1861 part 2: The Laziest and Litigious Civil War.
Greetings: It has been a while. Life is busy. No excuse and quite frankly how many of you care about all my weird wacky adventures in the desert?
Granted some of you may. That will be forthcoming this summer.
Today I want to talk to you about what I am calling 1861 part 2: The Laziest and Litigious Civil War.
This is speculative. The entire article is me peering ahead, and I may be totally wrong.
First some framing: I don't want anyone to think that this is all some new thing I just started thinking about. This is a story, a historical pattern, and a phenomena I have been reporting on for a long time. In fact this Nov 14th 2016 article I have linked below was written on election night that year.
You can even see the seeds of my first and still most popular book “Dear Church” in the middle of the article in which I first make the claim that the problem we are facing isn’t sociological, but theological. With the rise of Christofascism, whole church bodies galvanized like brown shirts, the comparisons of the former President Donald Trump to King David, the memes, so many fucking memes, the advent of the Trump Bible wrapped in crimson, white, and indigo with the preface not being the translation committee sharing the received history of scripture, but the U.S Constitution, I stand by that claim.
We have watched mainline Christian denominations oppressively polite silence get even heavier, even more oppressive, and even more polite. This I covered 4 years ago in a medium article I posted: “The Golden Rule 2020 is Dangerous and Misguided”
While our christofascist friends focused on things like Jan 6th, resisting the uprisings for George Floyd, terrorizing LGBTQIA+ people and culture you would hope for a more clear response from our faith leader community. I tell you all this just to share with you that I have been writing either in long book form, or in papers, articles, presenting at conferences, and to anyone who will still listen on the street about the danger we all face. Although my takes on the current state of our republic are typically not in line with the popular opinion, they have over and over again been vindicated by the slow march of time. That doesn’t mean I have always been right. I’m not predicting anything, like you I am assessing the data I have and looking to create patterns that help me navigate things. I am learning. When we say these are “unprecedented times” what we really mean to say is-no one has a playbook for what is currently happening.
I certainly don't. But I do have the advantage of being a PhD student of history. Most of what we have seen has historical echoes. I travel across the country by vehicle more regularly than the average person. Not all of you, but most of you. I eat at the diners the news orgs interview the 3 worst people in while ignoring the Black Iwoian couple in the back. I pump gas at buc-ees and chat with a rancher about the wild weather and how lucky we are to live in a world like this before he notices my Fred Hampton pin or I watch him drive off with his “Black Guns Matter” decal. I hang out in more hoods than you probably. As a black person I wasn’t installed with what my aunties call “common sense.” I go anywhere and talk to anyone with emphasis on the lonely and houseless most likely talking to themselves.
What I believe is coming down the pike is 1861 Part 2: The Laziest and Litigious Civil War.
It really boils down to numbers, and lack of honor. There will also be violence, but at the end of the day those who want to plot treason and sedition in this country will also try to pretend that it’s just values from the “old days.” They are cowards of the highest order.
They will never pick a field or uniform, as is custom.
They are few and isolated. Connected not by community, or neighborhood, but mostly through the online spiderweb of nebulous “friends,” “associates,” “fitness clubs,” “men's groups,” and political rallies. These aren’t whole states, peoples groups, towns, or counties. It looks the same everywhere as it does where you are. It is a few dozen loud, dangerous, and brazen people playing games with things like the peaceful transition of power and our countries already waning faith in our means of voting and an already weakened political structure crumbling in on itself.
They have no army, except an army of trolls and podcasters like Charlie Kirk who would shit their pants under sustained fire from almost any caliber firearm. You see they want a civil war, but they are really holding out hope that their friends at the supreme court or the local state house will do it for them. Not that they are afraid of anything. These are Alpha Males and the cream of the crop, just ask them.
As a Theta wave Trans person I can only guess.
But I think after the Jan 6th trials most populist supporters of this new political movement are realizing “america” may not actually be secretly hoping they stick to the libs or “antifa.” In fact it appears that the state may just look at riotous and seditious behavior as just that, riotous and seditious. To be honest, even if “justice” comes it will be as unsatisfying, unrepentant, and unnerving as all so-called american justice. It will lead to an increase in police responses to organizing protests no matter the political stripe or ideology, and have chilling effects caused by federal investigations into abolitionists or DOJ investigations into “leftist” organizations as well as these “far right” ones.
But the increased police, federal and state responses will keep this group and any other resistance to state or international violence, policy, or legislation in a harried position. While after the last decade this may sound like good news to you, I can assure you it isn’t. The crackdown will be as ineffective as everything else, because it will be “average looking citizens,” meaning white and male, and the immediate response will reflect this, much like Jan 6th. At the end of the day this will only increase instances of populist and far right resistance. It will justify more people joining whatever cottage or national issue sparks a street response at the time. Repression of political activity only leads to increased political activity in my experience and it has a galvanizing effect on the targeted community. It often pushes rather reasonable people to unreasonable responses. One cannot underestimate the power of seeing the state and the police aligned against you. For this demographic the amount of outrage and privilege revocation by the state will be uncanny. The state won’t allow it to go unanswered no matter the racial, social or class distinctions of the participants.
And from here kids, things get interesting. You see, in my scenario it doesn’t matter who wins the national election Nov 5th. Don't get me wrong, national polling of likely voters shows an increasing resistance to the narrative the Trump campaign, his legal team, and he has personally propagated throughout the country, and Americans are slowly warming to another Biden-Harris administration.
Recently 10 of the top 15 polls show Biden and his team are winning and have a strong chance to win re-election. It appears to me they have secured what they think is a winning road to at least 270 Electoral votes, and are actually implementing sound strategy and most importantly in my time as political organizer, ground game. Here is Newsweek's recent article showing the numbers: Joe Biden Now Leads in Ten Polls
I think the average citizen can now see the danger Trump and his political machine pose to the country, how this form of “ american christianity” seems to be out of lockstep with the thousands of years of received church history and understanding of scripture, and how this isn’t just “alternative truth.” As a trans person who has personally felt the increase in hatred, I also don’t I think his anti-woke rhetoric or anti-trans rhetoric is as effective with his base as he believes.
Fox news agrees with me: Fox News Poll conducted in April of last year showed at the height of this rhetoric only 1% of respondents thought wokeness or trans people were the number one issue facing the country. They are using nothing but losing strategies.
Which is actually a large part of the Trump Team's plans. While most people have raised alarms about the heritage foundation’s project 2025 and the fact that the Trump team has realized they need a transition team in place to do more than organize a poorly attended inauguration, not many have considered that losing is just as much a part of the strategy as winning. The erosion of political norms was the point. The testing of the response of the federal government rank and file. The slow creation of a counter democratic rhetoric and its proliferation by the sheer unstoppable force of the media and social media industrial complex fueled by our need to have all the sources of information at once.
Information, liveshots of the palestinian genocide called just war, hundreds of so-called civil wars happening all over the world currently to be frank, while the old wars and battles of Europe threaten to drag us all back into much more perilous times 24 hours a day at the swipe of a finger. We are addicted to it. We can't get enough. I think the Trump campaign is actually capitalizing on this better than the Obama campaign did comparatively against the first HRC run but with entirely different intent and goals. The Trump campaign has been giving the longest concession speech in history and it would be hard to miss it unless you were invested in keeping ratings, viewers, or clicks. Donald Trump himself over and over again has made the case that the courts, the system, the democratic system of voting itself from machines to volunteers are working against him. He has already told his supporters how he is the most vilified, tampered with, and openly “resisted” candidate for president probably in U.S history. That is true: and with good reason.
The Biden administration has also been comically resistant to actually doing anything about his at minimum grossly negligent behavior in the highest office in the land, at worst seditious, treasonous, and undemocratic acts. He has threatened to and participated in subverting the will of the people.
He knows he will lose and I think so does the Biden administration. We still have a long way to go, but if we all show up and vote along the lines we have been indicating in poll after poll, election after election since the Trump administration ended it’s clear the electoral map isn’t as easy to win as the Trump campaign wants to make it. So he has started to prosecute his case in the court of public opinion.
He will lose and he will claim it’s because the government and the Biden administration rigged the election again. He will go to court but claim the courts are working against him. He will claim victory, and so will Biden.
But this time I think that up to almost 15 states will declare for Trump no matter the results. What I mean by this is they will claim he is the legitimate President and will start to function as if he is. Trump and his team will set up an illegitimate and illegal government. They have been setting the stage for it since 2021.
They won't pick a field, a uniform or fire a formal shot. Not at first. Their position, the economies of the most likely supporters among the union, and the public wont allow it. At first.
But I suspect post election we will get a version of Bush V Gore on steroids, ketamine, and meth. These alpha males seem much more at home behind a legal team than on a real field of battle. They will let their red hatted bullies scare us, beat us, lynch us. They will let their small bands of cowards terrorize citizens and hopefully scare the Biden administration into actually contemplating this nightmarish scenario I can’t get out of my head.
Imagine a new Jim Crow country embedded throughout ours in a patchwork system of terror and compromise with an international border fueled by a people who want a new America but lack the courage and conviction to declare that the union has become untenable for them. A new severed country decided by courts, lifetime appointees to Washington DC, and whatever band of populist creeps Trump's team can get to get his allied state houses and legislators in line.
I know I know. You think the Army, or the Marines wouldn’t allow this, or the President or the Joint Chiefs etc.
I mean maybe……….
have you ever driven across the country? Any formal state militia that knows the terrain can make it nigh impossible for any force to take it, not to mention: the troops are Americans, with the same divided views of our shifting social realities.
The infighting may be unit to unit. Seriously take a look:
https://www.cfr.org/blog/violent-far-right-terrorist-threat-us-military
The articles, international cries of concern, and studies are ubiquitous. My point is tactically speaking even with a completely united and energized U.S military not only are we an incredibly large geographic region to hold, we are all situated in cities between terrain that would make it a very uphill battle. I think the Biden administration isn’t sure if the national guard from every state would follow the chain of command in this situation.
Look. All I’m saying is the safest route in this scenario is to allow citizens to fight it out in protest and claim each separate and distinct but most likely large political responses where a show of public support either way. It amounts to a post November 2024 with heavy police presence on both sides, targeted enforcement, and the longest and laziest most litigious civil war ever.
Will any of this happen? I don’t know. I have been right before, even called prescient. I have also been dead wrong in this new era of political shifts and seismic change. But I can’t get this scenario out of my head, so I figured I’d share the nightmare with you.
Of a possible mass migration of millions of Americans to either a new nation, or the one they knew. Racial and queer violence escalating. Reproductive health falling through the floor.
In the end I wish this nation of edgelord seditious traitors would stop trying to use democracy to break democracy, but this is what I think we are headed for.
It will take people of good conscience, good will, and bravery to guide us in the days ahead no matter what happens and those seem far and few apart. So since I haven't written in a while, and someone asked me where I see the next few years going this is one scenario I think is very likely and I also think your federal government considers it a possibility.
Written in love and liberation
lenny duncan