The Next 12 Months Part V: Civil War

If nothing else, 2024 will be the year the risk of civil war goes up dramatically and the prospect of a low-intensity, internal conflict becomes most apparent to all.

Will the federal government soon be facing off with these men and women under arms? Source

In the fifth installment of The Next 12 Months series, I’m going to talk about the hot topic of civil war. Originally, this was supposed to be the final entry in the series, but due to breaking news, I’m going to split this off into two separate entries so as to focus our collective attention on the bigger news of the moment.

But first, have you had a chance to view the trailer for the movie Civil War, set for release in April 2024?

If you haven’t, here it is again:

A movie for the times, huh?

When I kicked off this draft, I was reflecting on how my thinking has evolved since I started this blog. I’m not afraid to change my mind based on new information and I most certainly have. At the same time, I strive to stay away from “doomerism,” keep things grounded in reality, and give ourselves something to strive towards. But I’m also about saying what needs to be said.

Since the start of this blog in 2021, I’ve regarded the certainty of internal armed conflict as virtually 100 percent. Regarding civil war, let’s say it went from being a 1-in-1,000 chance in the next 10 to 15 years to 1-in-300 during the same timeframe by the beginning of 2024. However, due to recent events, I’ve moved everything up: I now consider the risk of civil war in the United States to be 1-in-300 in 2024.

Why the drastic shift? Read on and you’ll find out. Before going on, I want to preface things by saying I’m going to be engaging in more speculation than ever before in these last two entries. I’ve been doing more of it as of late, but that’s what happens when events become uncertain to a greater degree. Though I still want to avoid excessive doomerism, there’s no getting around the fact the overall trendline appears very negative. Even in the best-case outcome, 2024 will be the year the risk of civil war goes up dramatically and the prospect of a low-intensity, internal conflict becomes most apparent to all. If you disagree, well, don’t let this blog ruin your good time.

With that, let’s begin wrapping up The Next 12 Months with a proverbial (hopefully, not literal) bang.

1861: Fort Sumter, SC - 2024: Eagle Pass, TX?

Eagle Pass, TX: Is this where the first shots of the Second American Civil War will be fired? Source

First stop is the United States-Mexico border. In Part III of The Next 12 Months series, we established that illegal immigration is out of control and the public is becoming aware of the issue’s gravity. Last year, I also argued that the U.S. is headed for a border war that will become our biggest national security crisis, one eventually requiring military intervention.

Well, events have seemingly reached a tipping point already. Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued the following statement on January 24:

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The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. What the hell is going on here? Let’s back up a bit.

The front line in the burgeoning border conflict has been Texas. Of the four border states, it’s the only one under Republican governance and has the longest stretch of borderline to secure. As such, the Texas-Mexico border specifically has become a ground zero of sorts in the illegal immigration debate. At the core is an argument over whether Texas - or any state, for that matter - has the right to take unilateral measures to secure its own border in the face of the federal government, at the direction of President Joe Biden, outright refusing to do so.

Long story short: the proto-authoritarian Biden administration, with the Supreme Court’s endorsement, is attempting to prevent Texas from protecting it’s border with Mexico from illegal entry. The location specifically under the microscope is Eagle Pass, a city that rests along the Rio Grande. This is where the Texas Military Forces, which includes their National Guard and State Guard, along with Texan law enforcement agencies, are focusing their efforts at preventing crossings. The Biden administration claims Texas’ efforts are preventing Border Patrol from doing their job, but the problem is that job isn’t to defend the border. It’s to facilitate illegal entry.

Why is the Biden administration doing this? I explained in Part III, but it’s simple: they’re attempting to create a permanent political majority friendly to the Democratic Party and the managerial state it controls. This is The Great Replacement and everyone, not just Whites, are at risk. Creating a permanently loyal political majority through immigration has, in their own words, long been an aspiration of the Left, so any attempt to stop illegal immigration threatens that design. For all the conventional wisdom about how America’s economy depends on illegal immigration - which, if true, is actually a terrible thing - it’s the Left who needs it to stay in power long-term.

It’s also a question of who really runs this country - the enduring power struggle between the federal and state governments. Though this way of thinking long preceded him, President Biden, like few before him, has pushed federal supremacy throughout his presidency. Without getting too deep into the political weeds, the U.S. has always been a federal republic, where constituent states and localities do retain some measure of autonomous sovereignty. But as the Regime has become more powerful, it seeks to become an all-consuming entity dominating governance at all levels under a unified leftist ideology.

The underlying logic at play is this: only the federal government can defend the border. If it chooses not to, it’s just as well and not even border states can take that authority into its hands. It clearly makes no sense, but like almost everything else the Regime does and says, it’s not supposed to. It’s the same logic that animates anarcho-tyranny.

Texas, however, is holding the line in resistance to the Biden administration. And they don’t stand alone - as of this writing, a total of 26 states, represented by their respective governors, have expressed solidarity with Texas and Governor Abbott:

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26 states. That’s over half the union rising up in resistance to the Biden-led regime. This is unprecedented in our lifetimes. Throw in President Biden’s two direct challengers in this year’s election - former President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - along with an untold percentage of the public and you have the biggest resistance movement against the federal government since at least the Civil War.

For the first time in a very long time, it’s the Regime and the Left on the back foot. It appears, for now, that the decision to open the floodgates and allow more illegal immigrants than ever before to enter the country is a costly error for Biden. Does he have any counter-moves he can make?

He has one: federalize the National Guard. Under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the president, as commander-in-chief of the military, can bring the National Guard under his direct control, forcing them to obey his orders and not those of the state governor they’d typically be subordinate to. This has happened many times in U.S. history, both in times of peace and war. Far-left Democrats like Joaquin Castro and Robert O’Rourke, both of Texas, have been calling for just that, citing precedent such as in 1957, when President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard, who, under orders of Governor Orval Faubus, refused to enforce the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling to de-segregate schools. In addition, Eisenhower deployed the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, effectively checkmating Governor Faubus. Nobody was interested in going to war with the federal government.

It seems that’s the prescription here: federalize the Texas National Guard and deploy active-duty military forces along with federal law enforcement if necessary. But is it really that simple? If so, why hasn’t the president set the federalization process in motion yet (at least publicly)?

Wade Miller, who’s been an excellent source of information on the border crisis, explains why federalizing the Texas NG would cause more problems than solve them [bold mine]:

See below for why it is problematic for Biden to undermine Texas by federalizing the Texas National Guard:

“Governors should anticipate aggressive pushback from the administration and from elected officials in Congress. As is codified in U.S. statute, the president of the United States may nationalize each state’s National Guard units and take them under his command whenever:

The United States is invaded or in danger of invasion from a foreign nation,
There is a rebellion against the federal government,
The laws of the United States cannot be executed with existing forces.

If the president attempts to federalize National Guard units under state command, governors should be prepared to respond with an immediate lawsuit, brought by their attorneys general. In such a scenario, the president would undoubtedly deny that he has failed to fulfill his obligations under Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution (i.e., he would deny that there is an invasion), thus putting himself in a “catch 22,” i.e., if there is no invasion, there is no other factual basis upon which to federalize the National Guard under the law.

However, if the administration agrees there is an invasion, thus justifying the president’s imposition as commander-in-chief over Guard units, then the administration could issue immediate directives to secure the border aligned with the missions provided to them by their respective governors.”

Additionally, to try to define the use of constitutional authority by the state of Texas as “rebellion” would be an act of authoritarianism.

And lastly, it doesn’t pass the laugh test to say that the laws cannot be executed with existing forces, when the Biden admin has clearly neutered the ability of existing forces to carry out their duties. We are not heavily committed abroad in ways that existing active duty manpower cannot fulfill.

No matter how you slice it, Texas would be well positioned to tell the Biden admin to pound sand and deny them the nationalization of the Texas National Guard, when it is nakedly clear that the only purpose of such an attempt by the Biden admin is to prevent Abbott from carrying out his constitutional authorities.

There’s a lot there, but the simplest I can distill this is to say that if Biden wishes to federalize the Guard, he needs to either give them a mission (i.e., send them to war) or invoke the Insurrection Act, declaring a rebellion and setting up a confrontation between active-duty military forces and the Texas National and State Guard. Such a confrontation is unavoidable; unless Governor Abbott capitulates, there would be no other way to enforce federalization and the Insurrection Act without the involvement of military forces under direct control by the president. Federal law enforcement alone will likely not suffice to force Abbott and Texas forces to acquiesce.

The circumstances are quite different from Little Rock 1957, also. To quote Rod Dreher:

This is an American state governor doing what the feds won’t do: defend the nation’s borders.

The Supreme Court ruling doesn’t specifically call for Texas to cease it’s efforts at defending the border. Rather, it merely calls for Texas to not obstruct Border Patrol in their activities, even if they elect to permit migrants to cross over. The Biden administration is attempting to make this a rule-of-law and federal supremacy issue, yet the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t address the issue of what happens when the president himself refuses to uphold the rule of law. This is the key distinction between this crisis and previous instances where Washington attempted to impose its authority on a state or locality. The Biden administration isn’t responding to defiance, it’s the one engaging in defiance and forcing Texas and the country at-large to suffer the consequences of its dereliction of duty to protect the states from invasion. Yes, what’s happening at the southern border is an invasion and my patience for those who believe otherwise ran out years ago.

There are many reasons the president can take control of the National Guard. It’s just that in this specific instance, he has may one reason and it’s not a particularly compelling one. Unless he plans on federalizing the Guard with the intent of disbanding them, which would be both legally pernicious and hugely escalatory, federalizing them because they stand in the way of his open-border policies isn’t a justifiable reason:

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So, where do we go from here? As you might imagine, the Biden adminstration isn’t backing down, either:

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We’re headed for a potentially history-making showdown. Who knows how things will look on Monday, January 29? We’ve got over half the union opposed to a president who won’t obey the law, nor fulfill his duty to protect the country, at a time when the next presidential election is still over 10 months away, and the U.S. is dealing with major crises overseas. Biden himself is unpopular to an unprecedented degree and we all know what political leaders, especially authoritarians like Biden, will do when they’re facing direct challenges to their authority, especially when their backs are already against the wall. Where does this go?

One thing’s for certain: this is a constitutional crisis. What’s more, it’s a constitutional crisis concerning more than one question. First, even if the border really is strictly a federal matter the states cannot concern themselves with, what do you do when the federal government refuses to do its job? Second, do we even have borders or not? Is the whole world allowed to show up and take up residence in this country without the consent of the authorities or, more importantly, the American people?

A constitutional crisis occurs when the existing political arrangement cannot resolve important questions like the two I’ve just outlined. These situations are inherently chaotic and unpredictable. It’s really anyone’s guess at this point what happens. This is definitely the biggest constitutional crisis since 1861, following the secession of 11 states to form the Confederate States of America. The Civil War didn’t begin until Union forces refused to vacate Fort Sumter, South Carolina, forcing the Confederacy to set a deadline for withdrawal. When that deadline lapsed, the Confederates opened fire, the first shots of the Civil War.

Despite no deaths due to enemy fire, once the bullets left the barrel, it became clear there was no way to peacefully resolve the impasse. What followed was over four years of the greatest bloodshed Americans have ever had to endure and took generations to recover from. Today, in Eagle Pass, Texas, the federal government not only refuses to uphold the rule of law with respect to immigration, it’s now drawn a line in the sand: step aside, or else.

Will Eagle Pass be where the first shots of the next American civil war will be fired?

The Death Of A Nation

Before sharing what I think comes next, I want to note that I’m detecting a certain amount of public ignorance on what’s happening in Texas. It’s certainly the talk on X (formerly Twitter), but it’s not something I hear people talking about in “real life.” Maybe this is just lingering crisis fatigue from 2020, or maybe the “Pink Police State” has been successful at getting people to shut up and not talk about this stuff openly, aside from expressing Regime-endorsed opinions.

But if you are someone who’s not sure whether this is something worth your concern, read this:

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I couldn’t have said it better myself. A country cannot be defined on the basis of how diverse it is. As I explained in Part III, a country has to decide what all this is for - is it for us, or is it for the entire world? If it’s for us, then who’s “us?”

To quote myself:

But more important, a society is literally defined by its borders. You can love immigration all you want, but at some point, you have to decide: who is all this for? Land, money, resources, all of it’s limited. Whichever group you prioritize, you’re going to end up prioritizing someone, or everyone will ultimately suffer collectively, some more than others, obviously. Just as the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of everyone else’s money, the problem with mass, unrestricted migration is that you eventually run out of everyone else’s land, money, and resources.

Put simply, restricting immigration is a survival mechanism. If you tell someone they can’t take up residence in your home, but they break in anyway and squat, you’re not going to compromise on that. You’d fight like hell to get them out. Why should countries be any different? If you don’t think a country has a legitimate claim to its land, then what says you have any more of a claim to your residence, your plot of land?

There’s currently no data on the question of whom the public currently sides with: the federal government or Texas. However, on the issue of immigration, Americans might regard it favorably in general, yet they appear to be solidly against not just illegal immigration, but prefer stricter limits in general:

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The public may be undecided or even against Texas defying the federal government as they are. But on immigration, they’re decidedly against the federal government. Yet the Regime, under Biden, keeps doing the exact opposite of what the public demands. No wonder the president’s approval ratings are so consistently bad.

It’s not the only way the Regime has undermined nationhood, but open borders is probably the most blunt fashion in which to do it. It’s a signal to the populace that their contributions and sacrifices aren’t valued and that everyone can be replaced at any time. Have you ever worked for an employer whom you didn’t feel as though they valued your labor? Sure, we should never get to high on ourselves, since we’re all ultimately replaceable, but it’s another thing to run a business on that principle. It’s the same thing when a country imports millions without even making them get in line. There’s no way to forge nationhood out of that, but the Regime still wants to play pretend.

Rod Dreher, writing on his own Substack, talked about Britain and military recruitment problems across the West, and how mass immigration can never forge nationhood or even countryhood. What he says applies to the U.S.:

Britain is ruled by a capital that no longer believes in Britain as a nation, but rather sees it as an economic zone that exists to demonstrate its cosmopolitan openness to the world. London won’t defend Britain’s borders any more than Washington will defend America’s. Why should the British people wish to fight for a government that is committed to replacing them as a distinct people, with a particular history and culture?

Nobody goes to war for an abstraction. It’s a cliche, but true, that in combat, men fight for their comrades in the platoon. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t patriotic, but it means that the motivation that gets them to kill the enemy and risk being killed by the enemy is a sense of deep solidarity with their comrades in arms. Similarly, American soldiers don’t fight for “democracy”; they fight for America — that is, for a deeply felt loyalty to the country, its people, and its traditions. This is normal.

The United States, of course, is a highly diverse country marked by immigration. It has always been critically important to integrate these immigrants, to graft them onto the trunk, so to speak, and to give them a stake in the nation. This meant that their main identity had to become American. You can be Italian-American, you can be Polish-American, and so forth — but you had to be first and foremost American. This is what it means to be a nation. We used to understand that.

But now we live in a culture, and have a government, that is dedicated to valorizing our differences, and then trying to convince itself that “diversity is our strength”. We can celebrate diversity all we want — and heaven knows that I love the diverse cultures we have in the US — but the fundamental fact has to be that we are loyal to what unites us: our common membership in the American nation. It is an unavoidable part of human nature that we have trouble trusting those who are not like us. This tribalism is surely part of our evolutionary heritage. In truth, diversity is more likely to be our weakness.

It’s a whole separate topic of discussion, but military recruitment is a perfect example of how immigration bleeds into every other issue. No, mass migration isn’t the reason why Americans aren’t joining. However, a lack of patriotism most certainly is. That lack of patriotism correlates with a generations-long attempt by those in positions of influence - education, media, politics - to define “American” in the most open-ended way possible. But something that means anything means absolutely nothing.

As I said some essays ago, “People may not care, but they do notice.” You fight to defend a people, a culture, a way of life. You cannot fight to defend diversity any more than democracy. If that worship of diversity is rooted in the pseudo-religious belief that the people, the culture, the way of life either don’t truly exist or is terrible and worth deconstructing, don’t be surprised if people draw the logical conclusion and choose not to risk their lives for such a racist place and its people.

Dreher sums it up well:

Nevertheless, every nation has to have a population in which those capable of fighting to defend it are willing to do so. How do you build loyalty to the collective? The core question for national identity is: Who are we? Well, does “we” include all those people sloshing across the Rio Grande? Maybe it could, in a generation — but not in a culture dominated by a narrative that teaches them to hold on tightly to their former identities, because the American identity comes from white European roots, and is therefore Evil. And as the Pentagon is finding out, you can’t motivate people of white European descent to fight for a country led by people who look down on them for their racial background, and put in place policies that disfavor them.

It’s nation-killing stuff. Regardless of how this burgeoning showdown between Texas and the federal government turns out, it may well be too late to save the American nation. Maybe it was never meant to be. Either way, it’s a tragedy. The greater tragedy is how the people in power are the ones who believed the least in American nationhood and were the most complicit in its unraveling. Now that it’s all but completely unraveled, they now want to fully establish themselves as lords of an emerging order, one that combines elements of feudalism, kleptocracy, and mob rule, hardly the democracy they spend day and night lecturing us about. Mass illegal immigration is a means to this end.

Joshua Treviño of the Texas Policy Foundation, by way of Rod Dreher, rendered a slam-dunk of an indictment against the Regime, the Left, Biden, and anyone who supports illegal immigration:

It is a fundamental characteristic of nations that they define themselves, their own community, their own people, and their own story: without it, there is no sovereignty and therefore no nation. A government that fails to secure that quality fails at its most basic task. The Biden regime defines itself by that failure, and Texas defines itself by refusing to submit to it.

And:

It is not that they love the millions of migrants and illegals more than their own countrymen. They hold us both in contempt: they are content to see the migrants exploited and trafficked, and to see us swamped and erased. Their approach signals their inmost selves, cruelty masquerading as compassion. The desperate girl trafficked from the Darien Gap to Dallas, raped and sold along the way, laboring to pay a fraudulent debt at an off-the-books job, is the apotheosis of progressivism’s achievement.

Treviño is correct. Migrants, legal or illegal, are useful only insofar as they keep the Regime in power and hurt those they regard as their enemies. Their compassion is as contrived as their claim that Texas is preventing the “proper” authorities from doing their job. The Biden administration claims the razor wire Texas has been setting up along its border in Eagle Pass makes things dangerous for Border Patrol, but this is the same Biden administration that falsely accused agents of “whipping” illegal migrants - they were merely horse reins misidentified, likely deliberately, by both the White House and the media. Other lies, including a particularly ergregious one by Joaquin Castro, continue to be told to this day, for which there’s zero accountability. This is the same Regime that turns a blind eye to the assaults against Border Patrol agents, who face serious threats to their well-being in the course of their duties.

All the while media personalities and politicians alike accuse the Right of refusing to make deals on immigration and weaponizing aid to Ukraine, as though border security is a luxury which can be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations. None of it makes sense, none of it’s supposed to. If you’re still confused, don’t try to rationalize any of it. You can’t. Instead, focus on the outcome and conclude that the results are exactly what’s intended.

It all seems destructive. Even cruel. But as the Left likes to say about anyone it doesn’t like, The Cruelty Is The Point. They just didn’t realize they were talking about themselves the entire time.

What To Expect In 2024

As stated before, the situation is genuinely unpredictable. Long-term predictions are generally easier to make than short-term predictions. We could very well be in a civil war within the next 10 years, while it’s less likely we’ll be in a civil war on Monday. Still, the situation has become so unstable, so explosive, all of a sudden, that anything and everything is now on the table. We all know a tipping point like this would be reached eventually, given the rising tensions in the country, but nobody knew it’d happen so soon, so early in the election year.

With that major tipping point set to be reached in less than 24 hours, I’ve largely settled into wait-and-see mode. Still, it isn’t entirely unreasonable to make a few predictions based on current events.

First, lets return to Joshua Treviño and his remarks to Rod Dreher:

The good news about the Supreme Court’s decision is that it merely lifts an injunction, and is not a final ruling on the merits. The bad news is that the federal government can do tremendous damage until that ruling comes — and it will. Count on the Biden regime, acting at Mexican-government behest, to do its utmost to tear down Texas’s border barriers, while doing nothing itself to secure our southern frontier. The price will be paid by the Americans killed by fentanyl and violence thanks to this policy of lawlessness, and by migrants ensnared in the global web of human trafficking that the President of the United States by policy allows to flourish. 

This is a good point, one I might’ve made earlier. The Supreme Court ruling is hardly the final word. But as Treviño suggests, it’s still a short-term win for Biden and can be used to justify all sorts of bad choices in the meantime, even if something like federalizing the National Guard isn’t an option. The downside for Biden is that immigration will, either way, be a major issue, perhaps even the biggest. His only play is to double-down and prove his worst critics correct: mass illegal immigration is his policy and he’s the reason why it’s such a problem. It’s just not a winning issue for either him or the Left.

In all likelihood, the Biden administration, which has neither confirmed nor denied they plan on federalizing the Texas National Guard, is drumming up ways to do so without running afoul of the law. Likewise, if federalization takes place, I don’t know if the National Guard has any option except to comply, at least initially, even if lawsuits are filed in immediate response. This is definitely one of those things that we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

Even if the National Guard is federalized, Texas still has a State Guard and its own law enforcement agencies that cannot be. That still leaves a major manpower deficit, but other states have sent their own National Guard troops as well. What’s Biden going to do, federalize the National Guard of all these states, too? This is the point I was trying to make earlier - every move Biden makes from here on out is escalatory. Unless Biden federalizes the Texas National Guard, they obey, and he accepts the short-term legal win, total victory, where the borders are fully blown open and only the federal authorities are running the show, will remain elusive.

From Governor Abbott’s perspective, I see no downside to staying the course. As long as he doesn’t do something like have his cops and troops arrest federal agents, he has enough political and public support to continue defying Washington. This is the genius in Abbott’s move - the ball is entirely in the court of the Biden administration. Abbott, not Biden, is the one who controls the escalation ladder. Abbott has nothing to lose by standing pat, while Biden has something to lose, whether he makes a move or not.

What’s the long-term implication of this? For that, let’s see what Malcom Kyeyune has to say. Kyeyune is someone I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with, but these days, I find myself agreeing with him more often than not, a sure sign the world is ending.

He says:

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Kyeyune believes the likelihood this gets resolved without a major dust-up is the most likely outcome, which is certainly true. We ought to all breathe a sigh of relief if that turns out to be the case. But even if we manage to make to the election, the amount of hostility that’s been built will be tremendous, as both sides have now fired shots across the bow. I speak of a crisis coming in 2025: the showdown between Texas and the federal government could be a prelude, a line in the sand, the drawing of the battle lines we’ve all been waiting for.

I think 2024 will be the year of amplified lawfare; both sides will attempt to leverage the law to its absolute limits to undermine the other side. The good news is that lawfare is better than warfare; the bad news is that wars of words can turn into actual violence, especially if it fails to resolve the conflict and turns it into a zero-sum game. Maybe we’re not there yet, but we can see it clearly from here. We’re also reaching a point where an increasing number of people on both sides don’t want to see a peaceful resolution to the crisis. There may not be many of them, but it doesn’t take many, either. All it takes is a committed few.

At its core, this developing stand-off isn’t a matter of state’s rights or jurisdiction. The issue at heart is immigration, whether millions can enter the country invited only by the relative few who are neither acting in good faith, nor in America’s best interest. It’s an all-but-lost issue for the Biden administration, which is why they can only frame it as a legal matter, even as the law clearly states millions aren’t supposed to be entering the country uninvited. The Biden administration is facing a serious challenge to its authority and, like any authoritarian regime, will probably throw everything it has in the kitchen sink just to prove, if only for a moment, that they’re in charge and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

It’s when tyrants get desperate that dangerous choices get made.

Prepping For Civil War

You don’t.

Civil war is a obviously a popular topic of conversation within the prepper/survivalist community, but it’s also among the least useful of scenarios to talk about. This is due to its low-probability, high-risk nature: it’s not likely to occur and if it did, the consequences would be so devastating, there’s really no way to prepare for any of it. It’s a big part of the reason why I, along with any prepper worth their salt, always stress the importance of preparing for not only more likely scenarios, but scenarios with earth-shattering outcomes can’t really be prepared for. It’s like preparing for your death - you should engage in estate-planning, yes, but this is for the benefit of your survivors. No amount of prepping for your death will ultimately benefit you, except perhaps towards your own peace of mind.

That being said, not preparing at all isn’t an option, either. What are we to do? One of the nice things about prepping in general is that preps for one type of emergency can carry over into other types of emergencies. I’ve been saying, ad nauseum, the worst scenario most of us ought to realistically prepare for is a natural disaster. Yet the consequences of a natural disaster can be as devastating as that of a civil war. Depending on the circumstances, you can have civil unrest and a Without Rule of Law (WROL) situation, for example, in the wake of a natural disaster.

The point is that prepping at all is the best anyone can do to prepare for civil war. Ultimately, the objective is to manage disruption, mitigate supply shortages, and reinforce personal safety. If you’ve been prepping this entire time, you’re at least more ready than most to deal with the consequences of a civil war outbreak. Long-term, your good fortune will run out, but again, you can’t prepare for what you can’t prepare for.

At the risk of providing the same advice I’ve been giving all along, I’ll offer this and move on: instead of worrying about conducting armed patrols, worry instead about staying away from long lines. We all remember what happened when the government announced everything was going to shut down in the face of COVID back in 2020. Unless you want to fight (figuratively) all those other people in a scramble to acquire supplies like bottled water and toilet paper, begin stocking up on that stuff now. 2020 should’ve taught us all that waiting for instructions from the government is a bad idea, so unless you want to be perpetually behind the curve and walk up to empty shelves, take the time and spend the money today, while the lines are still short and goods still available.

After that, go about your life, and always prioritize the personal over the political. You’d be surprised at how much normalcy can endure even during a civil war.

Nothing Happens. Then It Does.

In closing, I want share a thought that’s been on my mind since this stand-off began. It’s from Selco Begovic, survivor of the 1990s Bosnian War and a popular figure within prepper/survivalist circles.

He said:

We were a modern society one day, and then in few weeks it turned into carnage.

Civil war isn’t inevitable. If we play the percentages, we’re all going to wake up on Monday, go about our business, and there probably won’t be any shooting going on. Yet all that underscores is the general unpredictability of life. Most of us have been in a motor vehicle accident; how many of you knew it was going to happen before it did? If you knew it was going to happen, you would’ve taken steps to prevent it from occurring, right? Talk to Selco or anyone who lived through civil war; they all say that nobody thought it’d happen until, one day, it did.

The point isn’t that a civil war is coming. I’d hope everyone gets it. The point is that there’s no excuse to not be prepared, mentally and physically. It’s not up to you to decide when Life throws you a curveball.

I was speaking with a friend about the situation in Texas yesterday. He explained that America stands on feet of clay and that clay is starting to crack:

I don’t think many people on either side of any of these issues realize the precarious position of American civilization. We are literally teetering on a razor’s edge. This whole thing could easily come apart. I also don't think they realize how weak the federal center is. It makes a lot of noise and can bring about pain, but the least bit of resistance to it would throw it on its ass....and the logical point of resistance has always been the states. Not mobs in the streets. Not elections. But a resistance by state power.

I’ll talk about some of this more in the next post. But I think my friend is correct: the nature of the American state, our political structure, it creates a situation that’s both stable and volatile at the same time. All it takes is a single state, especially a powerful state like Texas, to refuse to go along with a charade, and the entire American experiment is suddenly in jeopardy. If we fight a civil war or the union dissolves, what’s happening in Texas is the way it happens. Not because of riots, not because Donald Trump lost an election.

He then said:

There is so much “change” in the system that it is driving people crazy. You can't examine these changes and digest them before some other set of disasters, crises, and insult is thrown your way. A society can’t function that way. If war broke out tomorrow I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised. I pray that it doesn't come to that. War is awful. A civil war (and this would be a real civil war unlike the war of the 1860s) would be horrible. What we are seeing...all of the craziness...is precisely why this system was designed as a federal system. Trying to force everything from the top down in a multicultural system (and I don't use “multicultural” in the modern leftist sense, but simply from the perspective of different peoples with different cultures, interests and world views) always ends in disaster.

My friend is a war veteran. He’s been shot at and returned fire. He doesn’t want to be shot at by other Americans, nor shoot at any other Americans, no matter how mutually hateful the feelings may be. Yet the Regime, thanks to people like President Biden, have done nothing but sow chaos and disorder. If civil war does break out, it won’t be because a bunch of reactionaries wanted to ruin everyone’s good time. It’s because chaos and disorder has a single logical outcome: conflict.

I hate turning things into a morality play, but if you need to identify a villain in all of this, you ought to know who by now.

Are We On The Brink?

This post took longer to complete than I’d hope. We are now just several hours away from the federal government’s deadline for Texas to comply. I think I’m going to be issuing an update on this real soon.

In the meantime, what do you think? Are we in a constitutional crisis? What’s the over-under on civil war for you? Who is right or wrong in this stand-off? Does Biden have any moves he can make that won’t backfire on him? What preps, if anything, are you making in anticipation of a potentially serious national crisis?

Oh, and try to enjoy the weekend, okay?

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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