Now that Trump is no longer about to remake the government into a Fascist state, we need something else to be worried about, so here it is. The headline is that “fully half of all Republicans believe civil war is in our future.”
Of course, these results don’t mean that all those folks who believe that a civil war will erupt within the United States are actually willing or even able to join in such a conflict and take up arms in the fight to ‘take America back.’
Most of them, probably all of them, are like the two guys who were ahead of me at the convenience store cashier yesterday, making what was the most important decision they make every day, which is what lottery ticket to buy on their way to work.
I mean, if you’re a Republican and you voted for Trump, and some guy asks you over the phone whether you believe we are heading for a civil war, what are you going to say? That we’re not?
These prognosticators of future civil strife are the same people who tell pollsters that they believe the election was stolen from Trump. Since they vote for Trump and he lost, why not tell everyone that he should have won? Aren’t you really just saying that you wish he were still President?
If I voted GOP, I’m not about to tell anyone right now that things are going good for me or anyone else. I don’t care if I just paid three bucks a gallon for gasoline. I’d like to pay two bucks a gallon at the pump. I don’t care if I can get twenty-two bucks an hour for cutting a sheet of stainless when last year, I was paid eighteen. What’s wrong with getting twenty-two?
The point is that for most people, things could always be a little better than they are. What’s wrong with that? Nothing’s wrong with that. I could be paying absolutely no income taxes at all on the money I earn and I’m still going to tell some pollster that my tax bill is too high. Back to the looming civil war.
It occurs to me that the real reason that some of us want to fight another civil war is the possibility that when the conflict ends, we’ll get a statue with our name on it in some town square, or maybe a MAGA flag will fly over the home of someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or whomever else leads the rebel force.
Except the problem is that talk is cheap and when all is said and done, we seem to be trying to rid ourselves of the memories of the last War of the Rebellion, as it’s called. So why start up another one again?
Just before he left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump refused to sign a bill to fund the military because it included money to rename military installations that bore the names of soldiers who fought for the losing side between 1861 and 1865. Remember how Trump couldn’t bring himself to denounce the Nazis who marched at Charlottesville because there were ‘good people’ on both sides?
Obviously, Trump believed that the Confederate army also included some good folks. But could you really ask African American troops in today’s military to train at bases named after soldiers who fought to keep them enslaved?
Even the GOP patriots are keeping mum about this one and as a result, the government is planning to spend $62 million to take all those names down. A recent report commissioned by Congress will shortly announce that nine military installations will be renamed for women and minority soldiers, along with replacing stationery and whatever other signage bears the Confederate names.
And guess what? For all the talk about how the country is tottering towards a complete civil collapse, there hasn’t been one, single peep from one single Congressional member of the GOP caucus decrying this historical rewrite being carried out by the Deep State.
Why do I get the feeling that all those patriots who want to take up guns to defend the American ‘way of life’ will show up on the battlefield with water guns instead of real guns?
Amazon is selling 4 Water Blasters for $33.95.