02-07-2017, 05:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-07-2017, 05:54 PM by TeacherinExile.)
(02-07-2017, 02:31 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Generally skirmishes precede full-scale war. We have had a few scuffles, but nothing on the scale of Bleeding Kansas yet. So, as a thesis, not impossible but not proven.
True, thankfully, so far...yet here's the big "but": This article in USA Today, a newspaper that I normally bypass, got me to thinking about the prospect of this fourth turning playing out as an internal conflict:
"Trump's divided inauguration day recalls Lincoln's in 1861, Nixon's in 1973"
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/polit.../96829858/
As the news article rightly points out, the inaugural protest against Nixon suffers as a comparison to the demonstrations staged during Trump's swearing-in. Nixon had been re-elected by a landslide, both in the popular vote and the Electoral College. And by 1973, anti-war protests had become almost passe. The social mood now, however, does bear some resemblance to that of Lincoln's day. Our country has been more or less evenly divided for years between competing values regimes--characterize them how you will.
I would cite one passage in particular from Kaiser's Time article: "What's Next for Steve Bannon and the Crisis in American Life"
http://time.com/4659390/howe-strauss-steve-bannon/
...Many people in the major media, academia and Democratic politics cannot imagine alternatives to the status quo. They simply could not believe that something like Trump’s immigration order would go through, because it was antithetical to their values. The election, however, already showed that their values, while shared by most of the population in the blue states, are not consensus values. Some polls have shown that a majority of American voters supported the idea of Trump’s immigration order. Trump’s opponents are now in a fight for their political lives.
Maybe I'm reaching here, but substitute the words "Trump's immigration order" with "Lincoln's abolitionist stance" and carry the analogy through by substituting where appropriate, and what do we get? Glimmers, I know. Immigration is not the singularly divisive issue that slavery was. Still...
You may recall I had a semantic quibble with some on this forum about the use of the word consensus, especially if by consensus it was meant as a prerequisite for regeneracy, or as a marker for the "social moment" having arrived. Obviously, no such consensus existed in 1861, which is why a civil war was fought over the issue of slavery. Rather Lincoln imposed a new social order on the restored Union by dint of superior military force. (It's telling that the legal objections to Trump's immigration order at the state level align with a "blue/red" map. That sure looks like some kind of developing "civil war" to me.)
I have argued that the phrase critical mass seems more appropriate than consensus. No such consensus of values will ever exist during a Trump presidency, despite his token appeals for unity. (Of that I am convinced.) And yet, much like Lincoln, Trump does not require a consensus to forge a new political order, only a critical mass of support.
Which he now has, in spades...any way you look at it: (1) conservatives in control of all three branches of government; (2) the GOP in control of 69 out of 99 statehouses, nearing the threshold to call for a constitutional convention; (3) ideological alignment with certain foreign leaders, to be determined; and (4) not to be overlooked, a plethora of partisan media outlets sympathetic to his policies. It all adds up (potentially) to a president with maximal--but hopefully not, absolute--power.
After Trump's election a deflated James Carville, former political strategist for Bill Clinton, told a Book TV audience, "Get ready, the Republicans are getting ready to ride roughshod over you."