Comment I saw tonight. True, absolutely true. Nobody is talking about seceding from the Union except for Texas, which is the Quebec of America and which we've all learned to safely ignore. But since I'm obviously not sleeping tonight... how isn't it 1860?
The Civil War didn't magically spring into being the second Lincoln got elected President. It was brewing, brewing since the first days of the American Republic.
The Civil War was a fight over slavery. Over whether black men and women were people or property. This was insoluble by any other means in America. Other nations ultimately concluded that they were people and had some fierce arguments over tariffs or something and that was the end of it. After a certain point- there's plenty of room for disagreement on what point that was but my personal bias is 1828- that became impossible in America.
And if we have second American Civil War, there's not just one similar issue, not one that's going to inflame the passions and lead to the division of all American institutions, not just political but religious and economic and social, along geographic borders.
Lincoln, Lincoln wasn't even on the _ballot_ in a lot of Southern states. Nobody was going to vote for him. What percentage of the vote did Clinton get in Georgia? In Texas?
So that's the number one reason you can't have another civil war. Because while the population is deeply and irreconcilably divided, that division does not take place along geographic lines.
Can you have a civil war on the issue of trade? On purely economic grounds? I guess we may be set to find out. Because I think what we will see is that now, for the first time, you really have a bilateral level of distrust and hostility between factions to where they just can't peacefully coexist. There is no room for democracy the way things currently are, only for tyranny of the majority. I "have difficulty respecting" Trump voters. I can't live with them, can't work with them, can't socialize with them. And, you know, maybe that is going to pass with time, but I'm not about to put money down on it.
I think what's more likely to happen is that you're going to see more and more formal codification of the differences between factions. You know, sure, I'm a vanguardist on this. But over time, perception becomes reality. This mutual distrust, this mutual hostility, will ossify. Neutrality will cease to be an option.
