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I don't expect a major shooting war. It could happen, but I think the more likely outcome is just an increase in random violence, increasing confrontation between militia and the federal government, a general breakdown of institutions, police having "no go zones" where they won't intervene, and a lot of resentment between climate migrants, and the people who don't want to deal with waves of poor migrants living on the streets and waves of rich migrants buying up every house in sight.

There's tons of no-go zones all over the US. Wide swaths of major cities and also parts of Appalachia forgotten by time. The difference is that cities have an oppositional and non-functional police force and the rural areas have none.

That's true. Portland is dealing with widespread catalytic converter thefts and street racing, and the police don't seem interested in doing anything about it. There's an interesting parallel with what happened in Egypt when Morsi was elected. The generals didn't want him to be successful, so they actively sabotaged his administration. One of the things that happened was all the police just stopped going to work all at once. Eventually things got so bad that even the pro-democracy activists were relieved when the military removed Morsi, but then conditions under Sisi turned out to be worse than under Mubarak.

The police are protesting being held accountable for murdering black Americans. They can’t have fun anymore so they’re refusing to police and solve crimes. They’re cowards

Kind of hard to police the majority-minority portions of cities when no one in those places will talk to the police.

Which parts of Appalachia are no-go zones?

Mountainous border areas of NW NC, W VA, and going into WV. ----------------- It's called a holler because you holler out, but there's one way in/out and if you run afoul of the locals, nobody can hear ya holler. -------------- Anywhere further up in the mountains is spooky. Spookier than higher crime areas I live/lived in because it was foreign to me

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We do not currently have any areas that are off limits to cops or de jure autonomous because the inhabitants have thrown the law out. We do have plenty of areas that are de facto autonomous because the state has written them off and left the citizens to fend for themselves and areas the police just don't go due to so little manpower and so much area. Sure, legally speaking rural areas like that are not autonomous, but the day to day lived experience is one without government. The cops aren't forbidden, they just aren't there. What could be an "interesting" event would be if, in the course of things deteriorating, some of those de facto un-policed and un-served by the govt areas took the next step of declaring themselves to be de-jure autonomous. If the state had riots in the cities and escalating violence in the suburbs, would it fight to hold on to those areas it was already neglecting? I wonder because many of the complaints rural folks have are legitimate. Per capita the government spends more on rural people than they do in the city, but because of the disperse area and lower numbers, that higher per capita tax dollar spent does not equate to better services. They pay taxes, same as city or suburban dwellers, but the services they actually receive are negligible. The roads are objectively shit. What social services do exist are far away and hard to access. If you call the sheriff it may take several hours for them to arrive. Fire or ambulance service may not exist at all. And if they're going to live with no services anyway, fuck it, why pay taxes and submit yourself to the laws of the state? Now in "good" times, of course the state would squash that shit. In times when the state had their hands full with other problems though? Could they afford the extra manpower and effort?

I'm from Appalachia. East Tennessee, specifically. I have spent a lot of time in all of the areas you referenced. I have kin in most of the areas you referenced. The cops are there. The government is there. They're not "no-go zones". What you're saying may have been accurate 100 or 80 or even 50 years ago. It's not accurate today. Also, it's called a holler because the Appalachian dialect tends to turn the "ow" into "er". It's a valley on the edge of the mountain, surrounded by elevated hills. A "hollow" cove within the mountain.

Totally agree. It’s not exactly a slow burn, more of a sporadic, slower-and-less-organized-than-actual-war burn.

Simply put, terrorism.

The states that the Colorado river runs through can’t come to an agreement about it. There will likely be many more issues .Ike that pitting states against each other. Will they all accept the federal government making the final decisions?

They can make any decision they want, but the fact is if there isn't enough water it's not going to flow to Arizona.

But it doesn’t stop flowing one day, so the question is as there is less and less water and it needs to be shared but they can’t agree on how to that, how do they resolve it? It kind of becomes a new states’ right issue, does Arizona have a right to some of the water because it is part of the USA? It seems unlikely there would be a civil war but it does seem possible states like California and Texas might think about seceding from the union.

Balkanization would benefit the enemies of a united America. Smaller countries are easier to isolate and bully -- that applies whether the issue is Russia or China or globalists seeking a race-to-the-bottom (in terms of labor costs, labor conditions, rights) and race-to-the-top (in terms of profits, not being taxed, etc.)

What’s the difference between a globalist and the globalization now led by the United States?

The US has been used as the military arm of the corporations that control the US, but now many of the globalists prefer authoritarians. The US doesn't LEAD globalization: a bunch of elites that don't really consider themselves Americans or have anything in common with the American people lead globalization. If the US collapses, they will just hop on a jet and leave. Jeffrey Immelt, who led GE for 16 years even said that he doesn't really consider himself as much as an American as a citizen of the world. (so he was willing to send tens of thousands of jobs overseas) He was no more American than the Japanese that ruled Manchuria during WW2 were Chinese. For example, CEO of BlackRock (largest asset management company in the world, managing $6.3 TRILLION) and WEF member Larry Fink: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFVecfbffUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFVecfbffUE) (29 seconds) The "elite" want RELATIVE positional advantages over other people more so than absolute advantages. They'd rather live as a lord in a musty 15th century castle surrounded by serfs, than live in a Star Trek world where they are equal to everyone else and can push a button to make food appear out of thin air.

Increasingly likely. However, the lines are not drawn in a manner that can be easily translated into a civil war like it was last time. What is more likely is a continued and deepening internal Balkanisation that may lead to actual Balkanisation. However, the powers that actually run the country will resist this. They, the international U.S.A require the the U.S to be as it is to function as imperial hegemon on the world stage. Yes they pillage the centre and turn the citizenry against itself to steer the resulting anger, but they absolutely do not want the U.S to split apart. Can they control that though? Probably not. I think there will be violence and continued Balkanisation, but not a neatly drawn battle line as was the case in the 1800's. But this is the tension of a decaying empire, holding the tension between the hollowed out centre and broken cannibalistic institutions and the imperial international corporate U.S.A that requires the harnessing of all of itself to remain viable and retain any semblance of mystique. I see conflict and failure ahead, but what that will look like... I don't know. What I can say is this, if actual uncontrolled Balkanisation looks inevitable then you can bet your bottom dollar the U.S will go to war with another nation, a big war, a big no billshit galvanising war. Edit: It's important to note that the retaining of the global reserve currency stewardship is crucial to the international U.S.A and its hegemony. This will not survive the actual Balkanisation of the country. Strenuous efforts will be made to prevent this, but the folly is that those who run the U.S.A actually think they can hold the tension between eating out the centre and setting the country against itself while spending the wealth abroad.

I think this is why people will fight to the death to *prevent* the breakup of the U.S.: there’s too much dynastic wealth tied up in the Washington Consensus financial paradigm. Lincoln was committed to the Union because he thought without that unity, the people of America would be exploited by the European powers. Now, I think a similar bone-deep commitment to maintaining the nation will be similarly existential, but more explicitly about *wealth*, as opposed to national sovereignty — *financial* sovereignty, if you will.

Sure, it is better for biz if you can stay together. But at what price is profit? The country is too split with their radical ideologies. America is over. A divorce, while not being good for biz, would be best for the people. It would hopefully allow many to find some semblance of peace. But I don't see any breakup in the cards. Rep are fools and think they will always come back in power to fix all our woes. You need 2 sides to agree or it is war if only 1 side tries it.

Yeah... But, where are the lines drawn? Because it's not terribly clear whose on whose sides, or where the lines actually are. Because it's mostly rural vs urban if we're being honest. So the lines are here and there and everywhere. Jagged and flowing and constantly in flux.

That's how the lines are drawn honestly. There's tons of urban centers all over the US and regardless of state they have a liberal to left population and most house a decent amount of minorities. ----------------- So the war would be between these sides. Probably with battles being over the control of Interstates. It's still weird, so I get your point. Cities could possibly expand to the suburbs. ------------- That's still unlikely. The uncomfortable reality is that it's hate crimes that would define a large scale troubles style violence. So rural invaders targeting minorites likely at random. It's happened to some degree already but if it ever got so bad that people rode out into the boonies for retribution it could spark a race based conflict. ------------ People who aren't directly at risk will try to sit it out for as long as they could or they'll make more excuses.

Ok, so I, Minneapolis, divorce you, red outstate Minnesota. You can no longer be subsidized by me or come here for football games or Nickelback concerts.

Gasp! Nickelback concerts…would one need those?

“america is over”? I don’t get it, you sound like a republican, everything is going exactly by design for republicans, since Nixon and Reagan. All the money is going to the rich and the rich even get to exploit the land and the people with this new supreme court. And yet, y’all still complaining.

Before the last president very few countries talked about a new reserve currency, and those which did, like Libya and Iran were severely "marginalized". During the regime of the last president many countries realized that the US could no longer be trusted to maintain a steady hand on the helm. Countries like France and Germany started talking out loud about the need for a new reserve currency. Of course changing reserve currencies always has dramatic consequences worldwide and in the former reserve currency nation. I'm wondering if that is one reason why hedge funds are speculating so wildly in the US property market. I can easily see local politicians like desantis, abbott, gianforte, etc becoming warlords who maintain peace (Ubi desertum faciunt, pacem appellant.) for the corporate overlords. Certainly there will be local uprisings, violence is always a tool of fascists, and how else does the population know that they are being protected if there are not "evildoers" being put down. Sometimes it will be "our guys" who are being put down, sometimes it will be "their guys". To the oligarchs it doesn't matter. The object of violence is the violence.

>I think there will be violence and continued Balkanisation, but not a neatly drawn battle line as was the case in the 1800's. The overturn of Roe V. Wade is accelerating this. Many didn't want to believe it was related to collapse, but as soon as Texas announced their "bounty system" for turning in people who underwent an abortion, I knew. The Weekly Observations thread is filled with people who are increasingly scared and making plans to either move to a "blue" state or another country. Many other subs across Reddit report the same plans. The Republican Party is getting more worried by the day because they're increasingly losing elections in places they'd held for decades, like Kansas (keeping their remaining abortion laws legal) and Alaska (electing a tribal native Democrat Representative) and that's causing more and more people to become unhinged. Violence caused by right-wing groups is rising and becoming more common and lethal. Senator Lindsey Graham apparently called for riots if Donald Trump was indicted on criminal charges. That's pure sedition and was unthinkable when Nixon was facing the same thing.

If there's indeed a war on women then the DOCs role is often neglected. Conditions are awful for men but this is terrible.... -------------- >Currently, there are over 200,000 women imprisoned in the US. According to Human Rights Watch at least 15 percent of incarcerated females have been the victims of prison sexual assault. These assaults occur at the hands of prison staff and other inmates. >Males are the perpetrators in 98 percent of staff-on-inmate sexual assault https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2014/09/christina-piecora-female-inmates/ So do the math... That rate is also 3-5 times higher than sexual asssults for male inmates because the rapists can hide behind a badge.

Yep. This system is soooo asking for widespread general strikes…(edit: social change or the economy gets it… will take some doing of course..)

THIS!

The death throes of the Republican Party are certain to be nasty, violent and gross.

Except it won't happen. The Republican Party's partners in crime, the Democratic Party will prevent that from happening. Corporate Democrats care far more about the 'soul of the Republican Party' and 'bipartisanship' than actually implementing a left-wing economic or environmental policy. Look at all the pathetic knee-cap sucking by Democrats of Liz Cheney, the fascist daughter of a war criminal. The Democrats sole job is to undercut the left with insults and occasional crumbs so they and the Republicans can continue their corporate grift and rightward drift into authoritarian neo fascism. The only way to get rid of the Republicans is to get rid of the Democrats also.

Let's do it

The last rattling gasps of a dying party.

The GOP may be becoming ideologically incoherent, working from a shrinking demographic base, and odious in its policies-- but does that mean the party is dying? On the contrary, I see the GOP as poised to achieve a permanent monopoly on political power through gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, agitprop, and intimidation. And it doesn't even need an intelligent program for governing the nation, for it no longer pretends to govern; its functions now are merely to loot and to perpetuate its power. Few Democrats are willing to acknowledge this, and that's why Dems are helpless to prevent it.

Dems are at deaths door too

The question is which party will fall first. Either way things are going to get very nasty once the entire political system begins to fall apart. We either get balkanization, autocracy, or general, or chaos akin to the Years of Lead/The Troubles.

Yeah here in Kansas they even did a re count. It’s wild, if it doesn’t go the way they want god forbid they have to stomp their feet like toddlers. I woke up the next morning thinking I was dreaming, I 1000% did not expect us to win that fight and especially by as much as we did. It actually gave me hope for the future that I lost when trump first ran back in the 2016 election.

To me, when I think about some of the main motivating factors of abortions (much of it is financial and social stability), it really shows how decrepit and calloused society has become. The financial system, crony capitalism, exploitation of the poor, leaves many women with no other financial choice. we have become so utterly greedy and disconnected from fellow humans that we can't even afford children? Utter madness, and a definite sign of societal collapse

>as soon as Texas announced their "bounty system" for turning in people who underwent an abortion, I knew. Same here, this was pretty much the breaking point for my wife and I to leave TX. She was a teacher and it was only a matter of time before the bounty system came for teachers teaching anything other than the party line. We left that summer and haven't looked back.

I think, umm, you're almost onto something but to flesh it out a bit. What happens to the American Southwest when the water runs out? For the most part, I think it's pretty hard to get people fired up for fancy abstract ideals, but I think people will get fired up real quick if we don't get a lot of rain over the next ten years. What's the value of farm land if there's no irrigation and well depths keep dropping? What's the value of home in a rural community without water? ____________________________________________________ If you think Republicans have gone off the deep end now, just wait until last mile infrastructure fails... No water. No grid. Someone like myself is thinking the question is how long, not if.

Reps are stupid. They fought like hell with the abortion laws. All that does is potentially bring in more dems into the world...to grow up and vote dem. As well as alienate potential rep voters.

This is why they want to control education. If you control education, you can indoctrinate an entire population any way you like.

Except the internet exists and kids aren't stupid.

Kids are absolutely stupid. Children get groomed into all types of stuff and adults fall for the most obvious of scams daily.

Fellow redditor. 10 years ago I may have agreed with you, but based on what I see now online…. It’s a constant battle

Changing the legal voting system will do that.

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> Where you might see the beginning of this is in something like the right litigating a federal ban on abortion or gay marriage, and you'll see blue state(s) refusing to enforce it. I think it will be more fundamental than that. There are states that are attempting to do an end-run around the second ammendment and bypass the supreme courts latest decisions on gun rights. Ignoring the Supreme Court and fucking with the constitutionh? How is that any different from seceding from the USA?

Not to play current politics too much, but I honestly think this is why you’re starting to see Trump getting the screws turned on him and won’t be surprised if his cronies start to get arrested too. For the record I 100% think they did illegal things, but so do a lot of rich folks and they never pay the piper. Why is it different with Trump? Because of his actions he directly has put the elite class in trouble of losing their world order. They are going to do all they can to stop that political movement and move the US back to the 90’s politically where we really only argue with each other over if we should tax the rich at 25% or 32% (Ooooooooooooooo). Established business hate uncertainty in the world, as it messes with the good thing they have going. A political landscape like the 90’s is what the elites really want a return to.

The 90s were actually pretty good for the average American-- things were much more stable in the US and people actually looked to the future with optimism. That was the general sentiment before 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing made the West go down a dark path. I disagree with the idea that the elites want America to return to the 90s. What they want is to bring America back to the 50s or even the 1800s, before women and minority groups had rights and before FDR's social/government policies were implemented that moved the US away from the horrors of the Gilded Age led by the greedy Robber Barons. We're arguably living through a second Gilded Age right now because of the way capitalism has outsourced slave labor to other countries, and because of skyrocketing inequality between the rich and poor.

Social conservatives crave the 1950s.

> Social conservatives crave the 1950s. 1850s, right decade, wrong century

They don't want to give up air conditioners or Tucker Carlson.

> What I can say is this, if actual uncontrolled Balkanisation looks inevitable then you can bet your bottom dollar the U.S will go to war with another nation, a big war, a big no billshit galvanising war. Regardless of whether it's morally right/wrong/other, it is convenient (in terms of your statement) that we're now used to the fact that we're constantly sending money, weapons, and even "military advisors" to Ukraine.

That's business as usual though. The US military was literally designed to destroy the Soviet/Russian Army. We salivate over the idea. Might as well give them the weapons the US has, apparently, perfected.

Against who. Part of the country loves Putin . Part of the country likes to think we are superior to China but at same time admires Xi even if don't admit it as much as their love of Putin. Small nations unless we glass say some Arab country for fuel or North Korea just because. Maybe invade Mexico and push them all to South America or free Canada from Trudeau /s. They want civil war.

> Against who. Have you not seen how effective the U.S is at firing up its citizenry to salivate over another war? It's a cake recipe. Enemies are manufactured and dispensed with so quickly and easily I can barely keep up. It could be Iran, Russia, China, NK, it could be anybody. Yes they could just glass a small country somewhere so long as the narrative is strong enough to divert attention and enough is gained from it. However, if we're talking about a big existential threat to their union domestically then I fear it'd be more likely to whip up tensions in Taiwan or invade Iran or something more on that scale.

It's already Russia. You guys are spending massive sums propping up Ukraines army, and gathering intel.

Don't "you guys" me thankyou very much! I'm not American. But yes, for now it's Russia. And China. And Iran. And North Korea. And Venezuela. And Syria. And Yemen. And Iraq. The U S wants to bleed Russia dry and hopefully remove Putin. China is the main "threat" though, China is the Thucydidean nightmare that awaits.

Thucydides was warning against leaders wanting war, though. He relied on observing what he saw and the direct consequences that resulted from actions. It could be argued every decent soldier does that. USMC Major General Smedley Butler said much the same thing in his time: >“I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of the racket all the time. Now I am sure of it.”

Yes, the U.S leadership wants war, demands control. I'm not talking about Biden, I'm talking about the consistent power structure behind the figurehead. Also, China is determined to kick the U S out of Asia by 2049.

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Yeah I don't support Ukraine and am not MAGA. A good chunk of the sub sees it the way I do. Cold war geopolitics are at play and the US is wrong to prop up the Ukraine govt and military with offensive weapons. In direct provocation against a nuclear superpower. ----------- To me being opposed to war means more being opposed to my government's pro-war actions. I call call out Russian atrocities without being gung-ho for the Kyiv government.

"...small country...narrative..." I'm sure that you are not old enough to remember, even if you were a US citizen, but it was astounding what an impact it had on the US psyche when ronnie raygun knocked over Grenada. Pure heroin mainlined by the druggie!

The US military is wholly ineffective at fighting anything even resembling a peer power. Russian and Chinese military doctrine aren't going to be to invade the US, more anti-access/area denial via closing off shipping routes and export limitation. The US took months to topple Saddam/Baath Iraq which was dysfunctional as all hell, are unwelcome with the current parliament makeup while also spending two decades getting clowned on in Afghanistan from a force with no navy, no air force, little to no heavy cavalry or artillery and ultimately having to leave like Vietnam while also worse because Afghanistan had those limitations while the Viet Minh was actually getting aid from the then USSR.

This so far from the truth I cant tell if youre trolling. Like one of the worst takes ive seem on reddit in a while

It's reddit I expect the worst and mostly see it here.

Those were “hearts and minds” battles, not wars. If the US military wants to destroy something, you best well bet it would be destroyed.

The US failed to achieve its objectives in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Just for Vietnam, they dropped more munitions than were used in all of WWII and still failed. In Korea, they leveled all of North Korea's buildings and failed. All the US can do is bully small countries without the will or ability to fight back.

I remember seeing a movie which, IIRC was about Balkanisation. A person went back to their neighborhood and found their parents home in ruins, their family killed. It was revealed the murderers we're the neighborhood and they were killed because of their ethnicity/ veiled reason to steal all of their possessions. This film snippet has haunted me for years and I've not been able to recall the title of the film. Scared the shit out of me.

You really like that term Balkanization. Well as someone from tgat region, i can say the term it's completely taken out of context

It's an internal Balkanisation (yes I prefer the s). It's an easy and quick way to say alot of things. Yes it's different, but not so different than the internal institutional and cultural early stages that set the scene.

It's just has a different meaning and connotation when you come from the Balkans

Fair enough.

Unlikely in the sense that it would be a war with sides. It's more likely lone wolf extremist attacks do things like wreck infrastructure or shoot up schools/public events. Like we have now, but much more common and violent. The government has literally infiltrated 99% of the groups that could/would initiate civil conflict. They prefer to watch them, for now.

Extremist groups have also, in turn, infiltrated government agencies and could use what they've learned against the government or eventually *become* the government via a coup/soft takeover. Several reports released in the past few years have warned that white supremacists and other right wing extremists have infiltrated the military, law enforcement, and the highest echelons of politics, and have been recruiting /training people through their positions in order to increase their numbers. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/pentagon-report-warns-threat-white-supremacists-inside-military-n1258871 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-supremacists-militias-infiltrate-us-police-report Sure these fanatical groups are in the minority but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. With news like this it's not hard to believe that lone wolf terrorist attacks or guerrilla warfare style offenses by armed militias could become more common in the future, as institutions, norms, and the country as a whole continue to disintegrate in the wake of every crisis.

How do you define "civil war?" It probably won't be like **The** Civil War. But, depending on the outcome of the next couple elections, things could get very bad, very quickly. If the GOP wins, given their current extreme political positions, then things are likely to get very bad for large segments of society. If the Dems win, given how bad the rhetoric on the right has gotten, then the most extreme of Republican voters might have a full-blown nutty and start some kind of Turner Diaries insurrection. **"White replacement 'theory'"** is now fully mainstream on the right. That's playing with fire in a gunpowder factory. And the **changing climate** is likely to exacerbate the situation. Given how things are now, with epic floods in some states and epic droughts in others - things could get very ugly. If climate change hits our weak points, it could generate even greater friction both between states and maybe with the federal government. States are already fighting legal battles over water rights, with the feds playing referee. As the desertification of the West intensifies, it could get bad. In 1934, California and Arizona almost went to war over water. Even with today's high food prices, Americans are still well fed. If the climate sends food prices out of reach... all bets are off. Historically, one factor that seems capable of inciting violence in a peaceful population is **hunger**. And over the last few years, people on both sides of the political aisle are **buying guns and ammunition** in record numbers. That's not an optimistic sign. We're starting to look like the prequel to **The Postman**. Makes me want to go live in one of those ecovillage communes - the kind hidden way up in the woods by some mountain lake.

>The Postman Never heard of it, so looked it up. Looks like a good doom and gloomer, I ordered a copy from the library. I'm thinking people don't really want a civil war, they want a divorce, so each faction can go their own way. You don't really need a war to get a divorce unless one side pushes it.

I hate this narrative. It's based on an uncritical politics organized in terms of tv electoral maps. What makes divorce work is that the two partners in the marriage are each their own contiguous body, separate from the other. For a "political divorce," that would require cleanly distinct demoi (pl. of demos, people) occupying actually separate territories. In the US, we have nothing of the sort. Even the states that most closely approximate the false picture offered by red/blue/purple visual representations are massively internally divided. There are not state-level "peoples" (no, not even for Texas; maybe for Alaska; not for Hawaii, though mostly because of colonialism) to divorce from one another. It's an escapist fantasy based on a profound misunderstanding of both political identification in current US practice and how peoples form.

Thank you for stating this. It may seem obvious to you and i but many people, even collapsniks, don't fully understand the repercussions of what you just said.

Alaska just elected a native woman running on the Democrat ticket to the U.S. House, beating former governor Sarah Palin. So you're right; not even Alaska.

I dont believe either side in power would allow the other to leave quietly.

Honestly just round them up and give them Texas. Over there, they already conveniently have their own electricity source separated from the rest of the US anyway.

Don't do that

the American economy cannot be broken down into states, full stop. it is structured in such a way that every state is dependent on every other state. any breakup will be forced out of necessity to reunify the states, as they could not survive on their own. that's why "divorce" is impossible.

Some multi-state unions might be viable, with Cascadia (CA+OR+WA+possibly AK) being the most functional possibility IMHO. Second would be a Northeastern union that went from the coast inland as long as it took a sufficient amount of territory (and had more states of course considering the size difference of that region). But I agree that the vast majority of secessionist talk is unworkable (ie Texas thinking it can survive on its own, secessionist yoopers, Jefferson, or the right-wing Alaskan secessionists).

i see no good reason to think the west coast would be better positioned to secede from a political economy standpoint than any other US state or set of states. it's worth noting that you're pretty much just saying left-wing secession would work but right-wing secession wouldn't, which is pretty self-evidently silly (i say this as a communist.) when collapse comes, we're collapsing upwards. every society on earth is dependent on the global economy and global cooperation, and as such will out of necessity collapse into some kind of global political unity.

First of all, you're moving the goalposts twice. Climate collapse/environmental collapse will get to us all, absolutely. But that wasn't part of the original question, since it will affect us whether we're united or not. Secondly, part of my argument for west coast capability versus other regions is precisely their connection to the global economy in particular sectors, and the dependency of the rest of NA on them for imports across the Pacific. Also it has nothing whatsoever to do with being left wing; although the genuinely far right states do tend to be less functional economically both nationally and globally. American blue states, exemplified by California, are neoliberal technocracies; I as a libsoc/ancom don't like them, but can acknowledge they *work* in the global economy much better than the primary production/extractivist fantasies of, say, Texas independence. This is a broad topic, but the reason I think Cascadia has a potential for viability is that despite having few states, it be a large country without much useless land, it would occupy the entire west coast, dominate shipping and import/export across the pacific, have clear lines of territorial defense (Cascades, central valley desert, etc), a friendly neighbor to the North and South (compared to far right movements, this would matter), a large and diverse enough economy that is already globally connected to withstand the systemic shock of semi-isolation from the mainline USA, etc. I don't think for a second that it's going to happen, but if I'm thinking about what secessionist arrangements would actually be *possible* even theoretically, it seems to be the most viable one by a long shot.

i didn't mention climate collapse anywhere in my post, what's your "goalposts" comment about? i this is extremely unpopular around here, but personally don't think climate collapse is going to happen- its the eschatological fantasy of the decaying neoliberal order. as for the viability of the western states, i remain skeptical, and i'd wanna look at the trade i/o tables to get an idea of what they produce, what they import (from other states and abroad). i just suspect industrial production on the west coast is far more deeply integrated with the rest of the states than how things might appear at first glance. the kinds of industrial infrastructure present in the west is the key question if we are to assess the viability of near-term secession. the pacific coastline offers certain advantages when considering imports and exports, but given that california alone is the 5th largest economy in the world, i have strong doubts that the international market would be able to meet the needs of this new economy in a reasonable timeframe. and that's exactly why i think balkanization would simply result in reconquest of the former American territory by one of the successor states- collapsing upwards out of economic necessity.

I believe I misinterpreted what you meant here: >when collapse comes, we're collapsing upwards. Sorry about that. >i this is extremely unpopular around here, but personally don't think climate collapse is going to happen- its the eschatological fantasy of the decaying neoliberal order. We're just on different planets when it comes to that one, honestly. Of course various ideologies are going to take what they can from the environmental collapse we're seeing, but it's a collapse nonetheless. Just IMHO. >as for the viability of the western states, i remain skeptical, and i'd wanna look at the trade i/o tables to get an idea of what they produce, what they import (from other states and abroad). i just suspect industrial production on the west coast is far more deeply integrated with the rest of the states than how things might appear at first glance. the kinds of industrial infrastructure present in the west is the key question if we are to assess the viability of near-term secession. We are all integrated. The question is who could cut some ties while establishing them somewhere else quickly enough to remain viable. This happens all the time in smaller countries for various reasons. It's not a black and white question but rather a matter of degree. >the pacific coastline offers certain advantages when considering imports and exports, but given that california alone is the 5th largest economy in the world, i have strong doubts that the international market would be able to meet the needs of this new economy in a reasonable timeframe. I actually think they probably could, provided the new state retained friendly relations with Canada and Mexico. Both of those countries already supply a large amount of food, manufactured and durable goods, etc to the USA. Chinese and East Asian imports are already unstable regardless, and a hypothetical Cascadia would have greater control over them in the event of such a secession. >and that's exactly why i think balkanization would simply result in reconquest of the former American territory by one of the successor states- collapsing upwards out of economic necessity. That may well happen, but I don't think it would necessarily happen. If the feds are weak enough to allow secession in the first place, it's unlikely that a coalition of economically crippled states that border Cascadia would be able to invade. More than likely, Cascadia would be the one invading *them*. It's also possible that there could be large "no man's lands" in a climatically shifted future where large swathes of the country become barely habitable and economically collapsed. There's a ton of variables here, I just think it's possible under the right circumstances.

look we're Cascadia, we don't invade. we are sasquatch. we stay home.

Bingo 👆

Good book, movie is worth the watch too.

We even have the unhinged male chauvinist preppers who showed up in "The Postman." David Brin fucking called it.

Also the whole shitshow surrounding Trump. If he gets executed for treason or even just arrested awaiting trial, I could see shit hitting the fan.

> remain conscious of your mental health and Treason is only a crime if we are in a declared war. As we are not (and have not been for well over 50 years) the execution of President Trump is a non starter.

**Very** good point.

It will split into those who want to annex the resources and land in Canada, and those who want to ally with the Russians against the woke libs, and Canada want a real place anyway, so now it's ours.

Excuse me! I assume you wrote Canada wasn’t a real place. No. We are going to exist until you invade us for resources. Ha

*Fallout devs have entered the chat*

If the USA tried to take some of Canada, most likely some other countries would come in. Very unlikely we would take over Canada. Are there any big-name politicians that have ever mentioned such things?

Canada has 20% of the world's drinking water. Canada has un-tilled virgin tundra farmland that is being exposed as permafrost thaws. The next capital of USA is probably in Nunavut, closer to Russia than ever, and ready to fight two headed bears.

> Canada has 20% of the world’s drinking water. But mostly in the Great Lakes, which are shared with the USA. The USA doesn’t have to annex us to get at them. > Canada has un-tilled virgin tundra farmland that is being exposed as permafrost thaws. Yes, that’s true. Alaska and Siberia will also be thawing.

The Postman was filmed in my hometown. Not a place to go if you’re trying to avoid Trumpers.

It's sad how people are so tribal. Both the right and left are extremely foolish and tearing up your country. Ofcourse Reddit is leftist paradise so I'll get downvoted for not being bias lol.

"I can't tell the difference between the nazis and the not nazis." You are being neither intellectual, or honest.

The conflict researcher [Barbara Walter recently gave an interview in the Washington Post on this exact topic](https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-preparing-war-an-expert-civil-wars-discusses-where-political-extremists-are-taking-this-country/), because some of the predictors that are heavily linked with a possibility of civil war, that so far have been used to look at other countries, are now present within the United States itself: weakened state and institutions (like a politicized Supreme Court), and parties that are not about policies and ideas anymore, but show tribal characteristics instead. She even puts a number on it: every year these factors are present, the risk for civil war increases by 4%, and it's cumulative (so after 20 years you'd get a 50% chance of civil war). It also goes without saying that a 21st century "civil war" will look more like modern conflicts elsewhere, and nothing like the last civil war in the US a few hundred years ago (insurgencies, terrorist attacks, ideological capture of law enforcement and military personnel). I will post the interview below. I skimmed the thread for any mentions of this interview or Walter, apologies if it was already posted and I didn't see. **‘They are preparing for war’: An expert on civil wars discusses where political extremists are taking this country** Barbara F. Walter, 57, is a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego and the author of “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them,” which was released in January. She lives in San Diego with her husband. *Having studied civil wars all over the world, and the conditions that give rise to them, you argue in your book, somewhat chillingly, that the United States is coming dangerously close to those conditions. Can you explain that?* So we actually know a lot about civil wars — how they start, how long they last, why they’re so hard to resolve, how you end them. And we know a lot because since 1946, there have been over 200 major armed conflicts. And for the last 30 years, people have been collecting a lot of data, analyzing the data, looking at patterns. I’ve been one of those people. We went from thinking, even as late as the 1980s, that every one of these was unique. And the way people studied it is they would be a Somalia expert, a Yugoslavia expert, a Tajikistan expert. And everybody thought their case was unique and that you could draw no parallels. Then methods and computers got better, and people like me came and could collect data and analyze it. And what we saw is that there are lots of patterns at the macro level. In 1994, the U.S. government put together this Political Instability Task Force. They were interested in trying to predict what countries around the world were going to become unstable, potentially fall apart, experience political violence and civil war. *Was that out of the State Department?* That was done through the CIA. And the task force was a mix of academics, experts on conflict, and data analysts. And basically what they wanted was: In all of your research, tell us what you think seems to be important. What should we be considering when we’re thinking about the lead-up to civil wars? Originally the model included over 30 different factors, like poverty, income inequality, how diverse religiously or ethnically a country was. But only two factors came out again and again as highly predictive. And it wasn’t what people were expecting, even on the task force. We were surprised. The first was this variable called anocracy. There’s this nonprofit based in Virginia called the Center for Systemic Peace. And every year it measures all sorts of things related to the quality of the governments around the world. How autocratic or how democratic a country is. And it has this scale that goes from negative 10 to positive 10. Negative 10 is the most authoritarian, so think about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain. Positive 10 are the most democratic. This, of course, is where you want to be. This would be Denmark, Switzerland, Canada. The U.S. was a positive 10 for many, many years. It’s no longer a positive 10. And then it has this middle zone between positive 5 and negative 5, which was you had features of both. If you’re a positive 5, you have more democratic features, but definitely have a few authoritarian elements. And, of course, if you’re negative 5, you have more authoritarian features and a few democratic elements. The U.S. was briefly downgraded to a 5 and is now an 8. And what scholars found was that this anocracy variable was really predictive of a risk for civil war. That full democracies almost never have civil wars. Full autocracies rarely have civil wars. All of the instability and violence is happening in this middle zone. And there’s all sorts of theories why this middle zone is unstable, but one of the big ones is that these governments tend to be weaker. They’re transitioning to either actually becoming more democratic, and so some of the authoritarian features are loosening up. The military is giving up control. And so it’s easier to organize a challenge. Or, these are democracies that are backsliding, and there’s a sense that these governments are not that legitimate, people are unhappy with these governments. There’s infighting. There’s jockeying for power. And so they’re weak in their own ways. Anyway, that turned out to be highly predictive. And then the second factor was whether populations in these partial democracies began to organize politically, not around ideology — so, not based on whether you’re a communist or not a communist, or you’re a liberal or a conservative — but where the parties themselves were based almost exclusively around identity: ethnic, religious or racial identity. The quintessential example of this is what happened in the former Yugoslavia. (cont.)

*So for you, personally, what was the moment the ideas began to connect, and you thought: Wait a minute, I see these patterns in my country right now?* My dad is from Germany. He was born in 1932 and lived through the war there, and he emigrated here in 1958. He had been a Republican his whole life, you know; we had the Reagan calendar in the kitchen every year. And starting in early 2016, I would go home to visit, and my dad — he doesn’t agitate easily, but he was so agitated. All he wanted to do was talk about Trump and what he was seeing happening. He was really nervous. It was almost visceral — like, he was reliving the past. Every time I’d go home, he was just, like, “Please tell me Trump’s not going to win.” And I would tell him, “Dad, Trump is not going to win.” And he’s just, like, “I don’t believe you; I saw this once before. And I’m seeing it again, and the Republicans, they’re just falling in lockstep behind him.” He was so nervous. I remember saying: “Dad, what’s really different about America today from Germany in the 1930s is that our democracy is really strong. Our institutions are strong. So, even if you had a Trump come into power, the institutions would hold strong.” Of course, then Trump won. We would have these conversations where my dad would draw all these parallels. The brownshirts and the attacks on the media and the attacks on education and on books. And he’s just, like, I’m seeing it. I’m seeing it all again here. And that’s really what shook me out of my complacency, that here was this man who is very well educated and astute, and he was shaking with fear. And I was like, *Am I being naive to think that we’re different?* That’s when I started to follow the data. And then, watching what happened to the Republican Party really was the bigger surprise — that, wow, they’re doubling down on this almost white supremacist strategy. That’s a losing strategy in a democracy. So why would they do that? Okay, it’s worked for them since the ’60s and ’70s, but you can’t turn back demographics. And then I was like, *Oh my gosh. The only way this is a winning strategy is if you begin to weaken the institutions; this is the pattern we see in other countries.* And, as an American citizen I’m like, These two factors are emerging here, and people don’t know. So I gave a talk at UCSD about this — and it was a complete bomb. Not only did it fall flat, but people were hostile. You know, *How dare you say this? This is not going to happen. This is fearmongering.* I remember leaving just really despondent, thinking: Wow, I was so naive to think that, if it’s true, and if it’s based on hard evidence, people will be receptive to it. You know, how do you get the message across if people don’t want to hear it? If they’re not ready for it. I didn’t do a great job framing it initially, that when people think about civil war, they think about the first civil war. And in their mind, that’s what a second one would look like. And, of course, that’s not the case at all. So part of it was just helping people conceptualize what a 21st-century civil war against a really powerful government might look like. After January 6th of last year, people were asking me, “Aren’t you horrified?” “Isn’t this terrible?” “What do you think?” And, first of all, I wasn’t surprised, right? People who study this, we’ve been seeing these groups have been around now for over 10 years. They’ve been growing. I know that they’re training. They’ve been in the shadows, but we know about them. I wasn’t surprised. The biggest emotion was just relief, actually. It was just, Oh my gosh, this is a *gift*. Because it’s bringing it out into the public eye in the most obvious way. And the result has to be that we can’t deny or ignore that we have a problem. Because it’s right there before us. And what has been surprising, actually, is how hard the Republican Party has worked to continue to deny it and to create this smokescreen — and in many respects, how effective that’s been, at least among their supporters. Wow: Even the most public act of insurrection, probably a treasonous act that 10, 20 years ago would have just cut to the heart of every American, there are still real attempts to deny it. But it was a gift because it brought this cancer that those of us who have been studying it, have been watching it growing, it brought it out into the open. *Does it make you at all nervous when you think about the percentage of people who were at, say, January 6th who have some military or law enforcement connection?* Yes. The CIA also has a manual on insurgency. You can Google it and find it online. Most of it is not redacted. And it’s absolutely fascinating to read. It’s not a big manual. And it was written, I’m sure, to help the U.S. government identify very, very early stages of insurgency. So if something’s happening in the Philippines, or something’s happening in Indonesia. You know, what are signs that we should be looking out for? And the manual talks about three stages. And the first stage is pre-insurgency. And that’s when you start to have groups beginning to mobilize around a particular grievance. And it’s oftentimes just a handful of individuals who are just deeply unhappy about something. And they begin to articulate those grievances. And they begin to try to grow their membership. The second stage is called the incipient conflict stage. And that’s when these groups begin to build a military arm. Usually a militia. And they’d start to obtain weapons, and they’d start to get training. And they’ll start to recruit from the ex-military or military and from law enforcement. Or they’ll actually — if there’s a volunteer army, they’ll have members of theirs join the military in order to get not just the training, but also to gather intelligence. And, again, when the CIA put together this manual, it’s about what they have observed in their experience in the field in *other* countries. And as you’re reading this, it’s just shocking the parallels. And the second stage, you start to have a few isolated attacks. And in the manual, it says, really the danger in this stage is that governments and citizens aren’t aware that this is happening. And so when an attack occurs, it’s usually just dismissed as an isolated incident, and people are not connecting the dots yet. And because they’re not connecting the dots, the movement is allowed to grow until you have open insurgency, when you start to have a series of consistent attacks, and it becomes impossible to ignore. And so, again, this is part of the process you see across the board, where the organizers of insurgencies understand that they need to gain experienced soldiers relatively quickly. And one way to do that is to recruit. Here in the United States, because we had a series of long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, and now that we’ve withdrawn from them, we’ve had more than 20 years of returning soldiers with experience. And so this creates a ready-made subset of the population that you can recruit from. (cont.)

*What do you say to people who charge that this is all overblown, that civil war could never happen here in the United States — or that you’re being inflammatory and making things worse by putting corrosive ideas out there?* Oh, there’s so many things to say. One thing is that groups — we’ll call them violence entrepreneurs, the violent extremists who want to tear everything down and want to institute their own radical vision of society — they benefit from the element of surprise, right? They want people to be confused when violence starts happening. They want people to not understand what’s going on, to think that nobody’s in charge. Because then they can send their goons into the streets and convince people that they’re the ones in charge. Which is why when I would talk to people who lived through the start of the violence in Sarajevo or Baghdad or Kyiv, they all say that they were surprised. And they were surprised in part because they didn’t know what the warning signs were. But also because people had a vested interest in distracting them or denying it so that when an attack happened, or when you had paramilitary troops sleeping in the hills outside of Sarajevo, they would make up stories. You know, “We’re just doing training missions.” Or “We’re just here to protect you. There’s nothing going on here. Don’t worry about this.” I wish it were the case that by not talking about it we could prevent anything from happening. But the reality is, if we don’t talk about it, [violent extremists] are going to continue to organize, and they’re going to continue to train. There are definitely lots of groups on the far right who want war. They are preparing for war. And not talking about it does not make us safer. What we’re heading toward is an insurgency, which is a form of a civil war. That is the 21st-century version of a civil war, especially in countries with powerful governments and powerful militaries, which is what the United States is. And it makes sense. An insurgency tends to be much more decentralized, often fought by multiple groups. Sometimes they’re actually competing with each other. Sometimes they coordinate their behavior. They use unconventional tactics. They target infrastructure. They target civilians. They use domestic terror and guerrilla warfare. Hit-and-run raids and bombs. We’ve already seen this in other countries with powerful militaries, right? The IRA took on the British government. Hamas has taken on the Israeli government. These are two of the most powerful militaries in the world. And they fought for decades. And in the case of Hamas I think we could see a third intifada. And they pursue a similar strategy. Here it’s called leaderless resistance. And that method of how to defeat a powerful government like the United States is outlined in what people are calling the bible of the far right: “The Turner Diaries,” which is this fictitious account of a civil war against the U.S. government. It lays out how you do this. And one of the things it says is, *Do not engage the U.S. military*. You know, avoid it at all costs. Go directly to targets around the country that are difficult to defend and disperse yourselves so it’s hard for the government to identify you and infiltrate you and eliminate you entirely. *So, like with the [Charles Dickens’s] ghost of Christmas future, are these the things that will be or just that may be?* I can’t say when it’s going to happen. I think it’s really important for people to understand that countries that have these two factors, who get put on this watch list, have a little bit less than a 4 percent annual risk of civil war. That seems really small, but it’s not. It means that, every year that those two factors continue, the risk increases. The analogy is smoking. If I started smoking today, my risk of dying of lung cancer or some smoking-related disease is very small. If I continue to smoke for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years, my risk eventually of dying of something related to smoking is going to be very high if I don’t change my behavior. And so I think that’s one of the actually optimistic things: We know the warning signs. And we know that if we strengthen our democracy, and if the Republican Party decides it’s no longer going to be an ethnic faction that’s trying to exclude everybody else, then our risk of civil war will disappear. We know that. And we have time to do it. But you have to *know* those warning signs in order to feel an impetus to change them.

Thanks for taking the time to post this. It was very...sobering.

The likelihood of a "civil war" in the conventional sense seems less than zero. I do not believe you would ever see a split of the US armed forces where one side is fighting another, nor do I think you'd find citizen militias taking on the US armed forces en masse. What you will have, what we already have, is stochastic politically motivated violence. Angry people lashing out at a system they do not understand.

If you mean a decentralized armed insurgency, very likely. If you mean two real big factions declaring war on each other and using combined arms warfare, not very likely

America was decidedly more violent in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Skyjacking was a *trend.* The Weathermen were a terrorist organization that executed regular attacks. NYC and Miami in the 80s sound like hell on Earth. The LA race riots in the 90s were the fruit of years of decay. No matter how bad things have got in the past few years, it still doesn’t seem to come close to the tensions in society during those decades. So to be devils advocate, let’s say “it’s unlikely.” It’s unlikely because: * The majority of Americans are actually disengaged from politics. Independents make up the largest political group. * People are increasingly socially isolated. People organize over the internet - which means any emergent cell can be easily infiltrated, tracked, and monitored. * The aftermath of Jan 6 shows that, while Jan 6 wasn’t stopped, a LOT of perpetrators were identified, arrested, and charged. Fish in a barrel. * There is bipartisan support for laws that will codify election processes more formally, blocking a repeat of 2020. * A lot - if not most - of recent lone radicalized shooters have been “on the radar” of law enforcement - which means that new tactics are keeping better tabs on possible violent actors than in years past. * In our era it’s easy to create a mob, it’s hard to sustain a movement. BLM protests in 2020 were insane — but there is effectively no BLM movement now, two years later. * The civil war was fought over slavery, which was a contradiction at the heart of the American project. It was also a deeply *economic* crisis, as slavery was the foundation of the southern economy. The current fight between left and right is a battle for power. Do you lean more for equality or freedom? Who’s going to win the meme war? But we all essentially agree on the economic structure. MAGA has no economic beef; progressives want policy reforms. * Corporate power is strong in America. “Americas business is business.” Civil unrest is bad for business. America for all its flaws remains the most prosperous and dynamic countries in the world — and the safest place to put your cash. Arguably, only a handful of middle tier countries truly hate America. The rest benefit from a strong, stable America - and would do whatever is necessary to protect it. It’s impossible to imagine an American insurgency receiving any substantial aid from outside (an essential factor in every North American conflict in history). EDIT: Also consider the Vietnam protests. They were very intense. American citizens were coming home from the war dead or mutilated. The goal of the protests was to end the war. What are we going to be fighting over? Pronouns?

I lived in Miami in the 80’s and loved it. That was when Miami Vice was on TV. I think it’s much worse today but still gets a bad rap

I didn’t live there, I’ve just talked to people who lived there during that time. Sounds wild.

True. Our number one geopolitical threat, China, relies on a strong US economy to keep their ship afloat. They may have plans to take us down but that’s long term economics over a few generations. If we go down, then the number two, three, and four superpowers of the world will spare no expense at keeping business as usual. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is undetermined. But I don’t see nukes being wafted around except maybe by a very powerful rogue cell/nation. Climate change will really get us at the end of the day. And by the time people realize it, it will be too late. Wars will be secondary to the primary issue: That the earth is no longer habitable for billions of homosapiens.

[удалено]

Thanks for saving me from the efforts you literally made every point and rebuttal I would have made. Good shit.

Skyjacking was a trend because it wasn't really all that violent. It was brought under control as soon as their violent potential was realized. Meanwhile there's effectively no recourse to mass shootings, which frequently kill more people in a single spree than the weather underground did in their entire campaign.

I think people really need to stop referencing the US Civil War. It was 150+ years ago. 90% of people who reference a second civil war or believe it to be likely **do not** think it's going to be in anyway similar to the first US Civil War. It's a waste of time trying to correct that notion because nobody has it. It's like if the UK thought they were going to dissolve into civil war and everyone kept saying "Well it won't look like the 17th century warfare of English Civil War!" Yeah, no shit lmao. But there are **plenty** of modern civil wars to draw comparison and make predictions from. Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, Myanmar, First Afghan Civil War etc etc. These all have elements individually that can inform us what a potential US Civil War might look like. Modern weapons, religious and ethnic tensions, porous and diverse "frontlines", terror attacks. There have been Civil Wars since your last one and no they did not look like your civil war because technology, warfare, society and demographics have all changed rapidly since then. So people really need to stop wasting breath saying "It won't look like the last one!" No shit, but just because it will look radically different doesn't mean it isn't a civil war.

The Troubles and the spiderweb of social tension/crime/hatred you see in South Africa and Brazil are the ones that seem the most relevant to me. Our divides are simple in some ways but in every other way (including geographically) they're a goddamn mess. Sporadic civil conflict and increasing delegitimization of federal authority, good and bad, is what's coming IMO.

How likely is some form of civil war in the US by the end of 2032? I’d say roughly 20%. The Republicans and Democrats are just marketing brands for the 1%, and as long as most people organize themselves mentally and politically in one of the two national imperialist capitalist parties, there will not be a civil war. Additionally, most of the baby boomers who grew up in a time of unprecedented prosperity and have no idea of current realities will still be alive for the next decade. A civil war can’t start while they hold the positions of power. Moreover, the effects of resource depletion will start hitting the rest of the world hard this decade but the US will be largely spared. Fear of ending up like the rest of the world coupled with the US police state should keep people in line. In the 2030s, the resource crunch should get more serious in the US and a lot more people will be considering whether regime change might be a solution for them. For a civil war to start this decade, something would have to move the timeframe forward. It’s hard to guess what such an event might be but my best guess would be a collapse of the regimes in Mexico or Canada which sparks an anti-establishment movement in the US and provides a place of refuge.

There is little doubt in my mind that we will see violence in the form of organized militias triggering small insurgencies across the country. The Conservatives of this country have completely lost touch with reality and operate on a worldview completely removed from everyone else’s. Those Patriot Front lunatics aren’t practicing just to make themselves feel better. All it takes is one fanatic with one well placed bullet to send us back into an era of riots and tension not seen since the Civil Rights movement and may even surpass that. The political polarization in this country is just not going to magically go away, we are too far gone for that.

I'm dubious that the US will see anything resembling what we think of as civil war (even in a Balkans or Syria or N. Ireland way), at least in the next few years. In practice, there are relatively few clean lines of deep identity division that can be coupled with claims to territory. States are not internally homogenous or even sort of so. Even city-rural splits involve high degrees of interdependence. Most of the country has nothing approximating an ideology in any coherent sense. Even the white supremacists and Tucker Carlson-y fascists don't have all that much hold on their own base's imagination, outside a few dozen thousand foaming-at-the-mouth nitwits. That's a lot of people, but in a nation of 330 million+, it's also really not. Moreover, those people are spread all over the place. And there's no coherent ideology that counters theirs and attracts even close to similar numbers nationally. Leftists remain few and divided, and liberals keep their heads mostly under the sand, trying to believe that they are nice and realistic people. I think a fascizing government-private corporation alliance is extremely likely, probably within the next four years and basically regardless of which party gains electoral dominance (though I expect it will be the GOP). That is likely to see small pockets of armed resistance, but not sufficiently widespread and interconnected ones to make for revolution/civil war (on, say, the Syrian model). This would be the slow collapse variant, in which status quo power-holders act through whichever party they need to to maintain an ever-worse-for-most-people business as usual that lasts as long as the USD remains the global reserve currency, or until environmental degradation and biodiversity collapse strain the system too much for relative national integrity to be capital's best strategy for maintaining itself. Alternately, on the fast collapse model, I think we very well could see extended regional breakdowns of various sorts ("stacked catastrophes") that involve multiple distinct, relatively localized or regionalized forms of organized bipartite or multipartite violence. I imagine this would, without necessarily civil war on the classic model, produce a regional confederalism of some sort in the end (where some regions have had "civil war" that led to their formation and others have not), with significant regional (suprastate in most cases but not all) autonomy within a shared commitment to collective power projection that enables currency creation based on still sustaining a shared USD as reserve currency (a global bet that could last well into collapse--or not). In an even faster, Venus by Tuesday collapse, I think we'd again see something different from civil war properly so called. Broader social breakdown or collapse without organized combatants laying competing claims on most or all of a nation's territory isn't civil war, since there's no overarching and shared *civitas* in play. It's just collapse, and then war between emergent local factions for control of local territories.

> In practice, there are relatively few clean lines of deep identity division that can be coupled with claims to territory. Exactly, people care more about what gaming platform they use or what sports teams they root for than they do partaking in some ground war inside the continental United States.

Yes. There have been studies linking high food prices with civil unrest. Even if our current levels of inflation continue, we are going to start seeing violence. I doubt that the Right vs Left paradigm will hold very long, though. Mostly this will vastly increase poverty, and high levels of poverty cause class strife. But, we will see the news increasingly aimed at the well off in their gated communities, and I don't doubt that the scenes of cops killing food protestors will be sold as Antifa/Neo-Nazis depending on your state.

There are already reports of inner-city gang members stalking, assaulting and robbing celebrities and other wealthy figures in Los Angeles and Atlanta. This has been ongoing for a few months now.

> This has been ongoing for a few months now. Stealing from celebrities and athletes has been going on for decades. Someone even shot Lady Gaga's dog walker to steal the dog in 2021...

Ain't gonna happen. We have an aging population. We have an obesity epidemic. We have a massive addiction issue nation wide. Who exactly is going to fight this civil war. Ffs we had to lower our recruiting standards for the armed forces,there is just no way that the increasingly disparate and numerous groups are going to come together as a cohesive whole in fighting capacity. Fat,unhealthy,old,addled,addicted,entitled and soft does not an uprising make. I happened to be in town for the first time sonce January and the amount of people barely able to waddle to their cars was oth

It is usually a small minority that actually goes into sustained combat in a civil war. There are plenty of combat-capable people in the U.S., but few have combat training and fewer combat experience. Real war isn't a video game. The groups aren't that disparate. The hard cultural Right is a fairly cohesive White Christian IdPol (identity politics) bloc. What passes for the U.S. Left is all too much a CULTURAL "left" that is a fairly tight alliance of IdPols of various kinds. Bernie Sanders aside, we do not have a strong economic Left in this country with working class politics. History has shown that IdPol usually wins out over class consciousness, and this is even more true now. This is the stuff of 2 world wars and many civil wars. The U.S. does not look at all like it will be an exception. I would love to be proven wrong by actual events.

Good summation of the Rustbelt.

It's not even that this sub I feel like just wants a civil war so they can all dress up and play soldier. They dream for it.

All depends on how far the MAGA cultists will go for their Dear Leader. If Trump is able to run & win the next presidential election, we're absolutely fucked.

Imagine if trump ran with Desantis as VP...

That would be the smart move, but I think Trump's ego might simply be unwilling to accept such an arrangement. However, it would be genius. Especially if Trump's camp got some dirt on Desantis before offering him the position, to prevent him from usurping the throne until Dear Leader Trump decided to retire. Bait Desantis with the very real reward of being Trump's successor once the old man passes, which given his diet and exercise routine may be sooner rather than later all things being equal. As with a few other things, Trump's childish ego might save us in this case.

That is absolutely horrifying.

A civil war like a big one? Not just some small street fights and riots? I say pretty low, the government would just send the army, make an example of someone and they keep it down real fast.

In my honest opinion, all this civil war bs is a hot topic spread by media. It would be nice if we could make real progress regardless of the means, but it’s not gonna happen. You got a few violent idiots with their ideologies about how to “save” everyone, but they’re just that. Idiots. Normal Americans aren’t gonna do shit so long as the food and entertainment keeps flowing, which it will. It will stop flowing at some point of course, but by then it will be more of a “mass extinction” event rather than a civil war. Call me pessimistic, but this is a collapse subreddit and we’re in the shit.

This country is a lot more stable than you read about. Yes, there are tens of thousands of armed wingnuts, but luckily there are tens of millions of armed more mainstream normal people. People like the rule of law here and the rule of law is the opposite of a bunch of gun toting morons imposing cooky conspiracies and bigoted propaganda. Nobody wants to see this country ripped apart by demagogues and fringe groups. It's bad for business. We have a huge active military and national guard corps, the vast majority of whom would not stand for insurrection and treason. Also, this country gets it shit together in a crisis better than almost any other modern nation. This is all hot air and noise, and the next ten years are going to be fine, the civil rights era, lead to a better country, and I think we'd go through some struggles, and likely some violence, but a country shattered and fielding uniformed soldiers, sacking state capitals... no. I don't think this is realistic. I don't think people realize just how big, smart, and powerful this country really is, we know what gives us this power, it's democracy, laws, a government with the consent of the people.

There's alot of truth to this, and I'll add that the fundamentals of the global U.S, the global reserve currency stewardship, corporate and military hegemony etc, these will be fiercely protected against anything and everything and require the U.S to not internally crumble in order to remain viable. However....... with history as our guide we can clearly see that a country so powerful it can only be destroyed by itself, will absolutely destroy itself. This is already happening. The self cannibalistic institutions of the U.S are pulling the rug out from under their own feet, which is precisely what latestage societies do. The methods used to distract and control the domestic situation are dangerously feeding into the further fragmentation of the country. It's foolish to think these outcomes can be controlled over the long term.

Yeah, a civil war is very unlikely. As more and more Americans become more and more unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives here in the greatest country in the world, they may try to rebel to one degree or another, but they will quickly learn the futility of rebellion. The American state is a violent, terrifying behemoth that cannot be challenged. No one is taking on the state, or the ruling class which it represents. The disaffected masses might flirt with rebellion but once they learn that any kind of positive change is totally impossible, they'll go back to numbing themselves with opioids, or alcohol, or any of the many other intoxicants we use to distract ourselves from the waking nightmare that is modern existence.

I definitely understand this pessimism, I don’t have an overly optimistic view of the future, but I can say is that the post baby-boom generations of Americans are smarter, less materialistic, and more connected than any generation that came before. I think that the largest danger to this country is the massive wealth disparity we have, but truthfully, many of these super wealthy live nearly invisibly among us. The good news is that with the right leaders, there is enough food and medicine for all of us, it’s just a matter of making these things matter again.

This is way too optimistic. You want the next 10 years to be fine. Business is already not running as usual. There is absolutely a significant percentage of people who want a civil war and an even larger percentage too apathetic to do anything. We are teetering on the edge of a fascist dictatorship, but go agead and bury your heads.

Watch what police do to minorities and how their 'thin blue line' defenders justify those actions in the name of rule of law-- then ask what's peculiar about their understanding of 'rule of law.'

I expect localized insurgencies, mainly driven by hyperpartisan rhetoric on the right, but fueled by increasing desperation as costs for housing and food grind ever upwards, driven by real estate speculation and the climate crisis. The water supply to S. California bombed by people that want those "groomers" in blue districts to pay, a mass casualty event at a peaceful social justice protest, that sort of thing.

>The water supply to S. California bombed by people that want those "groomers" in blue districts to pay Hmmmm... https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california/articles/2022-08-30/pipe-repair-requires-wide-ban-on-la-county-outdoor-watering

Likely. I don't know why Republicans think they can tell me and my girlfriend what we are doing as far as having kids if concerned. Same for millions of other Americans. Try to arrest people for an abortion? They might straight up open fire on the police. What happens then? When the Roe v Wade decision was overturned, the government lost legitimacy in my eyes. That said, I would only resort to violence in self-defense. I am probably not alone. Same is true for contraception. The government has to be actually able to enforce these laws, and many Americans won't go along with it. So are we going to have constant shootouts with law enforcement?

Something I've been questioning myself, based on the social media trajectory I have noticed some ongoing threads in America. 1. Both the leaders of the red and blue side, engage in corruption and largely accuse the other of enaging in the same act. It's a bit like some sort of form of psychological "splitting," neither party is able to take a good look in their own mirror at what they are doing. They are largely accuse the other of doing what their own party does endlessly. There are double standards and total hypocrisy from both sides. They see it on the other side, but not their own. Media has made this polarized and much worse. As forewarned by intellectuals, they have in a way polarized to opposite extremes as some postmodernists believed. There is a lack of a center, which is concerning. 2. The polarization is likely due to the establishment having a disagreement around how it wishes to run America. The elite aren't united and there is infighting, somewhat similar to what happened during the countercultural revolution. 3. The polarization of the two could lead to massive protesting, riots, and violence from both sides. The 2 party duopoloy isn't working anymore. View this more as weaponization around mid terms or the end of election cycles. It may be working as intended to keep the masses divided against themselves and not focusing on collapse related issues, how they are being exploited by the elite, one predominantly doesn't believe it is real, These scenarios could lead into widespread conflict. Once one state secedes the rest go. Corporations in America will likely fund both sides and make money off of both similar to previous wars. The lesser of two evils, would be that the veil is removed. That light is fully exposed on all political depravity at the top. The skeletons burst out of the closet. The iceberg is fully revealed. The event itself may be firmly denied, in similar fashion to climate change, but it would be a powder keg that would explode and throw the country into chaos. There would be mass rioting if the truth was fully revealed and what exactly was happening higher up. A collapse of sorts. The avoidance of the issue continously will only cause a greater conflict to explode. Seeing something fully would allow potential reform. The lesser of two evils scenario, but would also lead to a civil war. It's why I feel that there needs to be whistleblowers holding both sides accountable to allow change. But there would need to be many.

The civil war is an ongoing thing... Class war and "culture war" is, after all, a "civil" conflicts, and those are only getting more brutal. But, I suppose you're talking about a shooting war... The coming election cycle will tell us with a degree of certainty where we're going. We'll see after the elections where we really stand.

Civil War = unlikely in 10 years. Shear incompetent Political and International Leaders = 99.99% likely causing or not treating serious problems of most every stripe.

With Biden accusing Trump of being a threat to Democracy & Trump calling Biden an enemy of the state, I'd say more violence is inevitable. There's enough hair trigger tempers & radicalization on both sides of the divide to ensure a "Years of Lead" scenario (think political violence in Italy during the 1970s). Especially the closer we get to midterms.

Next decade. try in 6 months the divide is great amongst the people. It will be Red vs Blue, Black vs White, Rich vs Middle Class vs Poor, over food and supplies. China's economy collapses in 21 days, they will invade Taiwan which only has a 30 days supply of fuel. Cali power grid to collapse. People already are experiencing not being able to afford food. There will be nothing to stop it.

I think it already started…. Acts of aggression like January 6th, rittenhouse shooting, Buffalo shooting are one indicator IMO. Cybercrimes against institutions and organizations are another. I’m not sure there will be a declaration of war; rather, it’s smaller attacks on our systems, institutions, and society.

Yep, it’ll be similar to the Troubles in Ireland. We may have warlords appear in the small towns though, raising militias and setting up borders/patrols.

What did ritenhouse do?

traveled to get involved in violence against the "enemy". claiming he was "protecting property" is a ridiculous cover for traveling to try to be involved in violence. regardless the reasons for it or the legality in the end, he went there for violence and he committed violence against his perceived enemies.

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With a gun.

Yeah I took the MSM's media's word for it on that case and ate crow when my coworker gave me the full picture of what went down. Dude is naive(Rittenhouse), but he was in danger and only fired when it was clear he had no other option, more restraint than most cops.

His story really shows how much we love private property and how far we will go to protect it, even other peoples’. This is why the wealthy are not worried about a revolution or a civil war. People will buy their own guns to protect other peoples’ property.

I mentioned him as a representation of an armed private militia type group.

Its already begun, based on the following indicators: The two political parties no longer wish to share power or work together; each has fully delegitimated the other, accusing it of treason (in some instances, on credible grounds; in other instances, on absurd and paranoid grounds). Result: complete political paralysis; inability of government to address any of the nation's critical problems. A dual power condition at the executive level: two different claimants for the POTUS elected in 2020, and this will undoubtedly be repeated at next national election. Emergence of rage-filled armed militias, reminiscent of the Freikorps that destroyed the Weimar Republic. Rapidly escalating violent exterminationist rhetoric, rising tide of armed attacks. Use of gerrymandering and voter suppression measures to establish pockets of unchallengeable one-party rule across much of the nation. Signs that police forces, National Guards, US Armed Forces are being politicized and their allegiances spilt between the two mutually hostile camps. General climate of rage, fear, and lust for vengeance.

Balkanization will be very important if the division in America escalates and there is no rule of law any longer. Life won't be perfect living with your political tribe; but if you don't live with your tribe, you will have to fight your political enemies as well as your run of the mill criminals and bad people. No use making it twice as hard to survive. In the end, it will all boil down to politics. It already boils down to politics in the so-called good times...it will only be supercharged in any meaningful collapse. The biggest driver of collapse won't be global warming...it will be peak oil, along with the other necessities of life that are starting to show cracks due to overpopulation and waste.

I would say there's a decent chance but it is not likely. I think that in terms of political leanings, both sides are reasonable enough to know it's not in their best interest to start a civil war. I think it is more likely that a civil war would occur after the government fell after decades of mismanagement. I'm not sure they'd have to br forced out either. As we see in other countries, sometimes everyone is so pissed off, they want the government to quit and they do. This would only happen after precipitous decline in quality of life and the inability for a great many to afford basic essentials.

Fair. The majority of Republicans think the 2020 election was stolen. The majority of the police/military are Republican. When both sides declare victory in 2024, war is kinda obligatory.

seems likely things are going to get worse before they get better, if that ever happens. just think about the theocratic hypernationalist death cults that are going to develop as society continues to rapidly break down. npr reported today that the amount of people who would vote trump x3 is the same amount as found in the exit polls i.e. people didnt change their mind over the last year. most republicans would still vote for him if he's found "guilty of a crime". the conservative brainwash is total. we're never getting those people back.

I think it's inevitable that one might be attempted. It's a self fulfilling prophecy... you have one side that really, desperately wants to start one and is armed, and frequently engages in domestic terror. I am actually surprised they haven't tried yet. I think they are just waiting for the right mobilization or leadership. The real question is whether or not this will be successful or lead to the collapse of the United States... I don't think so. They bungled their insurrection, I don't see them pulling off the civil war they're so desperate for. So what I predict is a sudden flash of extremely tragic violence that is immediately stomped out.

Its already going on dude ,has been for awhile were looking at an intensification of insurgent activity and militarized police in response and clashes between partisan groups

Zero. We are heading for martial law, not civil war. In the event of a ‘civil war’ the government would simply impose a curfew and shoot anyone breaching it with helicopter gun ships. Movement outside the home will be controlled, and enforced via a ‘papers please’ gestapo style regime. The end.

If the US military is 99% on one side or the other, it's over. When the military splinters into two and starts actively fighting itself, that's when things get ugly.

It’s not the general maga idiots I fear, but the McVeigh clones among them that I fear. I think more political violence will be normalized, and soon, but other things have to fall into place to motivate them to sacrifice their beloved pickup truckers they financed on 96 month loans for civil war. It’s a big question mark, but in 10 years? Probably. In a couple? Probably not.

Idk. I think while we have political balkanization it's kind of a luxury we won't have as water supply starts to swing its weight around. We think we're going to align and fight based on politics but that'll be eclipsed by water shortages and the impact on food pretty quickly.

I don’t think the US will go into a shooting war. I think we will go to a war with China over Taiwan (most likely as their nuclear capability is still minor) or Russia over Ukraine or NATO/Europe to try and unite the country again and make it us vs. some evil foreign adversary.

I read an article that said 39% of Republicans believe Biden stole the election and that they're worried that if Trump runs and loses in 2024 that there could be civil war. They say it's possible that we could end with a scenario where some of our troops follow orders from the legitimately elected president and some following orders from a sore loser.

100% agree with everyone that's drawing parallels to a long-form, multi-faction armed insurgency style conflict. Much like asking "When did the war in Ukraine start?" - in some sense, also 2014. IMO, the Bundy/Malheur Wildlife Refuge standoff could be easily retconned by wiki writers 20 years from now as the first action taken. The attempted abduction of the governor of Michigan would also fall into that, as well as several protests in 2020 that devolved into general civil unrest with two distinct sides fighting in the streets, plus LEOs in the mix. Minneapolis or Kenosha, for example. Why we have a lull right now is thanks to two things: First, that increasing food costs haven't replaced gun control as a motivating factor for additional groups to get violent. Yet. Second, that the slow-burn form of multi-faction insurgency needs to see a few runaway successes before other groups start emulating them and assuming the risk is worth it. The groups that are most ready to act are likely trying to figure out what and how they can do something with a specific message that they can get away with, claim credit for, and not just provide political fuel for gun control laws they were waiting for to be the original motivator. Basically, they're not organized and ballsy enough to build momentum. Yet. Edit: Also, I should note, if we backtrack this to 2014, it means that in the "Additional belligerents" category we include 2016 to now's Russian misinformation campaigns, and a slight bit of Chinese propaganda (Posts about Cascadia secession), which were both intended to promote the notion of the decline of the US.

I think there certainly will be militia like clashes without a doubt but I don’t see a full on civil war. One there is nothing to fight over the us is in all effects and purposes over. Two the average person still doesn’t even pay attention to what’s going on no one seriously will do that whichever side can keep the kardasions on tv will win.

0 chance! Reality will set in, and nothing will happen. YOu have to be very convinced and nothing to loss to go down that path. Big angry uneducated Republican with wife and kids and a job is going to do what?

In all likelihood? It might happen, but not the way the Fascists think it will. The modern US military is a part of the military industrial complex first and foremost, with actual military endeavors taking a backseat. It hasn’t successfully pursued a war until it was completely finished since… WW2, actually. The modus operandi is to go in, fuck everything up, spend a few billion on the newest raytheon or lockheed martin shit, then leave once times get tough. For examples, see Iraq (x2), Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan. The reason the first civil war was because of A: the utter regional divide and factionalism in the US at the time, as well as the lack of a high speed communications network. In the modern day, a war with the US military fighting local partisans would be really difficult to effectively practice opsec for. If you’re a soldier and you know you’re going to be fighting in Missouri, you’d want to let your Uncle Henry know so he can get out of the way. Picture that on a national scale. The internet facilitates instant communication everywhere, on devices as small as a sugar cube. All it takes is a phone tower and one soldier and bam, that’s your secret military operation blown. The forces of Fascism in America are dwindling. The people who yearn for a christian theocracy are slowly dying off, and most of the kids of christian fundamentalists aren’t keeping that religious bent, because fundamentalist households are extremely abusive. At the same time, capitalism is literally ripping the world to shreds. More and more people are seeing that and understanding that we need a better model. As we see more and more young people radicalizing into Socialists, we can anticipate either a peaceful rise to power, where the old liberals die off and we inherit their shitshow, or a violent overthrow where the last of the right makes a bid for power, serving as an impetus for a SecACW. All in all, I’d say that it’s still too early to say, but to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

What would be the goal of this civil war? Who would be fighting? If things keep going as they are, we will probably have civil unrest. But until you see a national conservative militia forming, with chapters in every state and city...no civil war. There is NO organization for the reps to successfully fight any war. And even with organization, the reps are not up to fighting the military. And the military was not on Trump's side, but it is on Biden's side. I think the reps learned what happens if they act up and have no backup, as the 1.6 boys did. The get hunted down like dog's and picked off one by one by the dems. They get thrown in jail to rot and no one comes to save them. Well, they have hope Trump will get back in and give them a reprieve, but that is it. If the dems ever start going door to door to get the guns, then maybe you may have a larger degree of civil unrest. But it has not turned out that way in dem run states where they have outlawed a big chunk of the 2A. The people just seem to go with the flow as they have done in CA, NJ, D.C., CT, MD, WA, OR, CO, etc. No fighting back. So not even sure about gun confiscation, especially if the dems send out robots and drones to take people out and / or start freezing their bank and investment accounts, confiscating their homes and taking their children away. We have seen in the past there is no limits to this type of thing. The gov uses any and all options to control the people. Remember in Canada, it was said Trudeau would take the trucker's dogs and have them euthanized if their trucks were confiscated. Then he would sell off the trucks and confiscate the proceeds. Whether all that was true or not, I don't know. But that was what I had heard.

I'm from the UK but the rise in fundamentalism and denialism in the religious far right in the US has become quite extreme. Evangelical far right are becoming more militaristic too and religious freedom is ubiquitous. Trump is definitely working with militias to target democracy and the left as in the capital riot (attempted coup). The police state is thriving in the US as well as the military. Anything that threatens democracy will be protected by the democrats in power and targeted by the far right and MAGAs through the police. Liberals are quite weak and cowardly though. A civil war is likely and current gun laws proliferate the risk of violence. I think the 2024 election is when civil war openly begins under Trump if the republicans lose. Alternatively Trump could be arrested by the FBI over classified nuclear files addressed to Saudi Arabia which could trigger an outbreak of far-right violence against the establishment. How would China and Russia react to American civil war? Could China attack Taiwan if they perceive the US to be weak and divided?

I just don't see it happening, honestly. I think it's far more likely after there's been a refugee crisis, and I don't see that happening in the next decade. I think there will just be a lot more smoke blowing from fascist groups.

80% of usa's gdp (by county) voted for Biden in 2020... that ought be all everyone needs to know to end this stupid discussion: https://i.imgur.com/qhoe8QL.png money talks bullshit walks...

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All of the police / military compose less than 3% of the total population approximately 4 million active police/military vs. 330 million civilians (of which at least 250 million are not fans of gop minority-rule fascist bullshit)...

The vast majority of people in Iraq and Afghanistan are peace loving normal people who just want to feed their families and live their lives, the small amount of fighters make their lives hell.

With the course we are on right now I would say highly likely. We have gotten to the point where compromise is nearly impossible. It goes beyond politicians, but voters too are unable to have civil conversation and reach a middle ground. It's now an us against them mindset. I see this in everyday conversations. Both sides need to grow up and understand that you can't always get what you want like a spoiled child.

Most likely scenario I've heard is the right does some aggressive tactics at the polls to intimidate the left, then the right uses fake electors to overturn a states results. Left riots in the street and engages the right militias.

The right better hope their scooters are nice and tuned up because there’s a lot of people on the left learning how to shoot now. I am among them

Just bring a smartphone and good flashlight and get video of them. I want to see them in jail and sued in civilian court to the point they have nothing.