America’s Third Civil War is Nigh!
This is how America’s third civil war begins.
Oh, you didn’t know there have already been TWO American civil wars? The first was the Revolutionary War, in which the original American conservatives — the Tories (determined to conserve the grand traditions of king and church and the motherland, Great Britain) — fought alongside the British Redcoats against their American neighbors, friends and even family members, whom they called “radicals” but which we now call “patriots.” Conservatives were against the idea of the United States of America — a land of self-government, of, by and for We the People. Nothing has changed in that regard.
See my article on these “Greencoats” here: https://rustyreid.medium.com/the-greencoats-ca5ebaf7cc09
Then, of course, there was the Civil War civil war, in which conservatives acted up again, this time determined to conserve slavery and the “heritage” and “way of life” based upon it. Conservatives showed how much they cared about the Union and its silly and backwards tenet of “equality” by leaving en masse to form a nation in which slavery would be forever enshrined as the very cornerstone of gallant, chivalrous, patriarchal, God-fearing, Jesus-loving, white owned and operated society…. with everyone else knowing their place on the great “chain of subordination” that all conservatives believe in.
In both of these previous civil wars, conservatives were certain they would make quick work of the “enemy”… other Americans. In the Revolutionary War, they thought there was no way in hell that the radicals could win a war against them AND the world’s greatest military force at the time: the British military. In the Civil War, they believed themselves smarter and braver than the weakling unionists — and also hoped to recruit their old friends, the British, to help them out if need be. Oh, and they had God on their side… the One who never condemns slavery in the entire Bible. Sadly, for them, in either war pretty much nothing went to plan for these American conservatives. Astoundingly, the vaunted British military machine — with Greencoat assistance — lost to a ragtag band of colonists (with the aid of France) in the Revolution, and the Civil War left Old Dixie in death, disease and ruins… though seething with resentment and clinging to the same old backwards, un-American and un-Christian “beliefs” to this day. Learning lessons is not a conservative strong point (see, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan).
While the Revolutionary Greencoats were “Tories” (the name still used for British conservatives), almost all of the conservative Civil War losers were Democrats, politically. The political party in power that crushed them was the Republicans, raving liberals of the day. Conservatives didn’t much use the term “liberal” back in those days (they continued to use the word “radical”), but they would recognize their own ideological kin as well as their old opponent in today’s world. This other side was stubbornly determined to undermine the conservative’s advantage, privilege and power by expanding dignity and rights, including even voting — Egads! — to blacks, browns, immigrants, even women, for God’s sake! In the 1960–70s the old Dixie Democrats, the Dixiecrats, and their ideological kin across the nation, held their noses, asked forgiveness from their grandpappies, and surrendered their animosity toward Northern financiers and industrialists and joined the Republicans, the party of Lincoln, the man who had wrecked their culture and that they had murdered, but which was now the Party of Big Business and no longer interested in promoting original American ideals like liberty, equality, justice, pursuit of happiness FOR ALL. America’s social conservatives believed they could co-exist with the greed of the rich and largest corporations in a combined effort to thwart those very same ideals. Now they were bound together in toxic “unity” of sorts, and even though they despise the very word.
That’s how America’s two major parties — since 1860 — swapped places as “liberal” and “conservative,” and are now the virtual opposite of what they were originally.
Have liberals and conservatives, themselves, individually or collectively, changed during that time (which now seems so long ago, but really is not; it’s a long lifetime and a half back to the Civil War)? No, not much, if at all. Each is still doing what they do. Liberals liberate. Conservatives conserve. What do conservatives conserve? Their own advantage, privilege and power. What do liberals liberate? Those being oppressed or exploited by conservatives conserving. It’s not rocket science, people. You should be able to discern the continual dynamic of friction and conflict…. which is evident in every single issue. Liberals are still eager to advance and expand those original, true American ideals (and are also FAR better at promoting “Christian” notions of the dignity of all people), while conservatives still don’t believe in these self-same ideals and values.
The past 50 years have been a great insult to American conservatives, an all-out assault on their presumed right to advantage, privilege and power (simply by virtue of their white skin, penis and “faith” that they have the one and true “faith,” and, of course, are the rightful inheritors of the nation that a gaggle of radical liberals created in spite of violent conservative resistance). Since the Great Joining of conservatives by the late 1970s, conservatives have become more and more crass, brash and militant in their political and social discourse. Many — probably a majority — chafe at “rights” given to “the other” — whether female, black, brown, immigrant, non-Christian, and — hell’s bells, what is this world coming to? — LGBTQ people!
There is nothing in their creed that is wholesome, or even factual. It is all based upon myths and distortions. The Big Lie begins with their belief that they are the true and original patriots… when history reveals them as the true and original, and continuing, traitors to American ideals. The converse of this lie is another evil lie — that the opposition, the liberals, are traitors to the true “heritage” of America. Well hold on a minute, in a sense that’s true, if by “heritage” you mean white men trampling all over the everyone and everything else to get what they want. But if by “heritage” is meant the lofty, egalitarian ideals put forth by the Founding Fathers, then liberals — and only liberals — have been the caretakers and defenders.
After hiding in shame for 40 years after running the country into the Great Depression, the reorganized Republicans with their original American conservative mindset were given new life with Ronald Reagan, who routinely spewed untruths (and even commenced a “secret war” in Central America). George W. Bush ramped up the rhetoric (“You are either with us or you are with the terrorists”), as his administration ran roughshod over the Constitution, lied us into two, simultaneous, stupid wars and led the nation into the greatest economic crisis since the Depression. Then came Donald Trump, who cast away the least humility and any semblance of transparency as he based his entire campaign for president upon lies (starting with his starring role in “Birtherism”) and virtually begged the worst of American conservatism — white supremacy, racism, sexism, fascism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, radical religion, anti-science, anti-truth, violence against man and nature — to rise again. And it has.
Today, as we speak, there are conservatives champing at the bit to start Civil War III. There is no sentiment remotely similar on their reviled “Left.” But the extreme Right wing has managed to take over the Republican Party so thoroughly that now to doubt Donald Trump — on anything, including his Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election (and, thus, anything and everything is legal to “take our country back” from the treasonous traitor liberals) — is to surrender any future in the party. Indeed, the more Trumpian you are — a la governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott — the better your chances for great success in the party. It is these extremists who are now plotting — with or without an attendant civil war — to take firm control of state elections to ensure that they never lose again, no matter what the voters have to say about it.
This in itself, a non-violent but despotic and despicable act of treason against the actual values and ideals of the United States of America, will be enough to set off the civil war. Sorry, foul conservatives, “We the People” are not going to stand for that. Of course, there will be “Proud Boys” and “Oath Keepers” and all manner of toxic macho “militias” and lone wolf thugs on the Right just itching to light the fuse so as to put all of those AR-15s to good use killing “traitors.” And they will kill. They have already killed. They made a “national hero” out of the nerdish jerk, 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse, who took conservative rhetoric to heart and decided to travel, with his rifle, to a neighboring state to defend property rights against protesters, killing two and wounding another in his flight-of-fancy show of macho “patriotism.” Then, of course, the angry conservative mob on January 6, 2021, showed just how little they believe in American values — or police lives — when they cursed and clubbed and killed those whose duty it was to protect the Capitol and ALL of Congress inside as the brown-shirts clamored to get inside and murder politicians, including one of their own, albeit a traitor to their treason, Vice-President Mike Pence.
This is all prelude. These are the first skirmishes. Rittenhouse, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Q-Anon, Trump, Abbott, DeSantis, laws being written by state legislatures to “legally” allow the sacrosanct vote to be jettisoned at-will… there are nothing like these on the Left. What is on the Left is devotion to the true and original American values that conservatives have never, ever believed in… and never will. Liberals will not allow rights hard-won over the past 200 years to be trashed by conservatives. If it comes to war, we have faced you twice before, conservatives… and you are 0–2. You don’t even know that your boastful assurance that you will prevail was shared by both of your loser conservative predecessors.
Never underestimate how low, or how violent, conservatives can go. They were against the United States of America from the start. They killed Americans to prevent this nation from being born. They abandoned the United States once before. They have started a civil war before. And they will again, if allowed to. They will gleefully destroy a country they never believed in.
The timing of this impending debacle could not be worse. Conservatives in America are dickering with disaster right as World War III might be about to break out, and just as Global Warming is set to kick the ass of every thing alive on the planet.
Only one force in America could stop this. Conservatives with some modicum of decency. If there are any left. It doesn’t seem like it. Perhaps they are taking a nap. They had better wake up soon.
