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Some thoughts on how we might get from where we’re at now to a Second Civil War
Foriegn Policy ^ | October 10, 2017 | Thomas E. Ricks

Posted on 10/11/2017 8:33:29 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Lt. Col. Robert F. McTague, U.S. Army (Ret.) Best Defense office of Second Civil War affairs

If we have a second Civil War, trying to understand what is happening will feel more like Ukraine in 2014 than Virginia in 1861.

Our first Civil War was primarily about slavery, but that was in the context of social and economic models in the South that were ripe for extinction. The South’s reaction was to launch a last-ditch effort to maintain and prop up its way of life at all costs, so it was visceral and violent.

Likewise, Trump’s election was an angry, defiant death throe, a angry cry against demographic and economic changes that are in fact irreversible. So, if you are a New Right strategist today — call them the Great Disruptors — the question is, how do you confront those inevitabilities?

First, you continue at the low level, with some really advanced, effective gerrymandering, as in Wisconsin. You continue to enflame working class whites, who have been ignored by the Democrats for decades. You also try to limit immigration and free trade as much as possible.

Even so, even as they do this, the New Right’s Disruptors know they can slow down changes to the nation, but they can’t stop them. So what’s the next step? You up the ante. You make it holy war. You persuade your base that there is no other way but violence. I believe many, perhaps most, of the members of Trump’s base will sign up for that.

Why? Because they will believe they are on the side of good, of right, of Americanism.

Many people in the South and heartland in general often think of themselves as patriotic, loyal Americans, more so than “liberals,” “Yankees,” “elites” and people from the North and urban areas.....

(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: california; civilwar; cw2; cwii; demographics; shtf; trump
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Comments?
1 posted on 10/11/2017 8:33:29 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I have always said that an American civil war will more parallel Liberian civics wars. Multiple factions with shifting alliances often betrayed.


2 posted on 10/11/2017 8:36:17 AM PDT by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Same planet, different worlds...


3 posted on 10/11/2017 8:36:52 AM PDT by null and void (The internet gave everyone a mouth. It gave no one a brain.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It certainly reads like a good exercise in projection.


4 posted on 10/11/2017 8:38:16 AM PDT by AustinBill (consequence is what makes our choices real)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Our first Civil War was primarily about slavery”

Of course it had nothing to do with economics or states rights.


5 posted on 10/11/2017 8:39:29 AM PDT by dljordan (WhoVoltaire: "To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

A left wing troll (even though a retired LTC) dreams of a civil war to send the political right to “extinction.”

He has no idea how bloody and messy it would be and how badly the left would lose.

He can’t even get the cause of the Civil War correct.


6 posted on 10/11/2017 8:40:52 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

again,, about state rights and .gov authority over states..


7 posted on 10/11/2017 8:41:21 AM PDT by ßuddaßudd (>> M A G A << "What the hell kind of country is this if I can only hate a man if he's white?")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Left always accuses their opposition of doing what they are doing. It tells me that the Left (and the Swamp in general) is dead-serious about declaring war on the American People.

Foreign Policy magazine is a place where these elites have talked to one another, signaling their intentions, for decades.


8 posted on 10/11/2017 8:41:22 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: AustinBill
Another esteemed public and military affairs writer bites the dust not having a clue what the Trump revolution is actually about.

Ricks writes: "Trump’s election was an angry, defiant death throe, a angry cry against demographic and economic changes that are in fact irreversible."

NO it's a defiant cry against the swamp that steals money and blows it on what isn't even a good time.

9 posted on 10/11/2017 8:41:54 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I think the NFL controversy answered it.
There are a few assholes out there that get way too much air time and America stood up and said...enough... to the industry. Those few spoiled it for owners, players and most of all the American customer.

I would think those few represent the over stated gangs of marxist muslim Hillary supporters which get way too much airtime from the medias. Also, I really doubt the dimension of her support base, we see it in the fraud, we saw it in her ability to fill stadiums when she was on the campaign trail. She’s too much horse shit.


10 posted on 10/11/2017 8:42:48 AM PDT by himno hero (hadnuff)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

First we send DREAMERS home.

Then we destroy the Democrat Party and replace them with the GOPE... Then we recruit conservative Hispanics to the GOPA (Grand Old Party Americans) and keep power...

Trump declares a ‘win’.

Result: No Civil War...


11 posted on 10/11/2017 8:42:49 AM PDT by GOPJ (IF Mexicans rob a bank should their "innocent DREAMERS" be allowed to keep the money?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“demographic and economic changes that are in fact irreversible.”

Assertions like this remind me of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “Wave of the Future”.


12 posted on 10/11/2017 8:43:34 AM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

First, the cheap shot: Guy’s a retired Army officer who chooses to “make his home in Bucharest, Romania”, I question his objectivity.

Next, his assumption that the only people who will start a civil war are “new-right disruptors”. Really? Seems as though it’s Antifa and their ink who are the violent protestors in the current milieu, yet he doesn’t even mention the possibility that a civil war might start with Antifa/BLM factions. Again, I question his objectivity.

Colonel, USAFR (ret)


13 posted on 10/11/2017 8:43:52 AM PDT by jagusafr
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I am a wackadoodle-dandy.


14 posted on 10/11/2017 8:43:54 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (The "God Gene" is evolution's way of saying chaos sucks.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Assumes a great deal that's not in evidence. Political violence virtually NEVER comes from the right, that's a “left only” solution. Sounds to me like a leftist trying to reflect what he desires on the right.
15 posted on 10/11/2017 8:44:33 AM PDT by GT Vander (Life's priorities; God, Family, Country. Everything else is just details...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Our first Civil War was primarily about slavery, but that was in the context of social and economic models in the South that were ripe for extinction. The South’s reaction was to launch a last-ditch effort to maintain and prop up its way of life at all costs, so it was visceral and violent.

This is cookie cutter pablum. The good Colonel is ignorant of history so I stopped reading right there.

16 posted on 10/11/2017 8:45:19 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: dljordan

Which, at their heart, had slavery as the cause.

Slavery wasn’t the only issue, but it was the driving one.


17 posted on 10/11/2017 8:47:20 AM PDT by redgolum
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To: AustinBill

Yep. It’s the left that’s getting radicalized. It’s the “social activists” who are getting whipped into a frenzy and fomented with hatred.

I posit, it’s the highest levels of foreign and anti-american puppet strings that are trying to start a civil war and they are doing it by making everyone that the democrat party has already isolated into groups into alienated victim groups.

This article telegraphs that strategy. They want to form a coalition of victim groups for power, and once that power is established, I don’t think they are going to get what they think it will be. None of those sub groups are going to get the reins. It’s the puppet-master that planned it all that will take over.


18 posted on 10/11/2017 8:47:41 AM PDT by z3n
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Which field is it that uses the expression, “That’s (he’s) not even wrong.” Computer science? Engineering?
This guy’s head is in a bottle.


19 posted on 10/11/2017 8:50:02 AM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Likewise, Trump’s election was an angry, defiant death throe, a angry cry against demographic and economic changes that are in fact irreversible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They would like us to believe that the demographic changes are irreversible, but they are not.
Remove ALL illegal aliens.
Restore the rule of law and severely restrict immigration.
It’s our country and we can keep it if we want to.


20 posted on 10/11/2017 8:50:06 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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