One occasionally seems to perceive hints, or threats, that there’s gonna be a civil war if Trump doesn’t win this. Trump himself has said there will be a “bloodbath.”
How?
When the Southern states seceded from the Union, they were still states – functioning political entities with tax revenue, capable of forming and funding a real army, with real professional officers, and hundreds of thousands of enlisted men, and armament at least comparable to what the Yankees had – an army capable of going toe to toe with the United States Army for four years.
Nobody now calling for civil war has that kind of resources. If every private militia club in the United States were to gather in one place and join forces under a unified command, they would not last half an hour in combat against any state’s National Guard. (Probably not even against any local PD, considering that the DoD has been supplying local law enforcement with surplus military-grade hardware since the Clinton years.) And he result would be no different if they were reinforced by the entire membership of the NRA. (Any serious discussion of gun control in the U.S. has to begin with even the NRA admitting that privately owned firearms are POLITICALLY useless and there really are not any "Second Amendment solutions.")
Another problem is this: The present divide in American politics is not between states, it is within states – between traditionalist rural areas and cosmopolitan urban areas, with the suburbs and exurbs as political battlegrounds. A civil war would be a war between the cities and the countryside, with the suburbs and exurbs as military battlegrounds. And the cities and the countryside are economically interdependent. If commerce between them were interrupted by war, both populations would be feeling pain within a week.
And you can forget about guerilla warfare. The American terrain just isn’t suitable – there is nowhere rebels could hide out and still maintain fighting capacity. Unless perhaps they're URBAN guerillas -- but those aren't going to mount any rebellion because Trump loses.
And I really do not believe anything can ever come of what William S. Lind calls "Fourth-generation warfare".
No matter how this election goes, no violent event more serious than a riot is going to result from it, anywhere. And it won't even rise to the level of the January 6 riot.
How?
When the Southern states seceded from the Union, they were still states – functioning political entities with tax revenue, capable of forming and funding a real army, with real professional officers, and hundreds of thousands of enlisted men, and armament at least comparable to what the Yankees had – an army capable of going toe to toe with the United States Army for four years.
Nobody now calling for civil war has that kind of resources. If every private militia club in the United States were to gather in one place and join forces under a unified command, they would not last half an hour in combat against any state’s National Guard. (Probably not even against any local PD, considering that the DoD has been supplying local law enforcement with surplus military-grade hardware since the Clinton years.) And he result would be no different if they were reinforced by the entire membership of the NRA. (Any serious discussion of gun control in the U.S. has to begin with even the NRA admitting that privately owned firearms are POLITICALLY useless and there really are not any "Second Amendment solutions.")
Another problem is this: The present divide in American politics is not between states, it is within states – between traditionalist rural areas and cosmopolitan urban areas, with the suburbs and exurbs as political battlegrounds. A civil war would be a war between the cities and the countryside, with the suburbs and exurbs as military battlegrounds. And the cities and the countryside are economically interdependent. If commerce between them were interrupted by war, both populations would be feeling pain within a week.
And you can forget about guerilla warfare. The American terrain just isn’t suitable – there is nowhere rebels could hide out and still maintain fighting capacity. Unless perhaps they're URBAN guerillas -- but those aren't going to mount any rebellion because Trump loses.
And I really do not believe anything can ever come of what William S. Lind calls "Fourth-generation warfare".
No matter how this election goes, no violent event more serious than a riot is going to result from it, anywhere. And it won't even rise to the level of the January 6 riot.
