An Iraqi Sunni, a Bosnian Serb, and a Moro Muslim walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, you’ve all been politically downgraded.” So they shoot up the place, killing everyone.
Ha, that’s a good one.
OK, it’s not. But it proves a point.
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Scotland!
Yes, that’s right—Scotland!
OK, let me back up.
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All of us—me in particular and America in general—have been talking a lot about civil war lately. To describe the frayed state of our nation, we’ve even learned a fancy new word: anocracy. This indicates a floundering country that is teetering between democracy and authoritarianism. Its presence is the first indicator that a civil war may be coming.
And what is the second indicator?
Well, that would be “whether populations in these partial democracies began to organize politically, not around ideology—so not based on whether you’re a liberal or a conservative—but where the parties themselves are based almost exclusively around ethnic, religious or racial identity.”
So the fact that the Republican Party has become the white-grievance party is more than just disturbing. It is a possible harbinger of war.
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Recently, I wrote about the rise of white supremacist terrorism. As horrifying as that concept is, please note that violence is just a means to an end for America’s racists.
Sure, many homicidal bigots enjoy bashing in a black person’s head or shooting a Latino for sheer enjoyment. But most of them are not content to sucker-punch an Asian person and leave it at that. They want more.
And that more consists of civil war.
Yes, I know that the idea of internecine armed conflict was laughable during, say, the Obama administration. Well, those halcyon days (which were only mildly halcyon by the way) might as well have been centuries ago. Because here in the post-Trump world, a full-fledged civil war is a distinct possibility.
Now to be clear, a second American civil war would not look like the 1860s version, which featured dueling governments and uniformed armies and generals with wacky facial hair.
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All of this has happened before.
No, a major American political party has never attempted to overthrow the government in a violent insurrection. That’s a spectacularly unique item for our charming day and age.
But white supremacist terror, culminating in an attack on democracy itself? Yup, we’ve done that.
You see, back in 1898, the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, elected a new municipal government that consisted of both white and black citizens. Thousands of white men—furious that the election didn’t go their way—refused to accept the result and overthrew the local government. They rampaged through the streets and murdered hundreds of black citizens.
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In the last week, America has endured even more protests (often marred by aggressive cops and/or right-wing lunatics), a surge in Covid-19, and allegations that the president is so corrupt that the House articles of impeachment were penny ante compared to his actual malfeasance.
On a personal note, I’m exhausted from overwork, an old friend abruptly begin spewing Soros conspiracy nonsense, and I think I’m catching a cold.
Yes, there was a major victory for LGBTQ rights, and a narrow win for the Dreamers. So that’s ending the week on a high note. But let’s not push it.
Yeah, I’m taking a break.
I will be back next week with (hopefully) more astute and coherent points to make.
Until then, I will leave you with this quirky factoid:
A couple of weeks ago, Irene Triplett died at the age of 90 in a North Carolina nursing home. Her father was teenage soldier in the Civil War, and as his only surviving child, Ms. Triplett was the last person to receive a pension from a veteran’s Civil War service.
Every month, the Veterans Administration paid Irene Triplett $73.13. By the time of her death, the family had been collecting the pension for 155 years. One has to wonder about the VA employee tasked with cutting Ms. Triplett’s check each month. He now has a little more free time.
In any case, Irene Triplett was the last living link to the Civil War. Her demise is ironic, considering that it comes at a time when all of us are primed to become living links to the Second Civil War.
So there’s that to consider.
See you next week.
As I’ve mentioned before, my family is from El Salvador. I’ve never been there, but I hear that it’s nice.
Actually, I don’t hear that at all. In fact, I hear the direct opposite.
My mom and aunt came to America decades ago, and they have surprisingly little positive to say about their childhoods in El Salvador. One of my cousins came to the United States when he was a kid. He has vowed never to set foot in El Salvador the rest of his life, because the place holds such dark memories for him. And my brother has lived in that country for years now, and he has told me about the struggles of raising a family there.
So no, this isn’t going to be an up-with-the-motherland kind of article.
Because in addition to my family’s subjective experiences, there is also the fact that El Salvador is arguably “the murder capital of world.”
And that is definitely not a phrase to put on the travel brochure.
You see, the legacy of U.S. intervention, a horrific civil war, and a stagnant economy are all major reasons for the country’s problems. And of course, “violence by so-called maras – gangs that originated in the United States and spread to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – is thought to be the major push factor” in propelling the tiny nation into “a lethal cycle that the government’s current rhetoric and strategy will not be able to break.”
In short, it’s a messed-up place.
What’s interesting is that, as bad as El Salvador would be under most circumstances, a couple of stray variables have turned a horrific situation into a pure cataclysm.
Back in 1999, the government thought the best way to fight the skyrocketing crime rate was to arm its citizens. It was that whole fantastical scenario of a good guy with a gun coming in to save the day. Well, that didn’t exactly work out.
The laws “permitted the private possession of heavy weapons. Instead of reducing violence,” however, these laws “fuelled its escalation.”
Another factor in El Salvador’s demise is its hyper-religious culture. The Catholic Church has such sway over the inhabitants that abortion is “illegal in all circumstances, without exception, punishable by up to eight years in prison. Sentences of up to 30 years have been handed down when a judge determined that ‘homicide’ rather than abortion had occurred.”
When women are denied basic rights over their own bodies, the culture notices. And today, “El Salvador is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women,” with “the highest rate of femicide in the entire world.”
Now, you might say that this is all very depressing, but that’s life in the third world — right?
Well, look at some of those factors again: a country where citizens are heavily armed, religion is all-powerful, abortion is illegal, and strongmen run the place.
This is the dream of everyone who voted for Roy Moore yesterday. Fortunately for America, they were outnumbered… this time.
For all the fear and paranoia that white right-wingers have about Latinos, they seem absolutely hell-bent to adopt the very worst ideas of Hispanic culture.
Perhaps El Salvador has bottomed out, and can only improve.
But the United States, if handed over to zealots, can get a lot, lot worse.
Good news — there is a 35 percent chance that the country will descend into open civil war within the next decade.
Now, you may ask, why is that good news?
Well, personally, I thought the odds of a second Battle of Antietam erupting within the year were around 50/50. So a risk of just 35 percent is positively optimistic.
Hey, nearly four out of five Americans “believe the nation is divided on the most important values.” And some experts claim that the nation is really a mash-up of almost a dozen different cultures where people “increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.” And, of yeah, in recent years, residents of both Texas and California have sincerely endeavored to secede from the union.
Naturally, we’re all wondering about the root causes of this internecine madness. Well, as is usual when nations start rotting from the inside, the main problem is the age-old malady of bigotry.
Yes, many social scientists have concluded that America is “vulnerable to racism, tribalism, and conflicting visions of the way forward for our nation.” And it certainly doesn’t help that our deranged president “modeled violence as a way to advance politically,” which feeds right into the narrative of the hardcore right wing and fuels talk of armed conflict.
Indeed, ever since the protests at Charlottesville, it should be perfectly clear to even the most idealistic person that “white fear of demographic change is a powerful force” and that “there are several lines of evidence converging on the idea that America is becoming a more hostile place for immigrants and outsiders.”
If you need further proof, “research does find that in the age of Trump — the age that started with an assertion that Mexicans were sending rapists to the US — it’s becoming more acceptable to be outwardly prejudiced.”
It’s all very depressing, of course, and we are correct to wonder how America has so quickly devolved into a nation where racists feel pretty good about themselves, and hatred toward Muslims is shrugged off a conservative value.
Hell, there was a time (not so very long ago) when “psychologists feared that ‘social desirability bias’ — people unwilling to admit they’re prejudiced, for fear of being shamed — would prevent people from answering questions about prejudice truthfully.” But in this terrible new America, “people will readily admit to believing all sorts of vile things. And researchers don’t need to use implicit or subliminal measures to suss it all out.”
This willingness to be horrible only verifies what progressives and ethnic minorities have been saying for years about a large subsection of America.
And yet, many media outlets still indulge in delusional thinking about Trump and his supporters. Despite mountains of anecdotal evidence — and in some cases, actual data-driven research — many commentators still dance around the issues of racism and xenophobia that characterizes Trump’s most ardent fans.
I mean, how many more studies do we need that show fictional “discrimination against whites was a core concern of Trump’s base”? No, it wasn’t a weak correlation or a side issue. It was a “core concern” of Trump’s support.
How often do we have to hear that “changing racial demographics of America contributed to Trump’s success as a presidential candidate among white Americans whose race/ethnicity is central to their identity”?
The truth is that there are millions of Americans who dream of an all-white country, one that is presumably 100 percent straight and Christian as well.
These are people who have never faced governmental or cultural oppression, and “who sat through the unit on the Second World War in their history class and looked at images of concentration camps and gas chambers and burning books and Anne Frank’s attic and still thought, well, hang on, maybe those Nazis had some interesting ideas.”
And they are all for Trump — to the point that he can no wrong and will never lose their support.
Now, in contrast to the bizarre enthusiasm that Trump supporters have of their man’s performance so far, more than half of all Americans and more than two-thirds of Latinos disapprove of the guy.
These are fundamental differences. One might even say that they are irreconcilable.
And since we’re using that kind of language, let’s admit a basic fact — one that may help us avoid open warfare.
We’re 240 years into this marriage, and maybe it’s time to admit that we’re no longer happy in the relationship. We have clearly grown apart. In fact, it’s worth asking if we ever really got along, because after all, there have been more than a few rocky times and bumps in the road over the decades.
Perhaps everyone would be happier if we called it quits and promised to stay in touch — you know, to negotiate intercontinental trade deals and stuff like that. But this whole idea that we are a unified nation and a cohesive culture… well, come on.
Who are we kidding?
Good intentions abound. That’s the only reason people still embrace misguided ideas like “colorblind society,” despite the powerfully negative connotations that such phrases conjure up.
The latest nicey-nicey concept I’ve encountered (and no doubt you have as well) is the absurd notion that, for America to succeed, we need to put aside our differences. In essence, we all need to get along.
Where in the hell did this strange idea come from?
For the overwhelming majority of American history, we have not all gotten along.
For example, Hamilton and Jefferson didn’t say, “let’s be pals” when they were hashing out what kind of government we should have. They had more important things to do.
Even during the so-called Era of Good Feelings, America’s many slaves weren’t feeling the love and joining in group hugs.
Speaking of slavery, America didn’t even reach its centennial before we started shooting at each other over that touchy topic. And it was another century of violence and antagonism before the government said, “Maybe we should be nicer to ethnic minorities.” At no point in that process did we all get along.
Yes, one could argue that the country was united during World War II, but even in that case, all it took to bind us together was a global conflagration where millions of people died and the very survival of democracy was in question. In other words… good times.
More recently, we’ve come to blows over Vietnam and Iraq, over abortion and affirmative action, over gay rights and healthcare.
So when was this mythical time when Americans were of one mind? And why does anyone think this is a necessary condition in order for the country to thrive? Obviously, we’ve found a way to work around our internecine loathing.
The truth is that a nation as vast as ours — with its myriad subcultures, each enjoying a large degree of freedom — is never going to be truly united. To believe otherwise is to embrace the thinking of a child.
However, this Kumbaya concept is more than a pathetic pipe dream. It features an insidious aspect snaking below the surface.
We see this in the earnest pleas, even demands, for liberals to shut up and support Trump. Of course, conservatives would like nothing better than for progressives to give Trump a chance (which many liberals, inexplicably, are quite willing to do).
But why would leftists agree to a right-wing agenda that goes against every principle we have, and that could lead America into chaos? Apparently, we should do so out of blind patriotism and for the sake of the vague, abstract concept of “unity.”
According to this idea, striving to be friends supersedes the threat of decimating the country.
“Yes, thousands of people are dead now because Obamacare was repealed, but at least we’re all getting along, and that’s the most important thing. Yup.”
This is clearly insane.
And aside from the specifics of the current era — where a wannabe fascist seeks to make the nation great again for white supremacists — the fact remains that striving for unity at all costs is spectacularly naïve, even destructive.
The US Constitution is the result of Founding Fathers threatening to duel each other to the death. Slavery was abolished through warfare. Civil rights came only after decades of people refusing to back down, and not settling for getting along.
One of the virtues/flaws of American culture is our hyper-competitiveness. As such, one idea or principle usually emerges triumphant. Sometimes it’s a good idea… and sometimes it’s not. Still, as we know, the moral arc is long but bends toward justice (at least we hope it does).
However, progress is delayed even more when we smile and act polite in the face of idiocy or fanaticism or demagoguery. And there is no need to do so.
Because we have never all gotten along.
And we never will.
We are all descended from losers.
Take me, for instance. My family came from El Salvador, a charter member of the Third-World Nation Hall of Fame that is best known for crippling poverty, psychotic gangs, bloody civil wars, murdered priests, and raped nuns.
I’m also part Italian, which lends itself to stereotypes of Mafia hit men and the original unwashed horde of immigrants. In addition, Italy is currently on its 982nd post-WWII government (not exactly a source of pride).
And I’m a touch Irish as well. So here comes the drunken, brawling Irishman, everybody.
No, I’m not self-loathing. In truth, I’m grateful for my mélange of ancestry. I regularly sing the praises of Latino culture, and it’s not bad having a connection (however distant) to Da Vinci and James Joyce.
However, everyone’s culture has black spots, and our efforts to honor our ancestors should not extend to overt denial and large-scale myopia. But they regularly do.
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