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.
Interesting analysis, thanks. You came up in my Substack feed, not by any other recommendation, so I was surprised to see my friend Rod Dreher mentioned here. He's good people.
Echoing Austin Olive here. Found you via Dreher, (of whom I’m a huge fan). Was looking for some meaningful analysis of this crisis all day today, and this is by far the best. Incredible work, and I’m looking forward to reading your previous post and your future work.
Rod Dreher recommended that his readers come over here. I did, and I'm glad. Thank you for your work here.
For my part, I've been desperately hoping that some governor would do something like this for over 30 years. I'm 49 now, and I've been paying attention to politics since Carter-Reagan in 1980. (My dad was a Goldwater man in '64, and started me on politics early.) When I was a US History and Poli. Sci. major in college (started 1992) I saw the handwriting on the wall and have been hoping for what Greg Abbott did this week. Honestly, I had such a spring in my step yesterday (1/25/24) I surprised myself.
That said, it is astounding to me that this is happening and the MSN - and even the conservative outlets - aren't on this like white on rice. It seems like crickets.
This is the biggest news since 1861, as you note. It may turn out like the Nashville Convention of 1850, with some mutually face-saving detente. But just as 1861 was inevitable in 1850, something catastrophic is inevitable today.
Just as Mr Lincoln said of slavery, we cannot continue half Progressive, half traditional. Eventually the Union, to be preserved, must become all one thing or another. That said, I don't see how that can be resolved without conflict. Lord willing, that conflict will not be a second civil war.
But do you see a way that we CAN resolve it otherwise? I cannot. We are facing 'soft totalitarianism' (per Dreher) or hard from the Progressives. Either way is unacceptable.
I'm at a point where I fear a failure of will to resist by the states today will, like the South's failure to act in 1850, guarantee that we lose down the road. Had the South stood up to Washington and the Yankees in 1850, we would have won. And we would have won without the stain of secession over slavery (as in 1860).
If conservatives do not stand up now, while resistance is still feasible, and on this issue, which is noble, I fear that our future issue will be less honorable, and at a time less likely to succeed.
I really struggle with that Austin. On the one hand I think Lincoln may well have been the most destructive President in the history of the nation. The Civil War effectively ended federalism.
But on the other hand, the idea of having a nation in which half the states still practices slavery today (or were at least openly white supremacist ala Jim Crow) is completely unthinkable. Lincoln was correct that the nation could not hold together in such a bifurcated form: "a house divided against itself cannot stand." There are some things that simply can not be compromised.
Somehow we need to recover federalism but still retain some of the universality of Christian dignity and Lockean liberalism. How do you get there in a society that has largely given up on both Locke and God? (Honestly, I don't think you do, which is why I'm expecting a Franco like figure at some point.)
Re slavery: From my assessment of the history of the issue of slavery, I don't think that Southern slavery would have endured much longer. After all, the United States and Haiti were the only countries that ended slavery violently. I am confident that emancipation would have happened within a few decades, as it did in Brazil. And that without violence.
But as I said, to allow secession to happen over that issue was a disgrace. But it's not just in politics that such things have happened.
A sterling example is the death of 'mainline' Protestantism. There's been much made in the last 20 years of huge splits (secessions) in the mainline denominations. The Presbyterians, the Episcopalians / Anglicans, and most recently the United Methodists have had huge splits. (25-100% of the UMC congregations have left in various parts of the US.)
But why did they leave? They left over homosexuality. They didn't leave over denials of the trustworthiness of the Bible. They didn't leave over denials of the Virgin birth or miracles or the reality of heaven and hell. They didn't even leave over denials of the Resurrection or the Divinity of Christ. They left over gay marriage and gay clergy.
I understand that is a major issue. I believe that is an issue worth dividing over. But it isn't an issue at the heart of Christianity.
It is a shame upon the conservatives that they did not leave over those other issues. They were inexplicably willing to tolerate apostasy in their denominations. But when it became an 'icky' issue that was also a major political issue that they chose to leave.
Americans in general are much the same on political matters. The South had a whole range of serious constitutional issues in 1850. But they tolerated the intolerable until a hot button moral issue (that affected the pocketbooks of the wealthy slave owning class) actually led to secession.
Today, Americans tolerate evils and abuses from our government that make the causes of the Revolution pale unto insignificance beside them. We have for decades.
For goodness sakes,in a Supreme Court case, the Federal Government is forcing ship owners and fishermen to quarter federal employees on their ships at their own expense. This is exactly the same as quartering soldiers in homes, which is actually listed in the grievances against King George III.
And that's something so drowned in the bureaucratic tyranny of the regime that hardly anyone knows of it.
But what cannot continue won't.
My hope is that when this 'irrepressible conflict' comes, it's over an honorable issue. Immigration is one. So is the budget. So are 'forever wars.' So is 'transing kids.'
But Americans have a sorry track record of resistance to tyranny unless it affects rich men's pocketbooks and until they finally allow those rich men to choose dishonorable causes.
I sincerely wish that my Alabamian ancestors and the South had seceded in 1850. We would have won, and over honorable causes. Instead they delayed until a rich man's cause came along. They still fought for their homes and for the principles of the Founding. (My poor Cracker people in non-slaveholding north Alabama did anyhow.) But the whole nobility of the cause was shot through with defending the intolerable stain of chattel slavery.
And we lost because we waited until the balance of power had shifted such that a Southern victory was next to impossible.
If we do not resist and demand a return to constitutional government now, when we have right on our side, I fear that in years to come others will resist on worse ground, and when the hopes of success are narrowed to the point of impossibility.
Biden can instruct the border patrol to cut razor wire for public safety purposes.
Texas can reinstall the razor wire immediately afterward.
No one tries to arrest anyone else. Everyone complies with the order and goes home Monday night. Then Biden decides there's no need to cut any more wire. Of course, perhaps Biden isn't that smart. Perhaps he really has convinced himself that MAGA-man Abbot is a "danger to democracy". That's insane, but his party has been calling 74M of their fellow Americans racists, bigots and Nazis for 7 years straight. Eventually, you start believing your own PR. Perhaps he fails to appreciate just how volatile this really is (of course he does... he thinks the border is secure.)
I think Abbott is basically a wussy, establishment Republican who will eventually cave. His statement floored me, but he can read the populist room and words are cheap. Would he actually take concrete actions that would put himself or his assets in jeopardy in open defiance of the federal government? Not a chance. Biden nationalizing the Texas Guard would be a best-case scenario for Abbott, an offramp which ensures he doesn't end up in the DOJ crosshairs but still gets to claim he "did everything he could to stand up to the elites." Who knows, this could all still be a play for a Trump cabinet appointment.
Bottom line, this isn't the event that will start it. But it's another indication of how dysfunctional our governance structure has become.
It’s true what you say that a little bit of staunch resistance makes these people go into a fit but also reveals the limits of their power. I do not think Biden will federalize the TXNG just like you mentioned. There are other completely independent Texan law enforcement to continue Abbot’s defense of his state and the image of federalizing a national guard to usher IN an invasion is just too much. I do not like both forces so close to each other at the border, though. Many hot tempers and uncertainties could lead to a misfire or a bad whisper down the lane of commands.
You're doing yeoman's work with this series. It's some of the most sober and rational discussion I've seen of the topic, since most of the time it seems as if people take these events and make even more of a spectacle and sensation out of them than they already are. That being said, my only real comment is that I'm from Texas, my family is and many friends still are in Texas (albeit far away from the border), and, as you pointed out... none of them are talking about it. The only one who even seems concerned about it is my mom, and even then, she only knows the vague outline of what's going on because she's one of those people who makes a point to avoid indulging in the news that much. But even outside of them I've seen remarkably little coverage of what's going on in the MSM, which tells me that the powers that be really want to keep this under wraps. It's no mystery why - this whole thing is a PR nightmare for them at a time when they really, really do not need it. I can't imagine the Biden administration wants to risk escalation, especially in an election year. Even if Biden's on the outs, it would be catastrophic for the Democrat party and whoever ends up picking up the position of Democrat nominee in the election would inherit the ill will brought about by any severe action taken. It might be a stretch, since, as you pointed out, current Democrat representatives in the Texas legislature are calling for Biden to escalate, but if they did and it resulted in federal agents opening fire on the American citizens, I imagine even most moderate, left-leaning, go-along-to-get-along Democrat voters wouldn't find it shocking and abhorrent. We are on a knife's edge right now, and while I sincerely hope that this ends reasonably and without any violence, I think it's a foregone conclusion that if this isn't the event that pushes things off a cliff, another event this year will. Maybe it won't go into full Civil War territory, and I hope it doesn't, but things could come awful close.
Excellent work Max, I have spent too much time waiting for the shoe to drop today. We are in a precarious time in American history and I'm not sure how many are cognizant of it. Think I'll go sit in the sun and enjoy a good book for a bit. About those preps...
Interesting analysis, thanks. You came up in my Substack feed, not by any other recommendation, so I was surprised to see my friend Rod Dreher mentioned here. He's good people.
Soldiers under arms without mags or chambered = betrayed, and believe me they know it.
I appreciate your sober analysis. Cool heads work better. Cold eyes see clearly.
Echoing Austin Olive here. Found you via Dreher, (of whom I’m a huge fan). Was looking for some meaningful analysis of this crisis all day today, and this is by far the best. Incredible work, and I’m looking forward to reading your previous post and your future work.
Rod Dreher recommended that his readers come over here. I did, and I'm glad. Thank you for your work here.
For my part, I've been desperately hoping that some governor would do something like this for over 30 years. I'm 49 now, and I've been paying attention to politics since Carter-Reagan in 1980. (My dad was a Goldwater man in '64, and started me on politics early.) When I was a US History and Poli. Sci. major in college (started 1992) I saw the handwriting on the wall and have been hoping for what Greg Abbott did this week. Honestly, I had such a spring in my step yesterday (1/25/24) I surprised myself.
That said, it is astounding to me that this is happening and the MSN - and even the conservative outlets - aren't on this like white on rice. It seems like crickets.
This is the biggest news since 1861, as you note. It may turn out like the Nashville Convention of 1850, with some mutually face-saving detente. But just as 1861 was inevitable in 1850, something catastrophic is inevitable today.
Just as Mr Lincoln said of slavery, we cannot continue half Progressive, half traditional. Eventually the Union, to be preserved, must become all one thing or another. That said, I don't see how that can be resolved without conflict. Lord willing, that conflict will not be a second civil war.
But do you see a way that we CAN resolve it otherwise? I cannot. We are facing 'soft totalitarianism' (per Dreher) or hard from the Progressives. Either way is unacceptable.
I'm at a point where I fear a failure of will to resist by the states today will, like the South's failure to act in 1850, guarantee that we lose down the road. Had the South stood up to Washington and the Yankees in 1850, we would have won. And we would have won without the stain of secession over slavery (as in 1860).
If conservatives do not stand up now, while resistance is still feasible, and on this issue, which is noble, I fear that our future issue will be less honorable, and at a time less likely to succeed.
I would appreciate your thoughts.
I really struggle with that Austin. On the one hand I think Lincoln may well have been the most destructive President in the history of the nation. The Civil War effectively ended federalism.
But on the other hand, the idea of having a nation in which half the states still practices slavery today (or were at least openly white supremacist ala Jim Crow) is completely unthinkable. Lincoln was correct that the nation could not hold together in such a bifurcated form: "a house divided against itself cannot stand." There are some things that simply can not be compromised.
Somehow we need to recover federalism but still retain some of the universality of Christian dignity and Lockean liberalism. How do you get there in a society that has largely given up on both Locke and God? (Honestly, I don't think you do, which is why I'm expecting a Franco like figure at some point.)
I agree.
Re slavery: From my assessment of the history of the issue of slavery, I don't think that Southern slavery would have endured much longer. After all, the United States and Haiti were the only countries that ended slavery violently. I am confident that emancipation would have happened within a few decades, as it did in Brazil. And that without violence.
But as I said, to allow secession to happen over that issue was a disgrace. But it's not just in politics that such things have happened.
A sterling example is the death of 'mainline' Protestantism. There's been much made in the last 20 years of huge splits (secessions) in the mainline denominations. The Presbyterians, the Episcopalians / Anglicans, and most recently the United Methodists have had huge splits. (25-100% of the UMC congregations have left in various parts of the US.)
But why did they leave? They left over homosexuality. They didn't leave over denials of the trustworthiness of the Bible. They didn't leave over denials of the Virgin birth or miracles or the reality of heaven and hell. They didn't even leave over denials of the Resurrection or the Divinity of Christ. They left over gay marriage and gay clergy.
I understand that is a major issue. I believe that is an issue worth dividing over. But it isn't an issue at the heart of Christianity.
It is a shame upon the conservatives that they did not leave over those other issues. They were inexplicably willing to tolerate apostasy in their denominations. But when it became an 'icky' issue that was also a major political issue that they chose to leave.
Americans in general are much the same on political matters. The South had a whole range of serious constitutional issues in 1850. But they tolerated the intolerable until a hot button moral issue (that affected the pocketbooks of the wealthy slave owning class) actually led to secession.
Today, Americans tolerate evils and abuses from our government that make the causes of the Revolution pale unto insignificance beside them. We have for decades.
For goodness sakes,in a Supreme Court case, the Federal Government is forcing ship owners and fishermen to quarter federal employees on their ships at their own expense. This is exactly the same as quartering soldiers in homes, which is actually listed in the grievances against King George III.
And that's something so drowned in the bureaucratic tyranny of the regime that hardly anyone knows of it.
But what cannot continue won't.
My hope is that when this 'irrepressible conflict' comes, it's over an honorable issue. Immigration is one. So is the budget. So are 'forever wars.' So is 'transing kids.'
But Americans have a sorry track record of resistance to tyranny unless it affects rich men's pocketbooks and until they finally allow those rich men to choose dishonorable causes.
I sincerely wish that my Alabamian ancestors and the South had seceded in 1850. We would have won, and over honorable causes. Instead they delayed until a rich man's cause came along. They still fought for their homes and for the principles of the Founding. (My poor Cracker people in non-slaveholding north Alabama did anyhow.) But the whole nobility of the cause was shot through with defending the intolerable stain of chattel slavery.
And we lost because we waited until the balance of power had shifted such that a Southern victory was next to impossible.
If we do not resist and demand a return to constitutional government now, when we have right on our side, I fear that in years to come others will resist on worse ground, and when the hopes of success are narrowed to the point of impossibility.
Sorry for the overly lengthy comments.
Well said, my friend. Lots to think about here.
Dang what a great article. Just shared it with my people. This kinda makes me wanna go to Texas
I think both sides can save face here.
Biden can instruct the border patrol to cut razor wire for public safety purposes.
Texas can reinstall the razor wire immediately afterward.
No one tries to arrest anyone else. Everyone complies with the order and goes home Monday night. Then Biden decides there's no need to cut any more wire. Of course, perhaps Biden isn't that smart. Perhaps he really has convinced himself that MAGA-man Abbot is a "danger to democracy". That's insane, but his party has been calling 74M of their fellow Americans racists, bigots and Nazis for 7 years straight. Eventually, you start believing your own PR. Perhaps he fails to appreciate just how volatile this really is (of course he does... he thinks the border is secure.)
I think Abbott is basically a wussy, establishment Republican who will eventually cave. His statement floored me, but he can read the populist room and words are cheap. Would he actually take concrete actions that would put himself or his assets in jeopardy in open defiance of the federal government? Not a chance. Biden nationalizing the Texas Guard would be a best-case scenario for Abbott, an offramp which ensures he doesn't end up in the DOJ crosshairs but still gets to claim he "did everything he could to stand up to the elites." Who knows, this could all still be a play for a Trump cabinet appointment.
Bottom line, this isn't the event that will start it. But it's another indication of how dysfunctional our governance structure has become.
It’s true what you say that a little bit of staunch resistance makes these people go into a fit but also reveals the limits of their power. I do not think Biden will federalize the TXNG just like you mentioned. There are other completely independent Texan law enforcement to continue Abbot’s defense of his state and the image of federalizing a national guard to usher IN an invasion is just too much. I do not like both forces so close to each other at the border, though. Many hot tempers and uncertainties could lead to a misfire or a bad whisper down the lane of commands.
You're doing yeoman's work with this series. It's some of the most sober and rational discussion I've seen of the topic, since most of the time it seems as if people take these events and make even more of a spectacle and sensation out of them than they already are. That being said, my only real comment is that I'm from Texas, my family is and many friends still are in Texas (albeit far away from the border), and, as you pointed out... none of them are talking about it. The only one who even seems concerned about it is my mom, and even then, she only knows the vague outline of what's going on because she's one of those people who makes a point to avoid indulging in the news that much. But even outside of them I've seen remarkably little coverage of what's going on in the MSM, which tells me that the powers that be really want to keep this under wraps. It's no mystery why - this whole thing is a PR nightmare for them at a time when they really, really do not need it. I can't imagine the Biden administration wants to risk escalation, especially in an election year. Even if Biden's on the outs, it would be catastrophic for the Democrat party and whoever ends up picking up the position of Democrat nominee in the election would inherit the ill will brought about by any severe action taken. It might be a stretch, since, as you pointed out, current Democrat representatives in the Texas legislature are calling for Biden to escalate, but if they did and it resulted in federal agents opening fire on the American citizens, I imagine even most moderate, left-leaning, go-along-to-get-along Democrat voters wouldn't find it shocking and abhorrent. We are on a knife's edge right now, and while I sincerely hope that this ends reasonably and without any violence, I think it's a foregone conclusion that if this isn't the event that pushes things off a cliff, another event this year will. Maybe it won't go into full Civil War territory, and I hope it doesn't, but things could come awful close.
Excellent work Max, I have spent too much time waiting for the shoe to drop today. We are in a precarious time in American history and I'm not sure how many are cognizant of it. Think I'll go sit in the sun and enjoy a good book for a bit. About those preps...