A divided America in the future?

[Kievan Rus]

There's an interesting post on GD forums here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5227391. It addresses really scary wingnut crazies speaking of, and in the worst cases, actually advocating violent revolution.

While I do believe that such unlawful rhetoric (I personally think these wingnuts advocating violent revolution need a visit from the Secret Service/FBI) has the potential to inspire the occassional unstable nutcase to commit an act of McVeigh-style violence, I highly doubt it will lead to an actual revolution.

However, I do think there is a small possibility that, in a future doomsday scenario, the United States may end up splitting into two nations, a "red America" and a "blue America" (I sure hope not). If (God forbid) the nation ever splits, it would least initially be peaceful, because of the existence of nukes. Rather, it would turn into a Civil Cold War, not unlike what happened with the United States vs. the Soviet Union during from 1945 to 1991.

With such a situation, there would be heavily defended border regions, similar to Panmunjeom in Korea or Fulda in Germany. An arms race in tanks, helicopters, aircraft and nuclear weapons would break out. Defections (probably from red to blue) would be commonplace. Spy vs. spy would be an integral part of a hypothetical situation; as would naval and air survellience, similar to US Navy operations monitoring Soviet ships. Blue America would have most major nations on its side, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, India, Japan and China; red America would probably be isolated and have few if any allies. Fears of an armed conflict would be very pervasive. And, with fundy crazies like the whackos we have advocating this insane crap running red America, the idea of them launching an all-out nuclear first-strike wouldn't be out of the question.

I agree that there's never going to be a conventional Second Civil War, and if these insane wingnuts tried to start one, they'd get crushed. It's highly unlikely and I certainly hope it never happens, but I think it's a lot more likely than a revolt by these whackos.

[givemebackmycountry]

1. Ain't gonna happen...

I'm in freaking Florida, and we voted for Obama and I NEVER thought we would win THIS state.

Oklahoma maybe.
We liberals, we're all over the goddamn place and we ain't putting up with this shit anymore.
I'm thinking Bartcop can hold down Oklahoma for us, he's got enough firepower and tequila.

[Warpy]

2. Oh, some of them will try to raise hell

but that will end up disgusting most of the rest of them to the point they distance themselves from the crazies.

We saw the same thing in the early 70s when left wing crazies were spouting revolution and raising hell.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. You know what is hilarious? The Weathermen are not that different

than these crazies....

Where I fear I disagree is that this time around we have had a nice cold war ongoing since at least 1996, if not a tad earlier

The Weathermen wanted to kill the rich and bring about the wonderful utopia, but they didn't have anybody like Hannity calling for this on a radio show.

That is a big difference

[Nay]

11. And the Weathermen had the cops all over them 24/7, while lots of the

fundie crazies are left to do their thing. That's pretty maddening.

[Warpy]

12. Well, the Weathermen were a little more literate

but there were certainly parallels with other hamfisted "revolutionaries" I knew back then. The combination of zeal and self delusion with the elitism that they knew what was best for everybody else and would blow them up until the message got across was exactly the same.

The Weathermen were very clear on the distinction between crimes against property and crimes against people. The others, not so much.

[Skittles]

4. the repuke crazies just don't have the power they think they do

[FrenchieCat]

5. divided 80/20......maybe.

They can have Alaska! Heard it has the largest land mass of any state, and the 3rd least in population, and wanted to be "independent" according to Sarah Palin's husband anyways. As long as they don't continue to have their hand out to the Feds a la socialist, sounds like a good fit.

[Webster Green]

9. That's it....20% are hard core dead-enders..

Probably more like 10-15% are really over the fucking edge.

They'll be dealt with handily if they get out of line. }(

[leftstreet]

6. Americans are not divided

They're united in their interest in economic issues.

They're getting sick and tired of wedge issues, no matter how often the Ruling Class has the M$M bring them up.

The Politician/WaterCarrier Class uses "red" and "blue" to make us think they're fightin' hard to represent our fake divided interests.

It's all bullshit.

[LiberalPersona]

7. Americans are

far too diverse for a two way split war like that. The majority of the country are neither red nor blue, the strictly blue/red people are minorities.

[Believing Is Art]

8. Doubtful

No state has the resources to survive without the federal government. Should one state actually jump ship, it would fail and come crawling back. It would then be rightly ridiculed by Cobert and serve as a shining example to any other state feeling the secessionist itch.

Not that I think it would even come to that. The right-wing crazies are a smaller group than their representative voice would suggest. There is no way the could create a militia of sufficient size to compete with local law enforcement, much less state or federal. McVeigh-types will find sympathy at Free Republic and nowhere else. Any elected state officials will promptly be shown the exit if they start seriously talking about leaving the union.

Those talking about violent revolution should of course be investigated by the FBI or Secret Service. They could cause a lot of harm and a lot of death. But they simply don't have the numbers or resources to separate from the rest of the country.

[OutNow]

10. Hey - I read that book - Harry Turtledove

Several of Harry Turtledove's alternative history sagas include a red state / blue state division, with the outcome of the civil war (1861 - 1865) as the linchpin. American Empire is one series that is worth reading. Guns of the South is another book I liked on the same topic. In fact, just about all of Turtledove's alternative history is interesting. His science fantasy is not as good.

[FudaFuda]

13. i LOVED the World War series!!

silly premise, but I couldn't help it ... those books were awesome. When I was reading them last year (I'm over 40 with wife and kids) once in a while I'd try to discuss the story a bit with my family over dinner and they would laugh their asses off at me .. even my 5yo daughter would laugh! Alien lizard invasion in the middle of WWII ... I guess it does sound funny. But I hadn't been so well entertained by a series of books in over 20 years.

I read Guns of the South too, and really liked it, though not quite as much as 'World War.' I read the first series in the Videssos stuff and didn't like it at all, even though I'm very interested in Byzantine history. I haven't read any of the Timeline-191 (i.e. Southern Victory) stuff yet.

[Aristus]

14. The film "C.S.A. - The Confederate States of America" postulated that an America

in which the South won the Civil War, and perpetuated slavery into the 20th Century, would have only two international allies: South Africa and Nazi Germany.

If we did fragment into red and blue states, I agree that most of the rest of the world would be on our side.

http://www.csathemovie.com/index2.html

[The2ndWheel]

15. If we don't have the energy to keep America together

the rest of the world won't have enough to keep itself together either. There would be more sides than just two.

[BlooInBloo]

16. What is it with the fools at DU and elsewhere always talking about civil war?

Do you realize how fucking stupid you look?