Are rightwing pundits right that America is on the brink of a civil war?

Lately on the right, a sense has been developing that the American project is heading for a profound, perhaps bloody crisis. More and more, we hear talk of “civil war” – some say we have already embarked on a “cold” one.

The shooting of representative Steve Scalise pulled these ideas into sharper focus, but “civil war” talk had already been subsisting on fears of violence from anti-fascist (“antifa”) groups. Several violent confrontations have occurred throughout the country this year as right wing activists, claiming to speak for “free speech”, have gathered to square off with their masked enemies.

This is worrisome for a number of reasons. First, the idea of a second civil war has an analogue in the fantasies of outright fascists like William P Peirce, whose fantasies of race war inspired Tim McVeigh to detonate a federal building in Oklahoma City (journalist Alexander Reid Ross has recently offered a good discussion of the long history of civil war talk).

The people who wrote the pieces below are not fascists, but some of their articles depict political adversaries as deadly enemies with whom there can be no rational accommodation. If we really decide that we can’t occupy the same country as our adversaries, the stage is set for a turn much darker than anything we have so far experienced.

Why conservatives still attack Trump

Publication: National Review

Author: Dennis Prager is a conservative talk show host, a columnist at National Review and elsewhere, and in recent years he has launched his own online agitprop outfit that goes by the education-flavored title of “Prager U”.

Why you should read it: Dennis Prager might be the guy who got the most recent iteration of the “second civil war” meme circulating. This week he’s upset about politicians breast-feeding, but over recent months he has been arguing that the contemporary left is so fundamentally opposed to basic American values that “there will be unity only when the Left vanquishes the Right or the Right vanquishes the Left”. He has spent a lot of time, including in this most recent instalment in the argument, trying to persuade his fellow conservatives that the left represents a real, existential threat.

Extract: “I have concluded that there are a few reasons that explain conservatives who were Never-Trumpers during the election, and who remain anti-Trump today.

“The first and, by far, the greatest reason is this: They do not believe that America is engaged in a civil war, with the survival of America as we know it at stake.

“While they strongly differ with the Left, they do not regard the left–right battle as an existential battle for preserving our nation. On the other hand, I, and other conservative Trump supporters, do.”

Are we nearing civil war?

Publication: The American Conservative

Author: Pat Buchanan is a former presidential candidate, ardent “paleoconservative” nationalist and publisher of The American Conservative. He has been disappointed by Trump’s abandonment of his isolationist campaign rhetoric, but he has been unwavering in his loyalty.

Why you should read it: Buchanan’s “civil war” is a limited one, and mostly to be understood metaphorically. Nevertheless, he urges Trump to understand the media, the federal bureaucracy and the intelligence apparatus as enemies to be purged and defeated. It’s hard to imagine that Trump’s relations with the press corps becoming worse than they are, or for his administration to be more dysfunctional. But Buchanan urges him down this road, depicting it as the path of righteousness.

Extract: “Trump has had many accomplishments since his election. Yet his enemies in the media and their deep state allies have often made a purgatory of his presidency.

“What he and his White House need to understand is that this is not going to end, that this is a fight to the finish, that his enemies will not relent until they see him impeached or resigning in disgrace.

“To prevail, Trump will have to campaign across this country and wage guerrilla war in this capital, using the legal and political weapons at his disposal to ferret out the enemies within his own government.”

The cold civil war

Publication: Claremont Review of Books

Author: Angelo M Codevilla is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute and professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University.

Why you should read it: This long essay, in a journal that presents itself as the intellectual powerhouse of conservatism, affects a tone more of sadness than anger. Americans, Codevilla thinks, have diverged too far in their values to live together under the same law. Overreach from federal governments and the judiciary has permanently alienated large segments of the country from one another. We may not have to break up, but we may need to loosen things up, so that different parts of the country can run things in accordance with their own mores.

He therefore uses the current political situation to relitigate arguments that conservatives have been making since the civil rights movement, or even the civil war.

Extract: “So many on all sides have withdrawn consent from one another, as well as from Republicanism as defined by the Constitution and as it was practiced until the mid-20th century, that it is difficult to imagine how the trust and sympathy necessary for good government might ever return. Instead, we have a cold civil war.

“Statesmanship’s first task is to prevent it from turning hot. In today’s circumstances, fostering mutual forbearance may require loosening the Union in unfamiliar and unwelcome ways to accommodate differences that may otherwise become far worse.”

It’s time to stop our cold civil war from heating up

Publication: The Federalist

Author: Clifford Humphrey writes for the Federalist and is a PhD student at at rightwing Hillsdale College.

Why you should read it: Humphrey translates Codevilla’s arguments for the Federalist’s rightwing millennial set. Mutual hostility is increasing, on his view, because of the left’s “intolerance”, incivility and willingness to use federal institutions to get its way. Only a recommitment to federalism – ie letting socially conservative states pursue socially conservative policies without federal interference – will divert us from the road to bloodshed. The fault lies with “those who have given up on the power of argument to persuade and have resorted to force”. You may have guessed that he’s not referring to the alt-right.

Extract: “In other words, one would rather risk death in mortal combat than exercise patience and argumentation within the strictures of our rulebook, the constitution. Such a stance only makes sense if one believes – like the slaveholders and extreme abolitionists did of the Lincolnian Republicans – that the opposition represents an existential threat that politics cannot resolve.

“Such a stance only makes sense if one has completely lost faith in the constitution. If people no longer believe that ballots are a sufficient substitute for bullets, then violence is the logical consequence.”

Let’s consider secession

Publication: The Resurgent

Author: Erick Erickson used to run RedState. Now he hosts a radio show in Atlanta and blogs at The Resurgent. Like many conservatives, over recent months he has made the transition from #nevertrump to anti-anti-Trump. He remains an influential conservative voice.

Why you should read it: Erickson advocates not a second civil war, but the same actions that precipitated the first one: secession.

Conservative areas are not allowed by the overweening federal government to honour their own values. A loosened federalism would not help, because corporate power is also arrayed against conservatism. The only solution is to carve out another country altogether. Erickson’s article was too much even for some of his fellow conservatives, but he was voicing a widespread sentiment on the right.

Extract: “In our present atmosphere, there is no escape from the American Isis that is the political left. Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant and then it seeks to silence good. Evil is now dominant – but the partisan line is blurred.”