Civil War if Trump Goes to Prison?

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I find it difficult to believe that we are still discussing the possibility of a second American Civil War.  However, the trial and conviction of Donald Trump in a Russian — excuse me, New York court on dubious charges has once again prompted discussion of civil unrest that could lead to civil war.

During a recent interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business regarding the Trump verdict, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said, “I worry about strife.  I worry about war in the streets.”  He is not alone.

Last Friday, during a discussion of Trump possibly being sentenced to prison, comedian Bill Maher had this to say: “MAGA Nation will go nuts.  If they put him [Trump] in jail, I know it will happen because the judge’s name is Juan.  Everything becomes racial in this country.”

Of course, no prejudices there.  That remark might have been a joke, but it sounded as if Maher believes that all you dirty Make America Great Again types hate Hispanics.  Yes, it seems everything in this country has become racial.  Who do you suppose is responsible for that, Bill?

New York political consultant and Democrat power player David Axelrod had this to say in response to Maher: “Yeah, but one of the things about this apocalyptic language that you hear from all of these, the amen chorus, is they really are inviting violence.  And that’s a big concern of mine.”

I assume that this is a contemptuous reference to Christians who believe in preparing for the end times, as discussed in the Book of Revelation.  I should point out this is not the majority view among Christians.  If you are a Christian and are advocating for domestic violence beyond self-defense, perhaps you should pray to Jesus and ask for clarification.

Later, Maher the Prophet said, “A civil war in this country, I’m sorry to say, becomes a race war.  That’s the sad truth about this country.” 

Really?  I wonder where his terrible vision of the future came from!  In March, CNN published a story about a potential civil war based on the idea of accelerationism, saying:

Accelerationism is embraced by a spectrum of white supremacists, white nationalists, racists, antisemites, xenophobes, and anti-government militants as a clarion call to revolution.  They fervently believe that the modern Western, liberal state is so corrupt and inept that it is beyond redemption and must be destroyed in order to create a new society and way of governance.

Folks, I am a voracious reader of political news.  However, I had never heard of accelerationism until I began researching this article.  Accelerationism was originally a Marxist idea.  In short,  it is a way for leftists to fight capitalism by producing radical social change.

Supposedly, the right-wing version of accelerationism was created by English philosopher Nick Land in an article he wrote called “A Quick and Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism.”  I found it to be several pages of primarily neo-liberal gobbledygook embedded in word salads that would make Kamala Harris proud.  How that is considered right-wing is a mystery.

So how did the far right absorb left-wing social and economic theory?  The truth is, it didn’t.  Right-wing accelerationism doesn’t have much to do with capitalism.  The key similarity is to upend society and accelerate social change.

An easier-to-understand definition of accelerationism comes from the Council on Foreign Relations: “The objective of [right-wing] accelerationism is to foment divisiveness and polarization that will induce the collapse of the existing order and spark a second civil war.”

At least we discovered where the civil war idea came from.  But it gets worse.

According to the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point, the January 6 insurrection was accelerationism in action.  Accelerationism here is “the goal of hastening the cataclysmic end of economic, political, and social systems so as to more rapidly bring about what is seen as an inevitable end-times collapse.”

If the Terrorism Center believes that January 6 was about the end times or accelerationism, then domestic terrorism must be a significant threat.  But what does this have to do with Trump?

The left has to have a playbook with a narrative to work from and stay in sync.  If you believe that the January 6 riot was a domestic terrorist event to destabilize the government and Donald Trump was the mastermind, then it is much easier for security agencies to play along with the Biden administration.  Witness the FBI entering Mar-a-Lago with guns drawn.

Of course, the left always accuses Republicans of doing whatever leftists are up to.  

If you want to see real accelerationism in action, all you have to do is look at our southern border.  Joe Biden and the liberal Democrats are paying for mass illegal immigration with taxpayer money.  They want to use the illegal alien surge to add congressional districts in blue states.  They want to make the illegals citizens and allow them to vote.  The idea is to create a perpetual one-party left-wing national government.  This is large-scale social change in a short time frame.

Now let’s get back to the civil/race war that Maher thinks is coming.  My first question is, how many people are members of armed far-right paramilitary organizations?

The numbers are difficult to pin down.  An article in The Guardian suggests that one such organization, American Patriots Three Percent, has a membership in the low thousands.  One of the larger paramilitary groups, the Oath Keepers, is thought to have around 5,000 members.  No, I am not going to include the conspiracy theorists at QAnon.

I would assume that a reasonable estimate is around 12–15,000 scattered around the country, plus or minus a few thousand.  In a nation of 330+ million people, this is nothing.

As I wrote in an earlier essay on a second civil war, a group of armed citizens alone can’t start a war in America.  You need armed resistance between government-sponsored military units.

Okay, let’s assume that Judge Merchan sends Trump to prison.  What happens?  Liberals dance in the streets.  Joy Behar can’t hold it until she gets to Buc-ee’s.  Conservatives on Fox News, Newsmax, X, and Truth Social vent.  Trump calls for calm and gets it.  Trump raises $500 million more in donations and thanks Merchan.

There will be little, if any, violence in red states or red cities.  Local democratic headquarters may get a rock or two through their windows.  There may be a few protest marches in blue cities, perhaps even a riot.  Maybe one or two blue-state governors call out the National Guard.

You see, Democrats want social unrest, or want to pretend there will be, because it fulfills their expectations, makes them seem rational, and allows them to take the moral high ground.  The whole civil war thing is just a scare tactic to make the gullible believe that Trump is a threat to democracy.  Sorry, Democrats — no civil war is coming unless you start it.

Remember, there is an election in five months.  Most Republicans, independents, and blue-collar Democrats have jobs and families to look after.  They have no interest in looting stores or trashing the towns in which they live.  None of us has time for riots and race wars.  

But we’re more than ready for Election Day.  We are all for accelerating that.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.