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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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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Maybe I’m missing something, but it appears to me that all the violence is coming from the left, not the right.


21 posted on 10/11/2017 8:50:07 AM PDT by Chuckster ("Them Rag Heads just ain't rational" Curly Bartley 1973)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

That’s why this character never made general. He has no clue.


22 posted on 10/11/2017 8:51:44 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
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To: central_va

I hate to criticize someone above me, but getting to O-5 in 20 years is not exactly a shooting star. My brother-in-law was the ROTC honor graduate at a cow college and he get to O-6 in 20 years.


23 posted on 10/11/2017 8:52:17 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

For later.

L


24 posted on 10/11/2017 8:52:45 AM PDT by Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)
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To: central_va
This is cookie cutter pablum. The good Colonel is ignorant of history so I stopped reading right there.

He was professionally trained by the very best that neocon interventionists can offer.

25 posted on 10/11/2017 8:55:23 AM PDT by TADSLOS (Reset Underway!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Well, the good Colonel’s Ukraine analogy is more accurate than not, too bad he does not follow through

The Ukraine civil war was caused by outside influences funding, organizing , arming and agitating political violence to overthrow an existing regime with a puppet regime controlled by them.

Lots of parallels to what we are seeing here in the US

Too bad our military genius can’t connect the dots


26 posted on 10/11/2017 8:56:17 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Unlikely we will ever get over our old/unfinished business either then and/or our most recent case!
Same result, thus far!


27 posted on 10/11/2017 8:57:52 AM PDT by gunnyg ("A Constitution changed from Freedom, can never be restored; Liberty, once lost, is lost forever...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
No mention of Antifa, BLM, OFA, Resist or the SWAMP undermining the nation.

Yeah, Joe the Plumber is the disruptor. /s

28 posted on 10/11/2017 8:58:28 AM PDT by TADSLOS (Reset Underway!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Unlike the civil war, or at least not to the extent of the homogeneity of the civil war population, civil war II would start with millions behind enemy lines.

In MA, CA, and other strongholds of the left are millions of conservatives. Likewise, albeit more scattered, millions of lieberals in fly-over country.

It would be a mess!

At any rate, happy to be a spy here from MA to help the cause.


29 posted on 10/11/2017 8:59:09 AM PDT by C210N (It is easier to fool the people than convince them that they have been fooled)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Wow...biased much?

1. “angry cry against demographic and economic changes that are in fact irreversible” — changes caused by laws and executive orders that were that shoved down down our throats and enforced by extreme activist courts legislating from the bench. Courts all over the land have rule s citizen-passed initiatives as unconstitutional. Plus, why does he assume the changes are “irreversible”? We can control our borders to legally admit who we deem desirable and worthy. Immigration should benefit the nation. Those who arrived and became citizens are here to stay. But immigration policy should be changed to attract the world’s best people. The changes could also be reversed if, once again, the nation’s public schools taught the greatness in America and her virtue. We cannot go back if the schools continue to disparage and destroy all of Western Civilization.

2. He pretends liberals are patriotic, but how patriotic are people that constantly say “I hate America...it is unjust, founded by evil white men for white men.” How many of them say they will leave the US when things don’t go their way? That’s patriotic? Believing blatant lies like “hands up, don’t shoot” and then hating/killing police orinsulting the country and it’s servicemen and women by flipping the bird during the national anthem is patriotic?

3. He ignores the centuries long behavior of leftists, despots, dictators, communists, marxists, and anarchists to use violence and extreme mass murder to usher in their “new man” utopia. Just look at antifa broadcasting their intent to launch a communist revolution here on November 4.

That’s what I took from the short excerpt. Not sure I can stomach the entire article.


30 posted on 10/11/2017 9:03:24 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: redgolum

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm


31 posted on 10/11/2017 9:03:45 AM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Evil prevails when good men do nothing. But not being murderous of mind like the left, it does not dawn on us that if the enemy leadership has enough “accidents” the leaderless rabble will disperse.


32 posted on 10/11/2017 9:04:22 AM PDT by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: central_va

Actually, he is correct, if you change one word. It was not the South’s reaction, but the leading families of the South, who had the political and financial power endangered, who reacted. They were trying to keep their elitist position in control, while fanning the flames of Southern Pride with the people who, for the most part, didn’t own slaves and didn’t live like the leaders lived.

If slavery had ceased, their lives would not have changed, but the lives of the political and controlling elite would have changed drastically.


33 posted on 10/11/2017 9:05:00 AM PDT by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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To: wbarmy

Slavery issue was an excuse and not a cause.


34 posted on 10/11/2017 9:06:34 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: jagusafr
First, the cheap shot: Guy’s a retired Army officer who chooses to “make his home in Bucharest, Romania”, I question his objectivity.

His retirement pay probably goes a lot farther there than in a roughly equivalent American city. And, there's no extradition treaty...( < /sarc > tag required?)

35 posted on 10/11/2017 9:08:26 AM PDT by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This article is an exercise in both projection and mental masturbation.


36 posted on 10/11/2017 9:08:54 AM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: JimRed
But not being murderous of mind like the left, it does not dawn on us that if the enemy leadership has enough “accidents” the leaderless rabble will disperse.

Or, to put it another way: Leftist leaders...can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em...YET.

37 posted on 10/11/2017 9:11:15 AM PDT by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I’d say the author has it backwards...its the new-Left which is agitating for war the likelihood of which increases as the Democrat/establishment base implodes.


38 posted on 10/11/2017 9:15:04 AM PDT by mac_truck (aide toi et dieu t'aidera)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I never want to see this; I hate the thought of it. That said if the antifa starts their “war” it will last about 15 minutes. The antifa scum will be bloodied and locked up but they will cowardly attack innocent White people - probably old - and maybe kill some. It will end antifa for good; it will go the way of “Occupy....” Count on it.


39 posted on 10/11/2017 9:19:02 AM PDT by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: Constitution Day
This article is an exercise in both projection and mental masturbation.

Were it from some random blog I'd agree. But this publication has been a place where elites have had serious discussions with one another for about a century. I think they mean it.


40 posted on 10/11/2017 9:21:31 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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