Excellent article. Your analysis is quite thorough, and I find your conclusions to be sound. I would like to add couple of points. I agree civil war is unlikely and what we will see is ultimately violent civil unrest. It seems to me this is already happening, and will continue to unfold in slow motion. The big cities have areas that are essentially feudal territories of gang members, and the efforts of police to enforce rule of law amount-in practice-to little more than small intensity skirmishes with police being essentially another gang with the luxury of leaving after the skirmish. (Please note that this is in no way intended to besmirch the efforts of the police nor characterize police as lawless thugs. It’s simply an observation of what the circumstances are and, given the constitutional limitations placed on police the only role they can really play at this point. Local governments use them as a show of force for political purposes, not for restoring order. This is largely because those governments are powerless to do so). In rural areas, this applies as well. Wide swaths are essentially surrendered to localized feudal lords-sometimes violent gangs, sometimes just “country” folk that distrust outsiders. (Think the pettimore family from the song copperhead road). Overall, we tolerate this as long as it doesn’t spill out into our comfortable enclaves. I expect those archetypes of “lawlessness” will slowly expand to cover a lot more territory over the next generation, and like the proverbial frog in the boiling water, we will tolerate this so long as we are fed and able to make a decent living. (I put it lawlessness in quotes, as there is a certain code people are expected to live by in those enclaves that serves a similar purpose to the law in our “civilized” areas.) I do believe there is one thing that could result in an actual sectarian civil war with both sides having claim to representing the legitimate government, though I consider it highly unlikely in the next thirty years. That one thing-and you mentioned this-would be an effort by the federal government to disarm the population. Any attempt to do that would, I predict, result in county sheriffs across the country deputizing large numbers of citizens into what amounts to local militias. While said militias would not operate under a central command or coordinate with one another extensively (neighboring counties would likely work together) the playbook would be the same across the country. Essentially it would devolve quickly into guerilla warfare and famine and bloodshed would be widespread, followed by pestilence caused by a combination of starvation and the breakdown of medical care system. No person of goodwill should hope for this to happen. I’m fairly certain there is some mid level officer in the pentagon whose job it is to make sure people in Washington considering gun confiscation seriously are aware that this is the likely result of such a policy, which makes it a very unlikely scenario.
“…disorderly one because they either benefit materially from it or because it fulfills some innate desire to see “bad” people get what they supposedly deserve (describes the motivations of many on the Left).”
I agree with your conclusions mostly, but I think the actual motivation for the left is deeper in that they believe they can be gods and recreate values that support their ideology. While you can argue many of their followers are ignorant and useful idiots, the leaders or vocal ones are true believers.
So this part seemed like a shallow conclusion of what drives the left, while the rest of what you wrote seems to assume they’re truly ideological. Unless I read part this wrong…
The reason I don’t think Civil War is very likely is because the current ruling regime is on the verge of recognizing how delusional it is to consider their ideological opponents within the nation to be their enemy when they have a much more vicious and capable enemy already inside the gates. https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/are-the-chinese-preparing-to-start
I don't agree with every point Mr. Z raised in his video, but I do find it thought-provoking and also pertinent to a lot of the discussion I hear among people I know. So many people I know on the Right have this fantasy that when SHTF, everything's just going to flip. The military will abandon their orders, the police will join the other side, the good gun-owning, god-fearing patriots will amass and, because they control "the country" and the other side controls "big cities", they'll be able to choke the life out of the other side by stopping road and rail traffic and so on, and so on. It get tedious after a while because it's clear wish fulfillment and pipe dreams. That's not to say I don't understand the logic for most of these arguments. Yes, "Red America" is largely rural and would be able to hinder, if not outright stop, international travel for "the other side", I suppose. I also would think that police and military men would, in some numbers, abandon their post and join the rebels, but I doubt it would be a majority of them, for a litany of reasons. That's also not to say a minority of them breaking off wouldn't have immense impact on the entire conflict, because it probably would, but I just can't envision a scenario where the army just defects en masse. I've been told it's because I have a limited imagination, but I think it's actually quite the opposite.
Fantasizing about such a conflict and what way it would take shape is all well and good, but I just don't think they realize how complicated and ugly it will be, and whenever I hear someone agitating for it, or saying that they're ready for it or that it "needs" to happen, I feel the need to roll my eyes.
Also, briefly, I think that it's perfectly possible for a Haiti-type SHTF situation to happen in America, but the form it will take will be largely dependent on the culture. I don't think a SHTF event in Houston is going to look similar to one in Chicago, or Miami, or New York, and it certainly won't look the same way if order broke down in Manchester, New Hampshire, or Springfield, Missouri. People seem to think that, say, Boise - a small city in a sparsely populated, ruby red state - is immune to that kind of breakdown, and that "good guys with guns" would sort any potential disorder out quick, assuming it did break down at all, and I just think that's exceedingly optimistic thinking. But I also doubt Boise would descend into the same sheer chaos of Port-au-Prince based on the size of the population. Still, it's discounting the extreme capacity for inhumanity against man to think nothing so bad could happen in America because we're just "built different". Which, in a lot of ways, we are. But we're still beholden to human nature.
Regarding “Monsieur Z”, he claims a "desire to be left alone" is a poor unifying principle for a war. However, it's worth nothing that this was essentially the animating principle of the South in the first Civil War. His comments about foreign likely siding with the regime is important though. Most foreign countries resent US hegemony but derive enormous material benefits from it. Until our global reach is threatened (hello, Yemeni rebels) foreign governments will side with the Left.
Your commenter is right on the money: "Whether Biden or Trump wins makes no difference. The old Republic is dead." That's what matters. Any conflict will not be a insurgency against a superpower. Because a conflict on those terms is suicidal -- X is right about that. Instead, it will be a group of factions squabbling over the carcass of a broke and strategically neutered former superpower. These are very different scenarios. "Nothing will happen here until access to food, fuel and medical care becomes really problematic." Yep. When the regime finally fails to provide for basic needs, "most violence will be local." Which is what gets you a Franco: bring in the crops, lock of the bad guys, make the trains run on time and people will overlook a lot.
"it all points back to migration." Especially in Europe. Are European elites too enbubbled (hey, I just made a new word!) to see the danger or too enraptured with anticolonialism to care? Houllebecq and Raspail saw it coming.
"The men who will lead this revolution are not yet visible, but when the facade of law and order finally collapses they will surface. They always do." Too many people think it's AD 476 and we're just waiting for the implosion or the barbarians storming over the hill. More likely, it's AD 50 and we're still waiting for our Caesar. Maybe he'll rule over only part of America, but he will be confident, competent and authoritarian. Let us all hope he's a Caesar or a Franco instead of a Robespierre or a Lenin or a Mao.
Excellent article. Your analysis is quite thorough, and I find your conclusions to be sound. I would like to add couple of points. I agree civil war is unlikely and what we will see is ultimately violent civil unrest. It seems to me this is already happening, and will continue to unfold in slow motion. The big cities have areas that are essentially feudal territories of gang members, and the efforts of police to enforce rule of law amount-in practice-to little more than small intensity skirmishes with police being essentially another gang with the luxury of leaving after the skirmish. (Please note that this is in no way intended to besmirch the efforts of the police nor characterize police as lawless thugs. It’s simply an observation of what the circumstances are and, given the constitutional limitations placed on police the only role they can really play at this point. Local governments use them as a show of force for political purposes, not for restoring order. This is largely because those governments are powerless to do so). In rural areas, this applies as well. Wide swaths are essentially surrendered to localized feudal lords-sometimes violent gangs, sometimes just “country” folk that distrust outsiders. (Think the pettimore family from the song copperhead road). Overall, we tolerate this as long as it doesn’t spill out into our comfortable enclaves. I expect those archetypes of “lawlessness” will slowly expand to cover a lot more territory over the next generation, and like the proverbial frog in the boiling water, we will tolerate this so long as we are fed and able to make a decent living. (I put it lawlessness in quotes, as there is a certain code people are expected to live by in those enclaves that serves a similar purpose to the law in our “civilized” areas.) I do believe there is one thing that could result in an actual sectarian civil war with both sides having claim to representing the legitimate government, though I consider it highly unlikely in the next thirty years. That one thing-and you mentioned this-would be an effort by the federal government to disarm the population. Any attempt to do that would, I predict, result in county sheriffs across the country deputizing large numbers of citizens into what amounts to local militias. While said militias would not operate under a central command or coordinate with one another extensively (neighboring counties would likely work together) the playbook would be the same across the country. Essentially it would devolve quickly into guerilla warfare and famine and bloodshed would be widespread, followed by pestilence caused by a combination of starvation and the breakdown of medical care system. No person of goodwill should hope for this to happen. I’m fairly certain there is some mid level officer in the pentagon whose job it is to make sure people in Washington considering gun confiscation seriously are aware that this is the likely result of such a policy, which makes it a very unlikely scenario.
“…disorderly one because they either benefit materially from it or because it fulfills some innate desire to see “bad” people get what they supposedly deserve (describes the motivations of many on the Left).”
I agree with your conclusions mostly, but I think the actual motivation for the left is deeper in that they believe they can be gods and recreate values that support their ideology. While you can argue many of their followers are ignorant and useful idiots, the leaders or vocal ones are true believers.
So this part seemed like a shallow conclusion of what drives the left, while the rest of what you wrote seems to assume they’re truly ideological. Unless I read part this wrong…
The reason I don’t think Civil War is very likely is because the current ruling regime is on the verge of recognizing how delusional it is to consider their ideological opponents within the nation to be their enemy when they have a much more vicious and capable enemy already inside the gates. https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/are-the-chinese-preparing-to-start
I don't agree with every point Mr. Z raised in his video, but I do find it thought-provoking and also pertinent to a lot of the discussion I hear among people I know. So many people I know on the Right have this fantasy that when SHTF, everything's just going to flip. The military will abandon their orders, the police will join the other side, the good gun-owning, god-fearing patriots will amass and, because they control "the country" and the other side controls "big cities", they'll be able to choke the life out of the other side by stopping road and rail traffic and so on, and so on. It get tedious after a while because it's clear wish fulfillment and pipe dreams. That's not to say I don't understand the logic for most of these arguments. Yes, "Red America" is largely rural and would be able to hinder, if not outright stop, international travel for "the other side", I suppose. I also would think that police and military men would, in some numbers, abandon their post and join the rebels, but I doubt it would be a majority of them, for a litany of reasons. That's also not to say a minority of them breaking off wouldn't have immense impact on the entire conflict, because it probably would, but I just can't envision a scenario where the army just defects en masse. I've been told it's because I have a limited imagination, but I think it's actually quite the opposite.
Fantasizing about such a conflict and what way it would take shape is all well and good, but I just don't think they realize how complicated and ugly it will be, and whenever I hear someone agitating for it, or saying that they're ready for it or that it "needs" to happen, I feel the need to roll my eyes.
Also, briefly, I think that it's perfectly possible for a Haiti-type SHTF situation to happen in America, but the form it will take will be largely dependent on the culture. I don't think a SHTF event in Houston is going to look similar to one in Chicago, or Miami, or New York, and it certainly won't look the same way if order broke down in Manchester, New Hampshire, or Springfield, Missouri. People seem to think that, say, Boise - a small city in a sparsely populated, ruby red state - is immune to that kind of breakdown, and that "good guys with guns" would sort any potential disorder out quick, assuming it did break down at all, and I just think that's exceedingly optimistic thinking. But I also doubt Boise would descend into the same sheer chaos of Port-au-Prince based on the size of the population. Still, it's discounting the extreme capacity for inhumanity against man to think nothing so bad could happen in America because we're just "built different". Which, in a lot of ways, we are. But we're still beholden to human nature.
Regarding “Monsieur Z”, he claims a "desire to be left alone" is a poor unifying principle for a war. However, it's worth nothing that this was essentially the animating principle of the South in the first Civil War. His comments about foreign likely siding with the regime is important though. Most foreign countries resent US hegemony but derive enormous material benefits from it. Until our global reach is threatened (hello, Yemeni rebels) foreign governments will side with the Left.
Your commenter is right on the money: "Whether Biden or Trump wins makes no difference. The old Republic is dead." That's what matters. Any conflict will not be a insurgency against a superpower. Because a conflict on those terms is suicidal -- X is right about that. Instead, it will be a group of factions squabbling over the carcass of a broke and strategically neutered former superpower. These are very different scenarios. "Nothing will happen here until access to food, fuel and medical care becomes really problematic." Yep. When the regime finally fails to provide for basic needs, "most violence will be local." Which is what gets you a Franco: bring in the crops, lock of the bad guys, make the trains run on time and people will overlook a lot.
"it all points back to migration." Especially in Europe. Are European elites too enbubbled (hey, I just made a new word!) to see the danger or too enraptured with anticolonialism to care? Houllebecq and Raspail saw it coming.
"The men who will lead this revolution are not yet visible, but when the facade of law and order finally collapses they will surface. They always do." Too many people think it's AD 476 and we're just waiting for the implosion or the barbarians storming over the hill. More likely, it's AD 50 and we're still waiting for our Caesar. Maybe he'll rule over only part of America, but he will be confident, competent and authoritarian. Let us all hope he's a Caesar or a Franco instead of a Robespierre or a Lenin or a Mao.