Civil War in America?

Probably not, but the narrative wars have likely engendered a period of unrest and decline no matter what happens. There remains the possibility of renewal.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on whether or not Donald Trump should remain on GOP ballots. The allegation, as everybody knows, is that on January 6, 2021, he fomented an insurrection in the disqualifying sense of the 14^th Amendment, Section 3, of the Constitution.

The opposed point of view (see here and here) is that what happened on January 6, 2021, should not disqualify Trump, as he told his supporters to march to the Capitol to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” and never suggested that anyone go inside the Capitol for any reason (it was Ray Epps, possibly among others, who did that!).

This is unprecedented in our time. We’ve never a clash of narratives like what we’re seeing now. The parties to this dispute literally do not see the world the same way, are not making the same assumptions about what kind of system we’re living under. Small wonder some are ready to divide the country — peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary. Others decry this as “extremism.” This is where what I call the narrative wars have brought us. One of the core points of dispute is over what happened that day, six days into 2021.

An insurrection, as I explained citing references, is an organized attempt to violently overthrow a government. Few who came onto Capitol grounds that day were violent, although there were a few hotheads on the front lines who began pushing Capitol police to the ground and breaking windows. This was a minority of the allegedly 2,000 or so people who entered the Capitol peacefully, some doing no more than walking around for a few minutes and then leaving. There was no organized attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. So what were they doing?

Well over 10,000 people were in Washington, D.C. that day. They were protesting because they had doubts that Joe Biden was elected legitimately, and every effort to pursue the matter through the courts had been rebuffed. Judges did not look at any evidence (e.g., affidavits strongly suggesting wrongdoing at polling centers in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia). Then they said either, “there’s no evidence” or they used a legal ploy of “no standing to sue.” The Supreme Court refused to hear appeals.

To this day, corporate media outlets gaslighted Americans with the contention that a man who spent an entire campaign season in his basement got more legitimate popular votes than Obama received in either 2008 or 2012, and that nothing questionable or even unusual happened.

It became as if the use of phrases like conspiracy theorist and denialism were sufficient.

To this day, however, tens of millions of Americans think Election 2020 was stolen, even if they don’t agree on the circumstances or understand how the steal was accomplished. Their reasoning: that a man, arguably showing signs of dementia and staying mostly out of public view, could trounce a man able to fill arenas despite a pandemic, makes no sense whatsoever.

They now fear that something similar could happen again, in 2024, and in broad daylight if the courts refuse to allow the leading candidate of one of the major parties to appear on state ballots!

Destruction, that is, of real democracy, which reflects the will of the people (even those you disagree with), in order to save “our democracy”!  

There is no reason to think the outcome of this is going to be pretty, accepted by both sides in the narrative wars, no matter how the Supreme Court decides!

So now what?

Civil War? Or massive unrest and political alienation?

I do not think what happens will rise to the level of a civil war.

Civil wars happen when a civil discourse over fundamental dispute between two factions, both having sufficient resources to exact their wills on the body politic, breaks down. Laws and major policy decisions are then simply regarded, as sides battle openly for control over dominant institutions, especially mass media.

Is this what we’re looking at? Not quite.

The problem is with both sides having the resources to exact their wills. I do not think Trump’s side has those resources, no matter how much of his own money Trump still has to spend. And with efforts to cripple him financially, it’s unclear how much he will have. The point is to render him impotent and imprisoned if that’s what it takes.

To the extent that groups and organizations backing Trump’s side in the narrative wars have some resources, I am unsure how many have the will.

Look at what’s been done to over a thousand Jan-6ers now. A lot of these people will never get back to living normal lives. They have forever been demonized as “Capitol rioters” and “insurrectionists.”

A recent discussion with a number of legal scholars, political analysts, and national security experts did not feature a single person who predicts a civil war. Some do, however, predict massive civil unrest. I think we will see unrest whatever the Supreme Court decides. What I can’t predict is how much, how long it will last, or what the long term repercussions will be.

Most analysts and observers think the Court will set the Colorado ruling and Maine decision aside, and ensure that their ruling applies to all 50 states. This might invite protests all by itself, possibly worse than did the overturning of Roe v Wade because of how corporate media has presented this entire election to the public: “democracy is on the ballot,” Biden has put it. “Democracy itself” is at stake, wax the hysterics (as if the U.S. really was a democracy, which it hasn’t been for a very long time — but never mind that now).

If the Court decides in Trump’s favor, the globalist-leftist alliance will enter a frenzy to block his being reelected (Trump 2.0).

We might see false flags or cyberattacks that would be blamed on Trump supporters. We might even see The Great Taking (see below).  

If Trump is convicted of one of the felony charges, many of his supporters will vote for him anyway, because they regard the entire process as political. If he survives all the attempts to tie up his time, resources, freedoms, something as sudden as it would be drastic could happen at any point in time between now and November.

I’m not making a specific prediction here. That would be hazardous. But the fear of Trump 2.0 is palpable.

Now suppose the Court sides with Colorado and Maine.  

The question, then, is: what will the tens of millions prepared to vote for him do? Not all or even a majority will take to the streets, of course, but if just 1 percent does, that’s still hundreds of thousands of people. More than went to Washington on January 6! Enough to clog the streets of every major city, should they choose that route.  

Both corporate media and the Establishments of both major parties — CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, etc., as well as the Liz Cheneys and Mitt Romneys among Republicans (and probably all Democrats) — would demonize them. They would be described with epithets so abundant that you’d think they’d lose their force: right-wing extremists, white nationalists, Christian nationalists, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and so on. Many wouldn’t care.

More dangerous — to them — would be the risk of FBI infiltration which some still believe happened on January 6.

This fear was probably a factor in undermining the Take Our Border Back Convoy which convened at Eagle Pass, Texas this past Saturday. Instead of 700,000 attendees, around 7,000 showed up, disappointing to those who see securing the American border with Mexico is one of this year’s major issues.

One way or another, though, there are not enough people and probably not enough will to mount serious resistance to the sort of power grab a Supreme Court decision against Trump would sanction. Those who acted on the contrary assumption would risk joining the Jan-6ers. This fear would doubtless also be a strong deterrent.

Bottom line: no civil war.

Especially with an Establishment able to command technologies that would have made previous tyrants gasp. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that the power centers in the Asylum on the Potomac, if militarized, couldn’t put down any uprising with relative ease.

Far more likely is that the majority of those who would have voted for Trump will vote for whoever the GOP runs even if the person is an Establishment puppet, as Nikki Haley clearly is, because of their dislike of the Bidenistas.  A few others will vote for RFK Jr., who has a clear anti-corporatist, anti-technofeudalist platform, but won’t gain traction because corporate media has successfully demonized him as an “antivaxxer” and a “conspiracy theorist.”

Many might not vote at all, figuring there’s no point. Why legitimate a thoroughly corrupted system? The result of such political alienation would be continued power by thoroughly corrupt (or simply incompetent) Democrats and an acceleration of national decline on all fronts.

A “Democracy” Increasingly Based on Propaganda.

If we look at the larger sweep of human history, one thing becomes clear: even relatively free societies are extremely rare. Empires, tyrannies, dictatorships of various sorts, are the norm. In most places and at most times, those in power have done pretty much as they pleased.

Briefly, Periclean Athens moved towards freedom, but compromised it with slavery, allowed what freedom they had to weaken them in other ways (as the philosopher Plato observed), the result being the loss of the war with authoritarian Sparta and long-term decline.

The Christian worldview created a societal ambience in which there were moral checks even on kings and emperors. They couldn’t do as they pleased because they would answer to God for their actions. The Christian conviction was that this was a world of physical and moral order, moreover. This drove the rise of Western might, via science, technique, property rights, markets, moral limits on state power, and human dignity itself when applied consistently.  

The minority obsessed with the need to control others rebelled against this worldview. It removed God from the world picture, and learned to use the systems others had created against them. In other words, the scientific-industrial-educational mainstream became de facto materialist, and slowly succumbed to the temptations of control. I say de facto because it is not as if many of the power-obsessed reflected on what they were doing. Although some did.

The result has been slow and painful slide backsliding towards what the West had partly escaped: “us” versus “them” tribalism, naked authoritarianism, re-enslavement by different means.

After all, the Christian conviction of checks on secular power is pretty much gone. The sciences, which honestly sought order and explanation, have become The Science, a form of intellectual authoritarianism. Technique no longer solves problems for the whole of the body politic but designs algorithms to bring the masses into passivity and control. Property rights no longer exist as such; all are subject to taxation, and even the conditional ownership implied by property taxes is being replaced by rent of various sorts as home ownership becomes harder and harder to afford. Markets are not free but controlled, because corporations employ hidden incentives or “nudges” of various sorts; the above-mentioned algorithms Big Tech has perfected “know” more about you than you know about yourself, and have honed the science of getting you to consume. Finally, to speak of morality in the halls of Congress is more likely to prompt gales of laughter than serious reflection on where the country is going.

Legal eagles invoke the Constitution which it serves their agendas, as with those using the 14^th Amendment to try to get Trump off ballots. Otherwise, it’s dead. Is sending money to foreign government fighting wars halfway around the world authorized anywhere in the Constitution, especially when our own southern border is so porous that thousands of people including possibly dangerous individuals can cross it illegally every month?  

Language itself has been perverted. Democracy clearly no longer means government by and for We the People. It is code for one species of elite domination, in which the locus of power isn’t in a single figure, such as a Xi or a Putin, but is systemic and driven by money. Trump was only able to mount a serious candidacy back in 2015-16 because he could finance his own campaign. Had he lacked those resources, he wouldn’t have registered. Money isn’t everything, of course. It is necessary but not sufficient. If you could literally buy your way into the presidency, Ross Perot and Steve Forbes would have had viable shots back in their day.

Trump had (still has) a great deal of personal charisma, a solid ability to command mass media even if its owners hate his guts, and things to say that resonate with an increasingly alienated Republican audience.  

He’s also an existential threat to those who think in terms of global power (globalists) and cultural dismemberment (the brand of hard-leftist that’s obsessed with transgenderism). This is the case even if he has no systematic philosophy of his own. He’s a disruptor by nature. Disruption works, especially when institutions are losing their sense of legitimacy. Many of those behind Trump have no trouble dynamiting (figuratively speaking, of course) something that ceased to work for them years ago.

Trump 2.0 would be an even bigger existential threat to global power and leftist dismemberment because there’s no doubt he’s far more knowledgeable about how to work governing systems now than he was in 2017. Hence the constant barrage of TDS fear porn from every corporate media outlet, every major magazine, all the dominant political voices in unison.

It’s important, though, finally, that even should Trump 2.0 occur (and frankly, I don’t think this likely), it wouldn’t be a guarantee. Disruptors can’t really lead. Our country rose empowered by the magnificent thoughts of the James Madisons and George Washingtons and John Adamses of the day. There are no thinkers of that caliber anywhere to be found in our present-day political or moneyed classes. Nor is the view that directed hard work is what builds and sustains civilizations the prevailing one, and even if it were, today’s institutions are designed to reward political connections and woke ideology far more than hard work which is a threat to those who have learned how to exploit and profit from the present system.  

What Happens Next?

I don’t like making predictions. So, I just draw scenarios. I’ve never had so many in all my pockets at one time. I’ve even heard serious suggestions that there might not even be an election this November.

I’m thinking again of The Great Taking (here; my commentary here; lengthy discussion led by someone other than myself here). We’re hearing warnings of possible cyberattacks, conceivably at the hands of some of those who entered the U.S. illegally which include Chinese nationals as well as members of groups such as Hezbollah. A single, well-placed attack could cripple American infrastructure, take down part or all of the Internet for a time, and bring the global financial system to its knees.

CBDCs would then be introduced as the “fix.” If covid-19 was the biggest power grab we’d ever seen, this would soon surpass that. CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) would be downloadable via an app in your phone and could be programmed to work only during a specific time duration (to ensure that you consume), to purchase certain goods or services (to ensure that you consume what those in power want you to consume), and to work only within a given radius (in case the programmers have been told by their masters to restrict peasant movement). Cash would, of course, disappear as a casualty of the financial calamity.

As few would be in a position to resist — presumably mass starvation is not an option! — those stuck in big cities would find themselves in a dystopia that would make present-day China look like a paradise by comparison.

There remains hope, of course, and it is important not to lose sight of this. We also learn from history that these things move in cycles. Civilizations rise, then they decline and fall. Most great civilizations have fallen from within. Reasons why these things happen are readily available. There are conditions on a society’s existence, and if those conditions cease to be met, it finds itself living on borrowed time. “Prophets” will try to point this out and draw attention to the problems. They are dismissed as “doomers-gloomers,” or denounced in controlled media. The insouciant masses either won’t listen or are just too busy trying to survive.

But the “prophets” will have found a following that has figured out the truth. Some have referred to this following as a remnant (see Isaiah 1:9).

We are clearly in a civilizational decline phase. Our “prophets” are increasingly being listened to. There are groups of remnants already out there.

The future, I submit, will lie with those groups, those who can take charge of their own educations and lives, learn to sustain themselves growing their own food so that they don’t need CBDCs or even cash for purchases, developing barter-based systems where necessary. Call these remnant communities. Some, such as the Amish, have been around for a very long time. Were our technological civilization to disappear, the Amish would survive. Other such communities have been built more recently, or are in the works.

One thing is for sure: building communities outside the power systems and sustaining them while awaiting a collapse that might not come for years will take a great deal of resilience. How many of us are working on that?

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Steven Yates’s book Four Cardinal Errors: Reasons for the Decline of the American Republic (2011) can be ordered here.

His philosophical work What Should Philosophy Do? A Theory (2021) can be obtained here or here.

His paranormal horror novel The Shadow Over Sarnath (2023) can be gotten here.

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