As the situation in regard to report immigrants escalated, and the army may be used against Americans, do you believe there’s a way back, or is this a one way street to civil war?

  • dan1101@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I don’t know. People have found ICE facilities and are harassing them there and while they are out on operations. That is great but the Trump administration is likely going to keep over-escalating the response while continuing to ignore laws. He is a “results for my side at any cost” person.

  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    This does not have the seeds of a civil war.

    Look back to 1861. The US was split between slave and free states. Both regions had different economic models that were in conflict. The slavers of the south controlled most of the nation’s capital. The slaves were worth more than all the railroads and foundries of the north. They had oligarchic control of the southern states.

    When Lincoln was elected, it was the first time that an outspoken abolitionist became president. It was clear, that the demographics of the US were changing in a way that would lose their power and status. So they started a war.

    Those weren’t the uneducated racists that you find waving confederate flags today.


    The US has seen presidential lawlessness before (notably Andrew “Trail of Tears” Jackson). It also has seen lawlessness by state politicians (eg Harry F. “Massive Resistance” Byrd or Governor Orval “Blood will run in the Streets” Faubus).

    The only way I could see a civil war is, if Trump directly threatened the Middle Class and/or the Wealthy Elites.

  • In League With Seitan@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Two of my state’s democratic politicians were shot this morning, one killed, in a targeted assassination. I think it’s already started.

  • Cherry@piefed.social
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    9 hours ago

    All my life I have watched movies where the all American hero stands up to the baddie, the facist, the bully, the greedy. I seen so many celebs virtue signal to their political values and causes that help others. The whole gun thing, we keep them to protect our rights.

    But when there is an actual threat the passive acceptance is astounding. It’s quite bizarre to see. My brain can’t reconcile the USA I have watched vrs the USA I am seeing.

    Will it be civil war, the old logic says yes. What I am seeing tells me no.

    • Dragomus@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I learned a long time ago that in the USA the packaging is always far greater than the content.
      And it seems to apply to everything, be it political, to personal conversations (example: greeting someone with hey how are you, but actually getting an answer to that question is not interesting, just reply with “great, you?”). Or from people praising their city … but totally glossing over the very large populace of homeless living under bridges.
      “We have the best medical care system in the world” … but that it’s only for the top 5% and the rest actually get to see/pay the insane bills is quickly ignored.
      And in movies/television it is also very much present. So, yeah, I don’t expect much from the folks shouting about their amendments or hugging their guns under the pretense of fighting off a dictatorship…

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        The US is number ONE…in bullshit.

        If you’re a Trump-loving magat, then you only care about virtue signaling and performative bullshit when Hollywood celebrities, Democrats, and online socialists do it…and completely ignore that Trump-lovers and Trump himself love performative bullshit and solely prefer a different – crueler and more toxic – variety.

        It’s an aesthetic land full of people who see nothing wrong with screwing over any number of others as long as it leads to fortune, fame, power, or the grand trifecta. Morals, values, and virtues have long since been thrown out as fictional concepts unworthy of any potentially damaging action to uphold or analysis over whether they were lost in any exchange.

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          yeah, only Americans are narcissistic pieces of shit. nobody else in the world does it, and if they do they learned it from Americans.

          America is a vile cesspool of indecent human beings that are a mockery of what non-americans are really like.

          am I doing this right?

          /s

          • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            I’m not indicating that narcissism and lack of empathy are exclusively American things, but instead that it’s a pervasive and near dominant mentality in America.

            “Greed is good” is practically our country’s mantra. The golden rule here is whoever has the gold makes the rules (quite literally).

            • blarghly@lemmy.world
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              6 hours ago

              The golden rule here is whoever has the gold makes the rules (quite literally).

              That’s not an American thing. It’s a human thing.

  • katze@lemmy.cafe
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    10 hours ago

    I think that for a civil war, you need an armed force on the protesters’ side, which they don’t seem to have. All radicals who are willing to spill blood are on Trump’s side. I’m not an expert, of course, but if you needed one, you wouldn’t have asked here.

    • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 hours ago

      Every state has a national guard. I’m actually really surprised the California guard followed Trump’s illegal nationalisation when Newsom clearly stated he didn’t authorise it, as is his right.

      • dan1101@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Yes and CA is one of the most liberal states, if their national guard rolls over for illegal orders then we have no chance with red or purple states.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
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        6 hours ago

        I mean, some of them knew it was coming and lost their phones, but I don’t find it too surprising. Are you really going to risk serious consequences because you got activated when you shouldn’t have been?

        Report for duty and let your chain of command fight it out. It’s not up to the guard members to work out the legality of their deployment

        Now, if they start telling you to perform violence on civilians, that’s when you can take a stand and refuse orders. And so far, that hasn’t happened

        I think they’re doing well. I haven’t seen them raise a finger to the protesters, they just stand there in a line calmly. The protesters are great with them too, they just keep yelling “you should be over here with us”. And with any luck, the courts will give them back to the governor so they can go home before they have to make a hard choice

      • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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        9 hours ago

        Newsome has the authority to have state police and the CBI to arrest guard members who don’t follow the order to stand down.

        He won’t, and I don’t know if I believe the state police would side with a Democrat, but the possibility is there.

        Of course, there are MANY things that politicians have had the authority to do to stop things since January, yet they haven’t.

    • Ulvain@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      I’m wondering what would or will happen when the Newson, Sanders, AOC, etc start to make messages intended directly for members of the armed forces, saying “this gov is no longer legitimate as it has broken it’s oath to the Constitution. You shall not obey unconstitutional orders”… Particularly if and when some generals follow suit…

      Dangerous, but not more so than this fascist government…

        • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 hours ago

          Do you live near where that happened, or in another state? I had to uninstall Citizen because it felt like it was just pushing fear stories directly to my brain, and kept wanting me to pay them for more of that, and a private 911 service? No thanks

          • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            I’m not even in the same country anymore lmfao

            But iirc you have to pay for Citizen if you want to change your location. Tbh I’ve been close to uninstalling it because the app has gone to shit. I also don’t feel like reading a torrent of slurs in the comments.

    • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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      9 hours ago

      All radicals who are willing to spill blood are on Trump’s side.

      I’m not so sure on this one.

      I’d like to think I’m willing to use the tools at my fingertips to sling hot lead in defense of minorities and prevent a total takeover, however, I recognize that doing so myself is a death sentence.

      Taking a stand just makes you a target in a very wide open field. You need more people to take a stand with you to be effective. How many people feel the same as I do? Willing to stand as a group, but not solo?

      Organization is important. Organize or be sent to a concentration camp “prison”. Organize or be arrested for protesting the regime. Organize or die.

      Organized resistance is much harder to take down. With enough people, you wouldn’t even need to fight. But you should absolutely be prepared to.

      • blarghly@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        The problem you’ll run into is (1) most leftists/liberals don’t own guns, and (2) most leftists/liberals are relatively affluent and will not be directly effected by Trumps policies. There is not a culture of being armed and organized among them.

    • WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml
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      10 hours ago

      The guns exist out there and the protesters exist out there. You’d just need some mobilizing incident to spark them not to leave the guns they already own at home next time.

      It seems an easier solved problem than you let on.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    The focus on immigrants is insufficient. The problem is the circumvention of law, due process, civil rights. The problem is circumventing the law to do so much harm, whether it’s to dark skinned people, the general instillation of terror, fraud and corruption, national leadership holding themselves above the law, enforcement agencies in contempt of the law, harm to our economy, harm to our neighbors and friends who relied on us, harm to our future and our environment, harm effective running of government functions. There’s just too many reasons to be offended beyond mistreatment of our fellow humans and the common thread is violation of the law and constitution.

  • graycube@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    I think we are still trying peaceful protests and hoping upcoming elections will change things. There is little appetite to escalate to violence yet.

    It is inevitable that ice and ice barbie will encounter violent opposition when they raid a wrong address sometime soon. But it will be localized to that location.

    Most of the radical groups of self armed wackos are working for ice now and reveling in their racism.

    • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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      12 hours ago

      Which upcoming elections would that be? The ones after the guy currently in power who already tried to overthrow the government once and who can’t legally be reelected peacefully steps out?

      Sure, wait for that to happen! What could go wrong with giving him years to prepare for exactly that?

      • WindyRebel@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        House of Reps are in 2026, and there are all sorts of state and local things so I assume they are meaning all of that.

        If shit starts flipping blue everywhere, the R’s will either back off and play defense or escalate and have a lot more opposition. Hopefully more opposition?

      • graycube@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        There are elections every 6 months or so. All that has to flip are 2 or 3 seats and the entire congress flips.

  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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    9 hours ago

    Yes. But the part that non-violence allows is that we can set it up to fight on our terms rather than theirs.

    They want gun battles. Charging into enemy formations. Units vs units. They want to make themselves heros of battle. But they will do it only if they convince themselves they will always win.

    That’s not how the modem organized military can be defeated. They will be defeated by guerilla tactics. Assassinations. Sabotage. Economics. The first thing that needs to happen is for the population to witness just how much they support each other.

    The DNC may be useless, but as long as they keep MAGA thinking the opposition is weak, they will massively underestimate their own vulnerability.

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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    15 hours ago

    Nope. They’re headed straight towards jackboot dictatorship.

    If nothing else, Trump and his henchmen are proving day after day that the Americans talking big about their god-given Second Amendment right that keeps the government in check as the reason to own so many firearms and overlook so many deaths by firearm was basically a pretense: this is literally the scenario when they swore right and left they would exercise it and they aren’t.

    All a bunch of phoneys, is what they are. And they’re getting the nasty dictatorship they richly deserve.

    • lemmy_user_838586@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Most of the people that talked up the 2nd amendment and that bought a bunch of guns are cheering on what’s happening, so they won’t fight against it. They’re not phonys they’re part of the dictatorship. It seems they like when other people get hurt, as long as its not them.

      They just don’t know history enough to realize, eventually it will be them. Just give it time. The only people that are truly safe from a dictorship are the dictator. Even his inner circle, a dictator will turn on a dime if they perceive disloyalty, or fear being usurped, or you made them look weak by doing a bad job, etc. Literally no one is safe but the dictator, that’s generally why everyone is scared shitless all the time during times of dictatorship. No one is safe.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Yeah. I feel like the concept of America is just completely manufactured. Personified by the ignorant blowhards who LARP as heros but only fight when backed by the MIC (hold technological superiority against an inferior force), the Christian taliban who hate jesus and everything he stood for, and the oligarchs who got rich off the backs of immigrants; responsible for the populations mental illness epidemic.

        It’s quite obvious that the average American will roll over and let the Stalin, Putin, Mao, Xi or Hitler force them into absolute supplication before they bother with the minor inconvenience of protest or strikes, while being stupid enough to believe they represent freedom and justice. The only people willing to oppose the psychopaths are too liberalised to accept that they won’t be stopped without violence, or too fragmented to provide meaningful resistance. A massive general strike would work, but that would require more cooperation and discipline than Americans have ever displayed, and the mental illness is too strong.

        I hope I’m wrong.

      • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
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        14 hours ago

        cheering on what’s happening, so they won’t fight against it.

        Don’t you think this cheering has already lost some of it’s volume?

    • Guidy@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Oh hell no. Fuck off with this.

      Phony? Try most of them are MAGA. They like how things are going. Fascists and racists, most of them.

      And why is that? Because my Democrat party and the vast majority of my fellow Democrats are anti-gun.

      Therefore, almost all the “2a” people you refer to like all the jack booted thuggery going on, and there aren’t enough of the rest of us to make a difference: One protester with a gun gets shot and or arrested. You need twenty+. And that’s before Shitler sent in the now-dishonored USMC. wtf are even 20 armed civilians supposed to do against trained military combat units?

      So go ahead and STFU. If any of my fellow US Democrats are reading this, Fuck You for being part of the problem.

    • flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
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      14 hours ago

      American Founding Fathers were not dumb - a lot of them had spent time in the 18th century Europe, which was an interesting place at the time. Full of wars and rebellions. Great for analyzing pros and cons of political systems, awful for an average guy. Keeping the general population armed was a good idea in the context.

      What they failed to predict is the identity politics. That being armed or not will become a show of loyalty to your group rather than defense against tyranny. With those needing it the most being the ones to reject it.

      • fantoozie@midwest.social
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        11 hours ago

        You’re wrong about the founders not understanding identity politics; I recommend you read through George Washington’s farewell address. It’s is lengthy, for sure, but it explicitly warns Americans about the danger of unchecked fealty to a political party and the promulgation of a politics of identity versus national interest and unity.

        The founders knew our democracy would be repeatedly tested by enemies foreign and domestic (almost like they included that in the Constitution for a reason) they simply hoped we would be educated enough to see when we’re being manipulated, and faithful enough to the country’s ideals to defend it. We’ll see if they’re right.

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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        13 hours ago

        The US founding fathers were vehemently against a standing army, because it could be used for exactly this very thing: seizing control from cities and states. That’s why they only wanted militias.

    • TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works
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      14 hours ago

      As if some private guns would be any sort of fair fight against the full force of the US military anyway

      • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        As if an organised military of any kind has any hope of winning a guerrilla war in one of the largest, most populous, and most heavily armed countries on earth.

        The ability of the American people to defeat the American army in a revolution is solely dependent on their willingness to take casualties. It’s been shown time and again that a massively superior army like the US really isn’t able to deal with a war where enemy combatants are also the civilian population. An exception is Israel in Gaza, where they’ve decided to just level everything to the ground, and massacre the civilians.

        • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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          9 hours ago

          Yeah I love how other countries like to mock the US for Vietnam, yet for some reason seem to forget about it when it comes to “us military would dominate their population”

          I’m sorry but some random Douchebag from Omaha or some small town in Texas doesn’t know jack OR shit about the countryside around the Sierra or Appalachian mountains, and all the fancy tools at their disposal didn’t help them much when they had to search through desert for 20 years chasing down “terrorists”

          Sure, the US couldn’t beat vietman because they didn’t know the terrain and would never be able to convince the people they’re shooting at its for their own good.

          But that totally doesn’t apply when it’s the US fighting against itself, somehow.

          The enemy is both weak and strong, I guess.

        • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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          10 hours ago

          The American public lost their minds at 2k casualties in 2001. I doubt they have the determination for a civil war.

  • Bruncvik@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Idealism is the privilege of elites. Maslow’s pyramid puts the majority of people into survival mode or comfort, and the US has been boiling the frog towards expanding the bottom of the pyramid for a long time. By the time people noticed that an open revolt (even so much as a work strike) would destroy their lives, it was too late. There are so few charismatic, moral and idealistic elites that the government could take care of them as soon as they threatened to become leaders of a real opposition. I don’t believe there would be a civil war, and I don’t believe there is a way back. The US will become a neofedual country, with a lucky few who have the means to move elsewhere. The best case scenario is for the rest of the world to isolate from the US, both economically and militarily.

    • tartarin@reddthat.com
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      11 hours ago

      Economically isolated US is unsustainable which will lead to collapse of the civil society. That’s why Trump wanted so hard to expand into Greenland and make Canada 51st State. Critical resources are missing in the USA to make it totally autonomous.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        The US has more natural resources than just about any country on the planet could possibly have. If we can’t achieve autonomy as you’ve defined it then that kind of autonomy is a fictional concept that is out of reach for any modern nation.

        • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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          then that kind of autonomy is a fictional concept that is out of reach for any modern nation.

          True autonomy and isolation IS impossible for modern countries. There isn’t a single country that has access to every single resource needed for modern society, some things will always have to be imported.

          A 1700s era society, however, is totally within the realm of possibility. Not much use for neodynium or lithium in the 18th century.

          • krashmo@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Yes, agreed. I wasn’t sure if we were talking about old fashioned autonomy as you referenced or in the context of the modern world. I don’t think a 1st world nation can be autonomous unless we advance to they point where we can mine most of the metals and minerals we need in space. And even then they might have issues with things like water.

        • tartarin@reddthat.com
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          9 hours ago

          Simple example: water. The USA has a shortage of fresh water and that’s why Trump is arguing the border between the USA and Canada is artificial and he wants to nullify old treaties in order to be able to grab the water from the Great Lakes unilaterally. The point is not about if other countries achieve autonomy, it’s about isolationism which requires autonomy to work and Trump wanting to make the USA isolated like in the good ol’ times when they could ignore the world.

      • Bruncvik@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I’m helping people resettle to Europe. We currently host a recent college grad until they finalize their job and housing arrangements, and I don’t think they’ll be the last one.

  • Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Where would the front(s) be? Seems like in USA CW 1.00, the north/south division made it easy to figure out where the enemy was. Nowadays, the ideological disagreement is much more geographically woven everywhere, with a battlefront possibly existing between every couple of houses in some neighborhoods.

    • Libra00@lemmy.ml
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      11 hours ago

      The frontline is everywhere; there be no shelter here.

      -Rage Against the Machine, No Shelter

    • STUNT_GRANNY@lemmy.world
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      There won’t be any front lines in the usual sense; probably the closest we’d get is a vaguely rural vs. urban divide.

      CW 2.0 is gonna look more like the Troubles than anything else.

  • venusaur@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Gonna need A LOT more. This already happened in 2022 for BLM. An existential threat needs to exist for a majority of the population before people will be willing to fight. It’s California. Too comfortable.

  • It'sbetterwithbutter@lemmus.org
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    15 hours ago

    I don’t think Americans have the stomach for a civil war, had a Trump been elected in France, they would have crippled the country long ago.

  • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Eventually, yes. I do think so. Not directly from the current wave of immigration, tariffs, and other batshit crazy Trump stuff though.

    The underlying wealth inequality, surveillance state, media exploitation, and corrupt politics does eventually lead to conflict though, IMO. I don’t really say a way around that, unless the fundamental access to services and “represent the people” actually becomes representing the people.

    Tired exploited people with few/no recourse will take action eventually.