For years, there’s been the notion that we have a ‘culture war’ going on. You know the one I’m talking about…the red state vs. blue state, gunnies vs antigun, city vs. rural, etc, etc. There’s a Balkanization going on, it’s just that no one can agree on what the dividing issues are.
Nowadays? It’s the Wuhan Flu polarization. On the one hand you have the people who mask up, disinfect everything, call the cops if the neighbors have a barbecue in their yard, demand that ‘outsiders’ self quarantine, and that anyone not wearing a mask is probably also an anti-vaxxing illiterate redneck who votes for Trump…on the other hand you have the people who don’t wear masks, think the othe side is a bunch of nervous Nellies who are quick toe the line whenever the CDC says something, and thing anyone wearing a mask is some sort of Democratic drone who can’t think for themselves and wants a nanny state.
And, according to the media, they’re both buying guns at rates previously unheard of.
I’ve seen more than one person blogging about how there’s going to be a civil war or balkanization and that various enclaves will form and we need to be at this location with our like-minded fellow citizens and..and..and…
Not gonna happen. The US is comprised of fifty individual political lab experiments…if you don’t like something in one state, there’s probably another state that does things the opposite way. You like .gov controls and regulations? You have states that have it in spades. Want .gov that pretty much lets you run amok (comparatively speaking)? Got those too. Want lotsa .gov services? Got just the state for ya…. Want a .gov that offers as little as possible and YOYO? There’s a couple of them too. It’s a fact of life that turns out to be something of a safety valve. Tired of high taxes and bureaucracy? You leave California and New York. Tired of lack of .gov services and oversight? You leave…pretty much everywhere else. But..there’s always someplace else to go that might be more to your liking.
“But..what about Kenosha? Or [location of rioting and shooting]?”, you may ask. Those aren’t revolutions. Those aren’t civil wars. They probably don’t even count as insurrections as much as they are simply ‘a riot’. A civil war where you have armband wearing groups taking over radio stations, airports, roadblocks, and military bases? Not a chance.
We just don’t do political gun-battles-in-the-street like some sort of Third World country. We’re too lazy. We’re too complacent. We’re fans of revolutions-without-the-work. The closest thing you’ll get to a revolution or civil war in this country is some group finally getting it’s political act together enough as a unified bloc to swing an election in their favor. A bloodless coup would probably be about all that could be worked up.
Heck, can you think of any First World country that actually had a shooting-in-the-streets political revolution in the last 75 years? Some First World country with the same level of development as the US? Hmm….some former Soviet state might come to mind but that’s not First World.
Anyway, my point is that as ugly as the upcoming political season is going to be, it isn’t going to be a civil war. It’s going to be stupidly violent in places….riots, arson, that sort of thing. Maybe even a targeted killing or two. But a civil war? Nope. Not a chance.
Lotsa little localized boogaloos, maybe. But no big national boogaloo.
