America’s Cold Civil War is Heating Up
A cold war is defined as “a state of political hostility between countries characterized by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare.”
Remove the words “between countries” and it’s an accurate description of the current state of affairs in the United States today. Maybe even an understatement.
Instead of Blue vs Gray, it’s now Blue versus Red; Democrats versus Republicans; Conservatives versus Liberals. Passionate camps of supporters and zealous believers on both sides are battling it out on social media and in the streets, where it has gotten violent. The two sides could not be further apart and disagree on everything. Trump’s cult-like supporters believe he was sent by God and is making America great. His detractors are convinced he is racist, incompetent and a danger to the nation and the world.
The prospect of a second civil war was the cover story of The Atlantic in December, 2019 — before COVID and before the murder of George Floyd — stating:
“We don’t believe that conditions in the United States today resemble those of 1850s America. But we worry that the ties that bind us are fraying at alarming speed — we are becoming contemptuous of each other in ways that are both dire and possibly irreversible.”
Long before that, in 2004, the term “Two Americas” was coined in a speech by former Senator and former presidential candidate John Edwards, referring to haves and have-nots. That same year, Stanley Greenberg penned The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It about the increasingly heated partisan battle following the 2000 presidential election with recounts in Florida delayed by hanging chads and Al Gore winning the popular vote but not the electoral college by the closest margin since 1876. The final decision was made by the US Supreme Court. The White House being occupied by a president who did not win a majority of the popular vote, was a hard pill to swallow for Democrats.
In 2009 the pendulum swung back to the Dems for eight years of Barack Obama. A Black man in the White House was a huge victory for liberals but bitter pill for many in a country with a long history of overt and covert racism, stemming back to the genocide of indigenous people and boatloads of Africans brought here and sold as sub-human slave labor.
Then came Donald Trump, with a history of charges for his biased renting practices already amassed in his racist portfolio. Trump rode the pent-up anger of white America who were fearing becoming a minority right down the escalator to his announcement of candidacy, making a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants he described as murderers and rapist, the center point of his campaign.
With a racist in the White House, along came in 2017 and peaceful protesters seeking to have a statue of Robert E. Lee removed in Charlottesville, Va. They were joined by Neo-Nazi alt-right protesters who staged a counter protest carrying tikki torches, reminiscent of KKK torches. In the ensuing melee, a car deliberately rode into the crowd of peaceful demonstrators, killing Heather Heyer. Trump was chastised for saying that “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides” at a press conference following the incident. And the gulf widened further.
As I write this in August 2020, Trump continues to be the only person to insist on calling the pandemic not Coronavirus or COVID as all the world news media does, but rather “The China Virus” or “Kung Flu” despite Asian-American pleas to stop because they are being harassed and bias-attacked as a result.
Mask Wars
In Feb. 2020 at a campaign rally in S.C., as we were learning about COVID-19, Trump compared the Coronavirus to his impeachment, saying “this is their new hoax.”
While there is no proof of causation, Trump’s downplaying of the virus by comparing it to “sniffles” and the flu, and saying it would be over in April, his refusal to wear a Facemasks until mid to late July, created a politicizing of doing what needed to be done to stem the spread of the deadly virus: social distancing and wearing masks in public indoor spaces. Instead he focused on getting businesses open and back to normal as his followers rebelled against wearing masks as a violation of their “rights.”
Non-maskers reacted with hostility to being told they had to wear a mask or leave businesses. People were spat on and very deliberately coughed on.
· In one incident a baby was coughed on.
· A guard at a Dollar Store in Michigan was shot and killed by a customer he asked to wear a facemask to enter the store.
· Also in Michigan, another argument over a mask led to a man being fatally shot by police.
· And in NJ a woman was shoved in a Staples for asking another customer to wear a mask an wound up hospitalized with a broken leg. Open warfare?
This is now beyond a war of words. The mask disputes are a war over science versus conspiracy theories. I like Sci-Fi. Twilight Zone is still one my favorite shows; Aldous Huxley and Douglas Adams are among my favorite authors. Fiction is entertaining. But the line between truth and fiction is eroding and the two are being confused with one another. The highly credentialed and respected expert, Dr. Fauci was attacked for “making mistakes” while Houston pediatrician and minister, Dr. Stella Immanuel, who says sexual visitations by demons and alien DNA are at the root of Americans’ common health concerns was praised by the President of the United States who shares her recommendation of hydroxychloroquine a debunked and dangerous suggested COVID treatment.
Expertise is attacked and quackery promoted. All the while, no national mandate to wear masks. Trump said it was a choice while Governors and store owners were mandating them for indoor use when distancing was not possible.
The battle of the masks played out against a back drop of protests against police brutality that peaked on May 25, 2020 as the world watched video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdering George Floydover a period of nearly 9 minutes. This energized the Black Lives Matter movement and days of protests, marches and encampments in cities throughout the nation. The majority were peaceful but some were accompanied by vandalism, fires, looting and violence.
The next turning point came on June 1st, as protesters peacefully gathered at the park opposite the White House on and police used tear gas to clear a path for Trump to walk across the street and have his picture taken holding a bible in front of the St John’s Episcopal Church.
In July things escalated to the brink of an actual — not cold — civil war. Troops from Homeland Security were sent to Portland, teargassing and shooting protesters — and Mayor Ted Wheler of Portland — with rubber bullets allegedly to protect a Federal Court House. Tear gas a rubber bullets? That’s beyond threats and propaganda. That’s a lukewarm war.
And according to the Washington Post, the U.S. Marshals Service decided to deploy more deputies, and DHS is planning to send an additional 50 Customs and Border Protection agents. Trump has threatened doing the same in Chicago and New York despite governors and mayors insisting they do not want his “help.” What happened to states’ rights?
Asking, Is the United States on the Brink of Another Civil War? CJ Werleman, notes that:
“Like Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the American Civil War, the current White House occupant has expressed an interest in leading only one half of the country — or rather those who scorn liberals, immigrants, racial minorities and coastal elites. As was the case 160 years ago — when southern slave owners viewed the northern states as a threat to their way of life — the respective sides of politics view the other as an existential threat.
“For Republican voters, the left represents a lethal threat to their cultural values, including religion, individualism, and nativism. For Democratic voters, the right represents a mortal threat to theirs, including secularism, collectivism and multiculturalism. . .
“ . . . unlike in the Civil War of the 19th Century, America’s current divide isn’t between north and south, or east or west. It is one that pits a way of life that’s largely ascribed to by those who reside in urban and suburban locations against those who live in the exurbs and rural communities — with left-leaning politics largely aligned with the former and the right with the latter. It is a contest for America’s soul between those who hold a university degree and those who don’t.”
James Joiner explores the same question, writing:
“America is again a nation with increasing cultural divides. Constantly fostered by propaganda machines in the guise of journalism and hammered home by a corrupt political system that cares more for power than constituents, the possibility of mending this rift seems less and less likely. An armed uprising of some sort — a second civil war — is no longer just the fodder of radicals and the ridiculous. It now looms in the popular consciousness, touted in headlines and alluded to in Presidential tweets.”
Joiner speculates what is possible if Trump loses, refuses to accept the results, and occupies the White House protected by armed right wing militia.
“Would the military — who cannot technically be called upon to enforce domestic laws and require a presidential command to intervene in an armed uprising on home soil — stand up to an army of their own people? . . .
“Once the violent unrest ball starts rolling, it may be hard to stop, and that ends in either a completely authoritarian, evangelical, propaganda-led state dominated by a few oligarchs (kind of like the USA now), or, more likely, the dissolution of the United States into separate red and blue countries.”
Perhaps such a division could happen in a peaceful manner by succession? Wouldn’t it be more pleasant if those who hated minorities, immigrants, Jews and LGBTQs had their own space where abortions were banned and schools taught creationism, abstinence and end-times?
Just imagine living in peace and harmony enjoying single-payer health care for all. I know I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
But, when those in the “confederate states” who survive the next pandemic got bored not having anyone within their borders to scapegoat and hate, will they not just start wars against their science-believing neighbors?
I’m sad to say I don’t see an amicable resolution.
