The Partisan Divide on Issues

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MSNBC video discussing a book, with the author, on the potential of a civil war in the USA:





Dangers:

1. It is not the oppressed and powerless who provoke civil wars. It is people seeking to protect their collective privilege who clamp down on dissent by people who refuse to accept or maintain a subordinate status.

2. Political polarization is severe, and high-profile leaders seek to intensify such for their political advantage or personal gain, like Slobodan Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia.

3. Violent rhetoric and outright violence invariably precede the civil war, so there is escalation.

4. The countries can fit all levels of economic development.

5. Weapons are readily available (example: the former Soviet Union, in which anyone in good standing with the Communist Party could possess them lawfully. The USA is awash in privately-held firearms.

6. Countries undergoing civil wars were neither full democracies (USA a few years ago) nor pure tyrannies (North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Stalin's Soviet Union). They had some partial democracy either arising anew or decaying. The slowly-democratizing USSR under Gorbachev ended up with plenty of civil wars in isolated areas that would have been impossible under Stalin. Under Trump, democracy has declined precipitously, and support for democratic institutions has weakened. 

7. Countries can have various levels of homogeneity from practically none to huge regional and ethnic disparities.

HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM:

South Africa under Apartheid seemed in the 1970's and 1980's the country most on the brink of civil war to most outside observers. Apartheid protected white identity and privilege, but by the late 1980's the white population recognized that it could have racial privilege or profits. De Klerk cut a deal with Mandela in which the latter would abandon socialist revolution as an objective and South Africa would have free multi-racial elections with strong constitutional protections of human rights. The deal worked. 

In our case: strengthen institutions. Take the seams out of the Constitution through legislation and even Constitutional amendment. Improve educational opportunity and put more of the effort into improving lives. We must remove the "NIGYSOB" game (as Eric Berne put it, "Now I've Got You You Son Of a Bitch) from public life. We need what Abraham Lincoln called for -- "a new Birth of Freedom" possible only in legal reforms that make political chicanery impossible so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish.

Millions of people cannot acquiesce in their side losing the election. Most people can expect to lose half the elections in which they vote, and it is consummate arrogance to believe that the election that they lost heralds the end of democracy at least as they understand it, which means that things go their way.  

The countries that best escaped civil war did extensive reforms of their political order and did much to improve the lot of those recently treated badly. Such looks like the right choice.

HOW NOT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM:

1. Do nothing, pretending that the danger will fade 'naturally'. It never does that.

2. Provoke the armed struggle.