The words “Civil War” get thrown around these days when the topic of ex-President Donald Trump and his mob of supporters gets brought up. In fact, Trump’s own base, during the Capitol riot, made it pretty clear through their words, actions, and even t-shirts that’s essentially what they’re hoping for.
But according to inside reporters and experts, this country is actually far closer to the brink of just that than we ever could have imagined — and it’s enough to send a chill straight to your very core.
According to reporting from the Daily Beast CBS chief White House correspondent Major Garrett, who once served as a senior White House correspondent for Fox News, has now teamed up with David Becker, an elections expert, to co-author a new book that will focus on the incessant lies from the Republican Party surrounding the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s plot to steal and overthrow the presidential election following Biden’s win, and the infamous January 6th Capitol attack.
In that new book, the authors specifically highlight the true threat of another Civil War that this nation now faces.
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In their upcoming tell-all, The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy in the Age of “The Big Lie.”, Garrett and Becker reportedly quote Bob Harvie, the chair of the Bucks County, Pennsylvania Board of Elections, warning, “This is not something I’ve seen in the history of this country, except for before the Civil War. And it does scare me. I’m really worried we’re approaching a precipice that’s going to be impossible to come back from.”
The Beast reports that the book “opens with alternate Januarys in both 2023 and 2017, offering ideas of what the U.S. could or could have looked like had either Democrats employed the same tactics Republicans had after Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 or if Texas chooses to effectively secede if House Democrats waver on seating its delegation in the 2022 midterms,” with the report going on to note, “The portrayals are dramatic, if a tad alarmist, answers to the question: What could serve as the genesis of a modern-day civil war?”
“We wanted to show people that what we’re talking about is just incremental steps from where we already are,” Garrett said of the unsettling upcoming book. “I don’t think anyone reading that first chapter can honestly say, ‘Oh, that could never happen.’ They have to say, ‘Holy crap, we’re 85 percent there.'”
But when it comes down to it, the co-authors and their disturbing new tell-all are far from the only ones sounding the alarm bells on the possible impending war in “the greatest nation on Earth.”
Over the weekend, The Hill cranked out a hair-raising opinion piece titled, “Can Civil War happen again?” The authors of the unsettling op-ed outline four stages that they say led to the historical American Civil War, before going on to pointedly warn that the current state of this nation is “unquestionably alarming.”
“The potential for large-scale violence exists today as it did in 1861. Americans possess nearly 400 million firearms, concentrated in the South, Midwest and West. A large fraction of Trump voters agree that ‘true patriots may have to resort to violence to save the USA.’ Nearly 100 anti-establishment militias have been identified, the most virulent of which, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, are standing by for a fight,” the piece from authors Hans Binnendijk of the Atlantic Council and David C. Gompert, a faculty member of the U.S. Naval Academy, reads.
“Republican leaders must squarely condemn all threats of political violence and distance themselves from colleagues who encourage or condone it — even at the cost of votes and elections,” they go on to write.
Binnendijk and Gompert note that “2022 is not 1861, when half the nation chose to leave, and the other half resisted with force,” but warned that if the ever-growing violence in the US is not brought to a heel, the rift will never close.
“Stage three and violence may need only a triggering event, akin to the 1860 election of Lincoln that precipitated secession,” the pair writes. “Perhaps, as Sen Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warns, widespread rioting would follow an indictment of Trump. Or claims of another stolen election, in 2024 or even 2022, could ignite hostilities, possibly involving coordinated militia attacks on government property and personnel, or on minorities. While these would surely be put down, a forceful reaction by police, National Guard or, in the extreme, federal troops would scar the nation and leave it no less divided.”
We are so… So much closer than anyone realizes.
Featured image via Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro
