively hunting the other tribe.
Stay frosty folks.
When the toilet paper runs out, the chit will really hit the fan.
III/0317
The people who run your country were unable to do so for 4 years, just recently. You can be sure they will do what they can, to never have that happen again. ;)
Another incomprehensible comment from the Canadian troll. No doubt you are pleased by the Gestapo tactic toward the minister who was holding services in his church.
It was amusing to see that they had to ambush him on a highway, to arrest him.
No, troll, you can have your Canadian virtues.
Brian Says:
May 11th, 2021 at 8:54 am
“Here’s what will happen–for the next four years the federal government will trample all over states and individuals, then in 2024 when another GOP president comes in, the federal government will spend most of its effort fighting off that person’s agenda as much as they can, wash rinse repeat.”
I fear that you are an optimist. I rather expect that IF there is something approximating a real election in 2024, the scenarios of results are already compiled for release based on the results of UniParty purges between now and then.
Consider that they control the voting mechanisms, the Republicans would rather die than oppose the Left [and they realize that opposition may lead to dying], and the agencies of State Security are becoming more blatant as to which side they are on [no Democrats care about the law or Constitution], I rather suspect that the Great Unpleasantness will begin with a totally unexpected event.
Subotai Bahadur
“No doubt you are pleased by the Gestapo tactic toward the minister who was holding services in his church.”
No. They should have thrown him in jail weeks before they did. They pussyfooted around his disregard of the law, they should not have, as that just sets a bad example.
The War wasn’t fought over the issue of the abolition: only about 5% of Northerners were abolitionists, the same as in the South. Although most people North and South now recognized slavery as morally wrong, disagreements arose over the viability of various exit strategies.
I suggest you peruse the South Carolina Declaration of Secession. DECLARATION OF THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES WHICH INDUCE AND JUSTIFY THE SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA FROM THE FEDERAL UNION. There are eighteen instances of words that have the root “slave” in them. That statistic alone indicates that slavery had a fair amount to do, at minimum, with the causes of the South Carolina Declaration of Secession.
Note that the Republican platform didn’t make reference to ending slavery in the states where slavery existed. It wanted slavery confined to those states, which would mean, for example, banning slavery from federal territories. Confining slavery to those states where slaveholding already existed wasn’t acceptable for the fire-eaters in South Carolina. Bloody Kansas ring a bell?
Note that the South Carolina Declaration of Secession made no reference to “exit strategies” for ending slavery. NO “exit strategies” for ending slavery were acceptable for the authors of that document. The stated intent of the South Carolina Declaration of Secession was the continuance of slavery in South Carolina.
Yes, there were regional differences and disagreements. Absent slavery, there would have been no secession, whatever other regional differences existed.
If you want a vote for a Fort Sumter moment, my money would be on an arrest and/or conviction of Trump. I have no idea if they’re stupid enough to do it.
No. They should have thrown him in jail weeks before they did.
Yes, No sense in being only half Stasi.
Gringo, many on the left know nothing about the Northwest Ordinance Act of 1787. It was passed before the Constitution was ratified and it banned slavery north of the Ohio River.
The idiots that are pushing the “1619 project” know no history.
The attempt to extend slavery gwas the proximate cause of the war. The Missouri Compromise delayed the war but the Kansas Nebraska Act, written by Lincoln’s debate partner Douglas, lit the fuse.
the Kansas–Nebraska Act is most notable for effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise, stoking national tensions over slavery, and contributing to a series of armed conflicts known as “Bleeding Kansas”.
The war followed as night follows day.
The idiots that are pushing the “1619 project” know no history.
Example.
Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution indicates that, contrary to what the 1619 Project claimed, the newly independent US was willing to put the abolition of the slave trade to the vote, but after a delay of 20 years:
That is, beginning in 2008, Congress may pass a bill regarding “migration or importation” of slaves. Which is just what happened: Congress banned the importation of slaves in 1808. Great Britain passed a similar bill around the same time, but in addition to banning the importation of slaves, it banned the buying and selling of slaves within the Empire- one step further than what the US did.
One more example of the ignorance of 1619 Project:
As Jefferson died in debt- a debt which his heirs took decades to pay off- he was hardly the poster child for “dizzying profits generated by chattel slavery.”
In addition, northern observers of the South, such as Frederick Law Olmsted in his Cotton Kingdom series(can download from Google Books), pointed out that the rural South was much poorer than the rural North.
If I, who took only one history course in college, can point out such flaws in the 1619 Project, it is apparent that professional historians can write for days on the flaws of the 1619 Project.
That was my comment.
“Great Britain passed a similar bill around the same time …”
Jolly Olde Englande is quite hypocritical about their role in slavery. As the primary maritime nation, they ran much of the TransAtlantic transportation of slaves, including supplying slaves to French & Spanish colonies. When England banned the slave trade in 1807, they were in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars. While some people in England were genuinely concerned about Africans sold by their fellows into slavery, there were other English people who saw banning the slave trade as a way of defunding Napoleon by undermining the French Caribbean colonies. Slaves did not live long in the conditions in the French plantations, requiring a continuous supply of new slaves.
It should also be noted that England did not ban slavery itself in 1807, only the transportation of slaves. Slavery was allowed to continue in English Caribbean colonies for decades thereafter.
The real message from history is that life sucked for most people for most of history up until the widespread adoption of fossil fuels in the 1800s raised living standards (and incidentally made slavery uneconomic). But we can’t teach the children that! They might begin to ask if today’s woke drive to ban fossil fuels might unintentionally lead to a revival of slavery.
RE: “Trump 2024: Take America Back” and ” I am wondering where Fort Sumter is”
I do not know where the metaphorical Fort Sumter will be, but the actual one will be found between Constitution and Independence Avenues, bracketed by the 1st Street NE and NW in Washington, D.C.
Donald Trump will be 78 in 2024; that’s probably too old but within acceptable limits assuming his vice president is actually his second-in-command, willing – and philosophically capable – of stepping in and continuing to deliver an identical result with no interruption or deviation.
Trump at 78 will have a few huge advantages in that he will arrive with the full understanding of Washington he was missing in 2016, the knowledge that at 78 he will be a one-term President (who may also fail to complete that term), and almost certainly a core group of like-minded inner group of solid supporters.
He will also have a “take no prisoners” attitude based on what he has suffered from 2016 on.
Should all that come to pass, the word of the day will be “purge” not “reconcile and reform.” The Constitution stipulates that laws come from the elected Congress, not a plethora of appointees and civil servants in executive-branch agencies; to that end, The People must provide the necessary assistance by voting in a sufficiently high percentage of Representatives and Senators who will not just support a return to Constitutional government, but also accept the ruthlessness of the measures necessary to accomplish it, and eagerly overrule any attempt at hampering it.
The U.S. will continue to be a 40-40-20 fractionated country for a minimum of 3 more generations, probably at least 5; the driving 55% must be capable of withstanding the death throes of the solidly rooted anti-American Left during that period.
Can that be accomplished?
I’d give it even chances regionally in some areas of the U.S.; nationally, it’s a crap shoot, and on the long odds at that. So, keep buying food, ammunition, learning and training.
I suspect that the Civil War, if indeed it begins, will resemble the first one. A group of states will elect to defy the federal government about some policies that constitute the issues that divide them. We are starting to see “Sanctuary States and Cities” arise.
It might resemble the map of the 2020 election.
The Union resisted the Confederacy withdrawal. The blue coastal crust may also resist but will they take military action ? The Biden Sec Def would probably choose to do so but he has no combat experience in a half century when the US has been in war for 20 years. He is a classic REMF with a Master of Arts degree in counselor education from Auburn University, and a Master of Business Management from Webster University.
What ?
He was a general for the Iraq 2003 war. Mr. Austin was awarded the Silver Star for his leadership of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Seven years later, he would assume the duties of Commanding General of United States Forces – Iraq, overseeing all combat operations in the country.
2010? That was when Obama decided to quit Iraq. I guess he has experience in abandoning the war.
Generals may decide to fight but they need troops to do so. We might see how that goes.
Arizona might be an early example. You scofflaws have failed to adopt Daylight Savings time in an orderly manner, endangering the proper functioning of the Union.
MCS would you please explain that to the Honda corporation, which in spite of assertions in the owners’ Manual still insists the AZ uses MDT? I have tried and tried to convince the fing clock that we stay on MST.
Mike K Says:
May 16th, 2021 at 8:40 am
I suspect that the Civil War, if indeed it begins, will resemble the first one. A group of states will elect to defy the federal government about some policies that constitute the issues that divide them. We are starting to see “Sanctuary States and Cities” arise.
Possibly, though the relationship between the states and the federal government is fundamentally different than it was in 1860, down to the personal level. I doubt that anybody today thinks of themselves in relation to their state of birth or residence the way Robert E. Lee did, such that making war against his state would be a higher dishonor and treason than making war against the United States despite having taken an oath to defend the country as an officer in its army. The Left is also pretty clear that it isn’t particularly interested in creating a ‘safe space’ to practice its desired form of government as much as it means to execute a takeover, hostile if necessary, of the governing structures already existing in the United States.
The issues that divide us no longer easily map to a contiguous geography. The Democrats in Chicago might be able to control Illinois Electoral Votes, Senate seats, and the governorship by hook or by crook, but would downstate National Guard units follow them out of the USA and into the “People’s Republic of North America?” I’m not sure that’s likely, and I don’t think the Democrats count on it either.
I would expect a continuation of what we’re seeing now but more kinetic, as the saying goes. Physical interference with elections instead of lawfare, urban rioters making incursions into previously peaceful suburbs, more and larger ‘autonomous zones’, direct action to disrupt the economy instead of boycotts and negative social media. If things do go that far south it’s going to be an ugly free-for-all for the control of cities, congressional districts, and states with few fixed battle lines or secure areas.
Christopher, I agree about 1860 but there is a group of Democrat Governors who are doing their best to recreate the states’ rights movement. The coastal crust plus Illinois and Minnesota are creating anew polity that encourages coercion and arbitrary rule. It will be interesting to see if AZ and GA can be held in the left’s camp with the present record of failure.
I happened to catch Liz Cheney on Fox this morning with her campaign to justify the election manipulation. I wonder if a few audits, like the one in Arizona, will shake that narrative? There has been very little discussion by Republicans about the election. Maybe the Jan 6 Reichstag Fire has kept them quiet. We will see.
Meanwhile pipelines and gas lines might shake the establishment narrative. We’ll see. As for urban rioters making incursions into previously peaceful suburbs That might get kinetic, too. Those suburbs don’t have the Soros funded DAs.
In 1860 the lines of division were fairly clear, or seemed so. Overt resistance to secession in the South was limited to certain areas and tended to build over time. Most anti secessionists seemed content to join the Union or otherwise absent themselves rather than resist at the outset. Most of the violent resistance was around conscription later in the war.
Notwithstanding the maps, there are no clear geographic divisions now. In all but the most partisan enclaves the share probably doesn’t get beyond 60/40 either way and many are much closer. This intermingling goes down to the neighborhood and neighbor level. On the other hand, I don’t see any but a tiny minority of the loony left with the sort of commitment do more than post a sign, let alone storm a barricade.
The corollary is that any neighborhoods that get stormed will contain at least a large minority of putative allies who’s commitment might be severely tested by having their house burned.
The military situation is also much different. While the U.S. Army lost many officers to the Confederacy, the actual army was so small as to be almost negligible. Any attempt to deploy the present army domestically would be very iffy. The first rule of giving orders is: only if it will be obeyed. I wouldn’t want to bet on which way it would go.
“He is a classic REMF with a Master of Arts degree in counselor education from Auburn University, and a Master of Business Management from Webster University.”
Webster University is a BS diploma mill that military folks have been using to get career boosting graduate degrees for decades now.
This is a very interesting essay, and makes some cogent points, but it contains some very questionable staements.
“Battlefield deaths were at least one hundred times greater in America’s Civil War than the 7000 battlefield deaths in the Revolutionary War.”
There were roughly 650,000 deaths in military service during the Civil War. But only about 210,000 were KIA or died of wounds.
No 1860 Republicans “were inclined to accept secession”.
“…the Northern Republicans formed a constitutionally dubious ‘nationalist’ campaign to ‘save the union’.”
Lincoln’s call to put down secession by force was supported by nearly all northerners of any political persuasion. His great adversary Senator Stephen Douglas told Lincoln he should call up 200,000 troops, not just 75,000. Prominent Democrats like Ben Butler, Dan Sickles, and John McClernand organized volunteer regiments, and became Union colonels and generals.
“Democratic politicians caused the first race war …”
There were quite as many pro-slavery Whigs as Democrats. While some Cotton Whigs moved to the Democrats after the collapse of their party in 1853-1854, most did not. They were reluctant secessionists, but even their 1860 Presidential candidate, John Bell, fell into the secessionist line.
“Lincoln’s plan to return slaves to African Liberia…” never existed. He mentioned Liberia once, in 1858; during the War, he proposed “colonization” in Nicaragua, once. He spoke vaguely in favor of “colonization”, but never did anything concrete about it.
“More free blacks owned slaves (7.5%) than did Southern whites (6%).”
This is a very odd statement, and the “supporting” link leads nowhere. What are the percentages of? In 1860, there were 5,091,345 whites in “Southern” (i.e. slave) states, and 394,967 slaveowners: 4.88%. However, the proportion of slave-owning households was much higher, and in general only one person in such a household owned the slaves. And some of the slave states (Missouri, Delaware), and regions in others (West Virginia, east Tennessee), had very few slaves or slaveowners, and did not support secession.
As to free blacks, there were 488,070, of which only 261,918 lived in slave states, and almost half of those lived in Maryland, Delaware, and DC, where free blacks outnumbered slaves.
This may be an allusion to the fact that many free black men “owned” their wives or children, to protect them from being seized and enslaved by whites.
“…the Morrill Tariff of 1860 that led to Southern Secession…”
The Morrill Tariff was enacted after seven states had declared secession and withdrawn from Congress. If they had not done so, the Tariff could never have passed the Senate. In any case, the South was not united on tariff issues. In 1844, pro-tariff candidate Henry Clay got 254,079 votes in eight future Confederate states that had popular votes and even carried two of them. In 1860, Lincoln, whose tariff position derived from Clay, his early hero, got 1,887 votes in Virginia and none in nine other future Confederate states.
The alleged Lincoln plan to send slaves to Africa was never serious as there was no shipping capable of that volume. He was more serious about his idea of buying the slaves from the Confederates. That was also a concept with no possibility of success as the Confederates were certain of success. Sherman warned them in his famous letter but few saw it and those he addressed it to dismissed his warnings.