Civil War 2.0?

I wrote here about the possibility that the United States might come apart, not in another violent civil war but in a Brexit-like separation of the blue states from the red states. Five years ago I would not have entertained such a possibility. Today it seems like a viable alternative, and polls suggest that a lot of Americans are open to the possibility.

Over the last few days, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines have canceled more than 2,000 flights, which the Biden administration attributes to an otherwise-unobserved weather catastrophe across the Western states. Meanwhile, hundreds of container ships are floating in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, waiting to be unloaded as our supply infrastructure has broken down. Pete Buttigieg, allegedly our Secretary of Transportation, has during this time been on maternity paternity leave, or otherwise AWOL.

We may be seeing here the first cracks in the facade. Can the elites who think they rule America really dictate what happens? This Twitter thread by Anglo Respecter 40K–I am sure many people know who (s)he is, but I don’t–makes some provocative points. (Via The American Conservative.):


There is much more at the link, most of which I don’t agree with. Again, this person’s perspective is neither conventionally right nor left, although definitely not my own. But I think the basic point made above is important: the elites’ control over the press, the academy, the entertainment industry, the bureaucracy, big business, etc., gives them much less power than they think. Because, at the end of the day, ordinary Americans will decide what happens in the real, physical world. I don’t think this will lead to another civil war, but if it did, the winner likely would not be the party that controls Twitter and Facebook.

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