One of the comments under that article puts forward the fantasy that the South would try to secede again. It’s a quaint idea, that the South would be dumb enough to secede from the Union en masse exactly like it did in 1860, setting the United States on a path of self-destruction that would see it reborn like a phoenix out of the ashes of what went before. That Southerners as a group still see themselves as preserving their peculiar institution, something they share in common that would cause them to think they had the numbers on their side to win the day and persevere in the face of the revulsion of the rest of the country.
They had grounds to think that in 1860. The world clamored for their cotton and tobacco and sugar. Commodities that required huge, cheap labor forces to plant, maintain and harvest. Slavery made that possible, and they saw themselves as irreplaceable and that England or France would support them in their war against the Union.
However, in today’s United States, nothing like slavery exists to unite Southern oligarchs into a force that might think they could win a war against the rest of the country, and the rest of the country still has the world’s greatest military machine on its side to put down any insurrections that might emerge in these troubled times. The bad outcome is more certain now than it was in 1860. Anyone with a lick of sense knows this and so won’t be rattling the sabers of succession this time around.
Don’t get me wrong, those people do exist. I’ve had fellow Texans propose this idea to me, many times. It’s a common enough joke, save your Confederate money boys, the South will rise again! Those people are the same people who think that Texas can divide itself into five states (it can’t. Or rather, it already has) They are stuck mentally in a time and place that probably never existed. It is a reinvention by our grandfather’s generation (as the history lesson I started this article touches on) a myth that has outlived its usefulness and is now more of an embarrassment than any kind of real movement.
The same brother-in-law that inspired me to write,
The same brother-in-law that voiced those veiled racist statements summoned the ghost of the Confederacy the last time we spoke,
You know there is another civil war coming.
I know nothing of the kind. The South won’t leave. They aren’t that stupid and they weren’t that stupid in 1860, either. But the South not leaving is not the same as the US continuing. Yes there is hope, as Heather Cox Richardson explains in her Facebook article. We can overcome. That doesn’t mean we will overcome. How many people thought that the USSR would cease to exist, before it did cease to exist? As long as there are people living in Texas, there will always be a Texas. Ditto for the other coastal states, because coastline yields ocean trade and trade is the lifeblood human social existence. But the US as a political entity can and will end if we don’t act to preserve it.
Make no mistake. The majority of Trump voters wanted to bring this country down when they voted for Trump in 2016. The wanted an end to the status quo, the status quo of the wealthy dictating policy at the expense of workers and the poor. The status quo embodied in the person of Hillary Clinton. Right or wrong they saw their votes as ending that status quo.
How do I know this? Because I was one of them until 2008. In 2005 I qualified for disability and was gifted with the ability to continue existing as a side effect. It took three more years for me to come to grips with my own short-sightedness. But I swore that I would never vote to bring down the system again after casting my last vote as a libertarian in 2008. In 2012 I defiantly voted for Barack Obama while all my libertarian friends were shouting about how bad he was. I ate a big bowl of crow and I went on with my life, understanding that the United States government isn’t just a system. It is people living their lives, and they have the right to continue living their lives.
When Hillary Clinton pulled out a win in 2016 I put on a brave face and voted for her anyway, knowing that Texas would never go for her. But I wouldn’t vote against her. I knew what Trump was. Right or wrong, Hillary Clinton was the only way forward.
Enough people were angry, and enough people wanted to tear down the system at any cost. Their numbers were just enough in three key states to swing the election into Trump’s hands, and the rest is the history that we’ve lived through over the last three years.
This is how I know that my kind Uncle Joe will not be the president we need for the future. Don’t get me wrong, I will vote for him if he is the Democratic nominee. I know how the US political system works. Joe Biden is the past. The loveable part of our past, but the past all the same. He is the status quo come back to promise us hope and change again if we just vote for him.
The angry people will dismiss him as a presidential candidate because of this. They won’t willingly embrace the legacy of the Democratic party and all the baggage that comes with it. They may just stay home, or they may hold their noses and vote for him like I did for Hillary Clinton in 2016, knowing what kind of president that Trump is already.
Most of them will not vote for Trump again. The tide is turning and you can feel it in the air if you stop and listen to the wind. But that doesn’t mean he loses, and that doesn’t mean the United States continues to exist. Without the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Americans on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, the United States would have died in the years between 1860 and 1865. In much the same fashion, but hopefully with a lot less blood spilled, the United States can and will cease to exist if we don’t give our full measure in her defense today, tomorrow and every day between now and the November elections.
Make no mistake, we are in crisis. We are beset with enemies both inside and outside of the country, all of them focused on keeping us from exercising our birthright. Our birthright? Creating a government of, for and by the people of the United States of America. Creating a government of the people for probably the first time in our lives here in the US. What will that government look like, and will there be a government at all? We are the only ones that can determine that, if our interests are to be served.
