Prediction of a New Civil War?

A recent poll indicates that almost a third of likely voters are fearful that the United States will experience a new civil war within five years. Polls are remarkably unreliable as predictors, but they can gauge levels of public sentiment or mood. Similar polls have indicated fears that opposition to the current Administration policies might result in violence. That is not, of course, the same a open rebellion and civil war. It does, however, gauge the level of division and polarization among the populace.

I believe that it is hyperbole to predict that an open civil war is on the horizon. However, a tacit civil war over the soul and substance of the nation may well have already begun. We have an insular group invested in white supremacy and oligarchical capitalism holding reins of administrative authority. From this bastion, they issue policies and exercise brutal police state power and violence. Such actions, despite patronizing pronouncements, are not to protect public or national safety, but rather to preserve privilege and retain power.

Propaganda and false rhetoric are used to goad the weaker minded and the resentfully insecure to engage in attacks on any designated by the insular group as "other." These include people of color, women who believe in self determination as to their actions and their bodies [including reproductive rights], Muslims. The policies are intended to oppress and enslave the "other" and to exploit the vulnerable for political gain. The agencies that function as the infrastructure of government have been placed in the control of ideologues rather than under leadership of experts with actual knowledge or experience in the areas to be guided or regulated. The Fourth Estate, a fundamental component of a functional democracy, has been publicly branded as an "enemy" of the Administration and its followers. And the Administration is poised to seize control of the Supreme Court, the arbiter of the Rule of Law. Cities have had to declare themselves as "sanctuaries" in opposition to abusive exercise of national police state power.

Those who would question the actions of the insular group are either publicly branded as "liberals" [as though it were an epithet-it may surprise you to read the actual definition] or they are harassed and intimidated into silence. The insular group resorts to policies and practices that are patently inhumane [by international human rights standards] and unconscionably violent, often merely to stoke fervor and hatred among followers, to promote a cult like entourage of sycophants. The group invents bastardized interpretations of founding precepts, or else simply ignores Constitutional tenets, and claims such transmogrified notions as guiding principles.

If these descriptions of current affairs appear strikingly similar to the Southern Confederacy, to the Third Reich, and to other despotic regimes, it is perhaps not merely coincidence. When US leadership expresses "admiration" for despots who jail opposition and order killing of dissidents living in exile through use of neurotoxins [Putin], or who publicly executes dissidents, family members who might gain power, or just public servants who "disappoint" the leader [Kim Jung Un], the deterioration of government and society should be less surprising.

The current polarization and struggle for the identity and conscience of the nation is no less dramatic or less consequential than the divide and principles at issue during the civil war. There is still a glimmer of hope that a plebiscite in November can begin to restore some balance and redemption. However, even the electoral process has been compromised and corrupted by the insular group to tip the balance in its favor. So, while I would not predict a civil war in the immediate future, it would be fair to suggest that we are teetering on the brink.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/poll-almost-a-third-of-us-voters-think-a-second-civil-war-is-coming-soon/ar-AAzglF4?li=BBnb7Kz