America's Second Civil War
And the Demise of Multiculturalism
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"The Second Civil War in the USA and its Aftermath" by Sam Vaknin (second, revised impression, 2029)
Summary of Chapter 83
"The polities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries swung between extremes of nationalism and polyethnic multiculturalism. Following the Great War (1914-8), the disintegration of most of the continental empires - notably the Habsburg and Ottoman - led to a resurgence of a particularly virulent strain of the former, dressed as Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism.
The aftermath of the Second World War brought on a predictable backlash in the West against all manner of nationalism and racism. The USSR, Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic, the EU (European Union, then European Community), the Commonwealth led by the United Kingdom, and the prominent USA epitomized the eventual triumph of multiculturalism, multi-ethnic states, and, in the Western democracies, pluralism.
Africa and Asia, just emerging from a phase of brutal colonialism, were out of synch with these developments in Europe and North America and began to espouse their own brands of jingoistic patriotisms. Attempts to impose liberal-democratic, multi-cultural, tolerant, pluralistic, and multi-ethnic principles on these emergent entities was largely perceived and vehemently rejected by them as disguised neo-colonialism.
The disintegration, during the second half of the twentieth century, of the organizing principles of international affairs - most crucially Empire in the 1960s and Communism in the 1980s - led to the re-eruption of exclusionary, intolerant, and militant nationalism. The Balkan secession wars of the 1990s served as a stark reminder than historical forces and ideologies never vanish - they merely lie dormant.
Polyethnic multiculturalism came under attack elsewhere and everywhere - from Canada to Belgium. Straining to contain this worrisome throwback to its tainted history, Europeans implemented various models. In the United Kingdom, regions, such as Scotland and Northern Ireland were granted greater autonomy. The EU's "ever closer union", reified by its unfortunate draft constitution, was intermittently rejected and resented by increasingly xenophobic and alienated constituencies.
This time around, between 1980 and 2020, nationalism copulated with militant religiosity to produce particularly nasty offspring in Muslim terrorism, Christian fundamentalist (American) thuggish unilateralism, Hindu supremacy, and Jewish messianism. Scholars, such as Huntington, spoke of a "clash of civilizations".
Ironically, the much-heralded conflict took place not between the USA and its enemies without - but within the United States, in a second and devastating Civil War.
Americans long mistook the institutional stability of their political system, guaranteed by the Constitution, for a national consensus. They actually believed that the former guarantees the latter - that institutional firmness and durability ARE the national consensus. The reverse, as we know, is true: it takes a national consensus to yield stable institutions. No social structure - no matter how venerable and veteran - can resist the winds of change in public sentiment.
In hindsight, the watershed obtained during the Bush-Cheney presidency (2001-2009). The social and political concord frayed and then disintegrated with each successive blow: the war in Iraq (2003-7), the botched evacuation and rescue efforts in the wake of hurricane Katrina (2005), the issuance of "presidential statements" effectively obviating laws passed by Congress, the incarceration of journalists and intimidation of legislators (e.g., nocturnal FBI searches of offices on Capitol Hill), the failed assassination attempt on the President's life (2006), the further restrictions placed on civil and human rights in Patriot Acts III and IV (2008), and, finally, the nuclear terrorist attack on Houston in the closing days of this divisive reign.
The attempt in 2008 to "indefinitely postpone" the presidential elections by imposing a Federal state of emergency in the entire USA exacerbated matters.
From there, it went only downhill.
As opposed to the first Civil War (1860-5), the Second Civil War (2021-26) was fought within communities and across state boundaries. It was not territorial and classic - but total and guerilla-like. It cut across the country's geography and pitted one ideological camp against another.
It may be too soon to objectively analyze and evaluate this gargantuan conflict. It was preceded by a decade of violent demonstrations, home-grown urban terrorism, and numerous skirmishes involving the National Guard and even, in violation of the Constitution, the armed forces.
Some historians cast the whole period as a battle of the religious vs. the secular. It clearly was not. By 2021, most Americans professed to being deeply religious, in one manner or fashion. No one seriously disputed the importance of the Church - but many insisted on its separation from the state.
Hence the protracted (and heated) confrontation between pro-life and pro-choice advocates when Wade vs. Roe was overturned by a politicized and weakened Supreme Court in 2007. Hence the drawn out (and violent) debates about the teaching of evolution theory in schools or the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research.
Nor was the Civil War fought between isolationists and interventionists. An ever more brazen brand of post-September 11 global terrorism and a growing dependence on international trade inexorably drove most Americans to accept their new role as an Empire. They actually learned to enjoy it, both emotionally and economically.
Thus, even erstwhile Jacksonian isolationists reluctantly acquiesced in their country's foreign exploits. But they insisted on blatant unilateralism and the projection of American might merely and only to protect American interests. They abhorred the missionary ideology of the neo-conservatives. Spreading values, such as democracy, should better be left to NGOs and charities - they thundered.
The Civil War was not about the preservation of East Coast liberalism, as some self-serving scholars would have it. America was never less racist and homophobic than in the years immediately preceding the conflagration. The debate, again, revolved around institutions. Should changing mores be enshrined in legislation and case law? Should the national ethos itself be rewritten? Should the very definition and quiddity of being an American (white, male, straight) be revisited?
Neo-Marxist chroniclers attribute the causes of the Second Civil War to the growing disparities of wealth between the haves and the haves not. Presidents Bush and Cheney surely reversed L.B. Johnson's Great Society. They and their successors erased the numerous entitlements and aid programs that many of the economically disenfranchised came to depend upon and to regard as a birth right and as a cornerstone of the social contract.
Turning the clock back on affirmative action and food stamps, for instance, indeed provoked widespread violence. But such outbursts can hardly be construed to have been the precursors of the gigantic flame that consumed the USA a few years hence.
Finally, the Civil War was not about free trade (beneficial to the service and manufacturing based economies of some states) versus protectionism (helpful to the agricultural belts and bowls of the hinterland and to the recovering Gulf Coast). America's economy was far too dependent on the outside world to reverse course. Its national debt was being financed by Asians, its products were being sold all over, its commodities and foods were coming from Africa and Latin America. The USA was in hock to a globalized and merciless economy. Protectionism was campaign posturing - not a cogent and coherent trade policy.
So, what were the roots and causes of the Second Civil War?
None of the above in isolation - and all of the above in confluence. For decades, the citizenry's trust in a packed and rigged Supreme Court declined. Politicians came to be regarded as a detached and heartless plutocracy. Americans felt orphaned, cheated, and robbed. The national consensus - the implicit agreement that together is better than alone - has thus evaporated. The outcome was the shots and explosions that rocked the United States (and the world in tow) on January 20, 2021."
SCOTUS vs. USA: Unraveling the Union (Brussels Union)
Public trust in the Supreme Court of the USA is at an all-time low and for good reason: corrupt and partisan judges have been rendering inexplicable decisions, demolishing decades of precedent, and legitimizing manifestly criminal misconduct.
Partisanship became rampant and unabashed: almost all the decisions were authored and promulgated by the Conservative, largely Trump-appointed majority with the Liberals in the Court dissenting haplessly time and again.
Here is a random tour of the wrecking ball tactics of the Court:
In Snyder vs. United States, the court ruled that “gratuities” paid or given to public officials by interested parties are legal. From now on, companies and individuals can openly bribe decision-makers provided the bribes are dispensed after the fact (in the wake of the favorable auction, procurement, ruling, or legislation).
Indeed, some of the high court Justices have been receiving such lavish emoluments from multi-billionaires for years on end and neglecting to report them.
The court reversed the precedent it set in Chevron vs. Natural Resources Defense Council. In Relentless vs. Department of Commerce and in Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo, the court ruled that judges (presumably, only Conservative ones) are better qualified than government agencies to render decisions even on highly complex and intricate professional and scientific issues.
Ironically, rejecting such an extreme form of judicial activism has been a rallying cry for the Conservative movement for decades now. But, it seems, that now, with a Conservative majority in the Court, it is back in favor.
This single decision against the “Administrative State” (the legalese equivalent of the conspiratorial “Deep State”) undermines well over 17,000 regulations in all fields of life, from food safety and public health to environmental protection. A protracted period of litigious chaos is bound to ensue, not to mention growing dangers to consumers and plain folk, not the darlings of Conservatives, admittedly.
In Fischer vs. the United States, the Court ruled counterfactually that the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6 were not engaged in an obstruction to an official proceeding (the counting of the electors in the Congress). It has thus undermined the case against 400 of them, possibly including Donald Trump himself.
The Court has also not rejected out of hand the surrealistic claim that Presidents are immune to criminal prosecution, never mind what heinous act they have committed, murder included. Incredibly, it is debating the issue.
This is a smattering of recent destabilizing and outlandish decisions, three of dozens (including the overturning of Roe vs. Wade). Should the USA devolve into civil war, as I have been predicting for decades now, the Supreme Court of the land will have a lot to answer for.
Judges, Prosecutors Terrified of Vengeful Dictator Trump (Brussels Morning)
Why would the Conservative justices of the Supreme Court who have spent lifetimes arguing for originalism and textualism suddenly revert to the most extreme form of judicial activism ever witnessed in US history? Why would they ignore the Constitution and trash all precedents? Why would they place the President of the USA (really, former POTUS, Trump) above the law?
Why would other judges indefinitely delay criminal cases against Donald Trump, or suddenly postpone his sentencing following his conviction by a jury of his peers, with the full consent of the prosecution?
I want to propose an outrageous etiology: fear. They are all terrified of Donald Trump who promised to seek revenge once elected to the highest office in the land.
In the wake of Trump’s debate with the sitting President, Biden, everyone is coming to grips with the realization of a second Trump presidency and the ineluctable transition to a dictatorship, possibly a dynastic one.
The 2024 presidential elections in the USA are going to be the last free and fair ones. Even if Trump were to lose the popular vote (the way he did to Hillary Clinton), his armed militias will take to the streets and to the Congress and this time, the insurrectionists will make sure they successfully “obstruct official proceedings”.
Blood will be spilled.
Never mind who wins the elections, Trump would end up in the White House. There is no force left that can or dares oppose him.
About half the electorate – the Republicans - do not regard such an outcome with dread. They perceive democracy as a ruse of the progressive-liberal coastal elites and the Democratic Party as a bunch of authoritarian, godless traitors.
The gulf between the two camps is unbridgeable as they fiercely and violently differ on all issues, from family values to immigration and from the role of the Federal Government to America’s place in a globalizing world.
A one-party alternative – with the Democrats gone and their leaders incarcerated - seems very appealing now. Hence the ubiquitous popularity of the likes of Orban, Netanyahu, and Putin, role models among the rank and file as well as the leadership of the GOP.
The 2nd American Revolution (Brussels Morning)
The USA is declining and decomposing and the Republican party have zoomed in on the sole agents and catalysts of these alarming processes: the Democrats and their democracy. The GOP also brandish a prescription for healing: the 2nd American Revolution.
The Republicans – a party dedicated to the interests of the rich and mighty – claim counterfactually (aka lie) that they are on the side of the Common Man who has been callously betrayed by the elites, especially by the bicoastal progressive-liberal intellectuals. Democracy is, therefore, a ruse and benefits only corrupt politicians in the swamp.
Even worse: the Democrats and their allied eggheads are hellbent on imposing values that are anti-American and on coercing the populace to conform by suborning and weaponizing the institutions of the state.
The problem is, sigh the exasperated Conservatives, that the godless Democrats are bad faith Americans: they loathe, hate, and detest the USA. In short: they are traitors. They are also opportunistic and, therefore, amoral, immoral, antisocial, and criminal, insist the Republicans.
It is a curious inversion. The GOP have appropriated the traditional playbook of the Democratic Party: championing the Average Joe and the rights and interests of minorities, not least by way of trade protectionism.
The gulf is unbridgeable and the parties are irreconcilable. The national consensus has all but disintegrated, carrying with it any solidarity left. The areas of contention are vast: from family values to immigration and from the role of the Federal government to the place of the USA in a globalized, multipolar world.
The truth is that the Republicans welcome authoritarianism as a way out of the quagmire: a one-party system, the leadership of the Democratic Party incarcerated, and docile, subservient institutions at the disposable of the Fuhrer. The role models are such paragons of good governance and patriotism as Putin, Orban, and Netanyahu, not to mention Hitler.
The 2nd American Revolution and MAGA are reminiscent of other transitions from democracy to autocracy in history: from the Weimar Republic to Nazism and when Republican Rome became imperial, for instance.
Universal franchise is, indeed, a flawed idea because it invariably gives rise to demagogues and tyrants in semi-structured ochlocracies (mob-rule). But the alternative is no better, especially when the would-be dictator is someone like Donald Trump.
Trump’s Insurance: Rogue SCOTUS (Brussels Morning)
Trump is now a weaker candidate than he was only a week ago: way older than Kalama Harris and a convicted felon to her ex-prosecutor. Money is flowing into Democratic coffers at an unprecedented pace. The party is newly energized.
Should he be defeated at the polls, Trump’s only hope to secure a win is through the slavish and cynical Supreme Court of the USA (SCOTUS). The GOP has done it before (Bush).
The electoral college is built to ignore the popular vote, it is innately an anti-democratic institution. Add to it an anti-democratic SCOTUS and the Presidency is Trump’s.
Further down the road, Trump may also seek to either abolish term limits or to designate one of his sons as an heir in the equivalent of a dynastic monarchy.
Next move in the hostile takeover:
SCOTUS may collude with Trump to deny the Democrats a Harris ticket in several states as well as access to any and all funds collected by the party hitherto.
There is one more legal move: fraud. The GOP can sue for having been defrauded by the Democrats and also claim that donors and voters in the primaries have been swindled. Lower MAGA courts and SCOTUS will have no trouble to play ball with this.
This is both unprecedented and runs against this high court’s own precedent (Trump vs. Anderson). But this kangaroo SCOTUS maintains a very conflicted relationship with precedents - and with the truth. It will do what’s good for Trump, period.
Some predict that “all hell will break loose” should this transpire. It won’t. Study the history of the Communist party in the Weimar Republic.
The Communists and Socialists in the Weimar Republic in Germany were far stronger than the Democrats are now in the USA. When Hitler was appointed dictator by the legislature (in the March 1933 Enabling Act), they just went along with it. This pattern has occurred all over the world in the wake of an authoritarian takeover.
When democracy is defeated, people just give up and move on, accepting the inevitability of a Hitler or an Orban or a Netanyahu or an Erdogan or a Putin.
The Democrats have already folded over much worse (Trump vs. USA) - and on multiple occasions.
The last desperate argument is that equating the USA to Russia or to the Weimar Republic is a false equivalency. The USA has a venerated system of checks and balances and has survived as a democracy against all odds (recall the Civil War).
Yet, tradition is no bulwark against usurpation and a hostile takeover. Institutions are malleable and only as good as the people who run them.
Republican Rome has lasted twice as long as the USA. Its checks and balances were way more sophisticated. In some ways, it was more profoundly democratic than the USA. Yet, it had transitioned seamlessly, voluntarily, and abruptly into the rapacious and tyrannical Roman Empire.
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