I respect Jeff’s work but we should be careful about what we forecast & how inevitable we make it seem. We are not close to a civil war, but I worry we are perilously close to a mass casualty event because of the undisciplined nature of irregular security forces & an extremely armed civil society
My gut says it would be harder to get to full, classic, whole country civil war in a country as large geographically and population-wise as 2025 USA? My gut's no more an expert on this than the rest of my body is though. 🤷
everyone needs passports, at minimum
Soon tariffs will REALLY hit businesses and consumer prices, the wholesale inflation data is terrible and the lack of summer tourism will see businesses fold. Trump's popularity is tanking. He's spiralling. Civilian deaths will occur. I hope any civil war/insurgency is contained within GOP.
That last part: yes! ‘the undisciplined nature of irregular security forces & an extremely armed civil society’
Civil war, insurgency, mass violence, civil unrest —all mean & imply different kinds of events & trajectories, although we often hear & use them interchangeably in conversation. Authoritarian consolidation doesn’t necessarily immediately produce civil war, & there are many (bad) steps between them
A lot of these same steps toward militarization happened to DC in 2020, around the George Floyd protests; few reforms happened afterward. This is unfolding in the context of greater authoritarian consolidation, with ICE playing a bigger role. That’s obviously very bad, & I’m not underselling it.
I remember in NYC, where I lived in West Village very near a police precinct & 10 min walk from Washington Sq Park, at one point walking to laundromat & there were close to 100 police/FBI/DHS. An alarming level of militarization. Obviously, far greater authoritarian consolidation now, as you say.
It’s a weird situation because people in both dc and nyc are used to startling levels of militarization at times & there can be multiple mass casualty events across the country in a “normal” time. the critically different thing right now seems like the federal authoritarian breakthrough + ICE’s role
For sure! I don’t mean to suggest it’s the same at all. And in 2020, it didn’t make me feel safe to see the militarization, it was disproportionate and largely not protecting people. Now it’s full-authoritarian & trying to violently arrest & deport immigrants (or suspected as such) w/o due process.
Oh I was agreeing with you, thinking it through aloud
When I say “civil war,” I mean the larger category of civil wars, not the US civil war. That category requires a second armed side. What we have now is state repression, with multiple potential pathways before us, some terrifyingly violent, some more generically undemocratic, some of restored rights
Of course the two armed sides in the U.S. civil war were formed out of what used to be one army.
I’m going to sign off because I’m tired & sad & worried, like everyone else & I have offline stuff to do, but (1) maybe some colleagues will tag in if they see questions they want to answer; (2) things can be violent w/o being civil war; (3) civil wars are awful; please don’t wish for one in replies
This broke containment last night so let me add a couple of posts here bsky.app/profile/anja...
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I guess I ought to introduce myself: I’m an international relations professor, and my expertise is the relationship between violent politics and international organization—specifically, the UN. I’ve spent a lot of time learning how countries move in and out of civil wars and how peace is built.
I’m approaching the question as a someone who’s like, done a PhD and written a book and taught thousands of students, and I do think it matters how precisely we frame & specify the violence unfolding around us—it helps us choose the right strategies to address and hopefully stop state violence
A lot of replies say I’m splitting hairs. Being precise is what people studying something do; diagnosis relies on specificity. If, for example, a doctor tells someone they have cancer, they have to determine and specify what kind and what stage; just telling someone they have cancer is insufficient
In case not enough people have told you they appreciate you for building and sharing your knowledge in this way, especially on platforms which disincentivize nuance: I appreciate you!
I see what you're saying but I feel like the US is somewhat unique at having a sort of poison pill in federalism. States can, and have, attempted to be those alternative power structures in the past. Many have standing armies. Control over those armies has already been an issue. Does that matter?
“Intro to US Govt,” and “Comparative Politics,” are going to very interesting this semester…
By way of introduction, I am a member of a Scandinavian fjord people that played an integral role in building the institutional structures that has defined life in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and to a lesser degree, Denmark for the past 1000 years or so. As I think Dag Hammarskjöld would agree, ...1/
Got you a follow. 💪🏼✊🏼
Thank you. Your words are very helpful tonight. ❤️
What you have at the moment appears to be civil war, with only one side fighting. The other side is sitting there waiting for some magical intervention.
Re-read the thread you’re replying to.
Your discussion here helped me clarify my own thinking. While I do not think that we are headed towards civil war in its classic definition, I do believe that we are going to see violent civil unrest. Trump wants it and will continue to try to provoke it.
You started by pointing out how progression to civil war isn't so inevitable, but by the end here it seems like what you mean is the death and violence will merely be formulated differently.
Do you see a route to civil war through *failed* authoritarian consolidation? As in, the route back to functioning democracy is closed off but the regime loses the ability to govern.
One side heavily armed, with the power of state violence behind them killing civilians doesn't constitute a civil war either... it's a purge, a massacre.
I'd argue we've been facing a domestic counterinsurgency around the unresolved conflicts in the Civil War for over half a century. Trump has escalated it, and his ignorance and arrogance make him a poor planner prone to catastrophic mistakes
Why can’t we treat it as serious as that? DC is literally being invaded by red states National Guard … I feel like everyone is 10 steps behind because of DENIAL… since when did we no longer plan for “worst case” scenarios?!
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Civil War 2 / War with Mexico #nationalguard #Trump #Republicans #Democrats #MAGA #usmilitary #usarmy #usnavy #usmarines #Ohio #SouthCarolina #WestVirginia #florida #texas #civilwar #CivilWar2025 90 second video plz watch / share / comment / subscribe free www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYRj...
I would just add that the right *wants* violence. Recall that JD Vance wrote a blurb for a book calling Trump's opposition "unhumans" who ought to be murdered and wrote the forward to a book by Kevin Roberts who said their Revolution "will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
I hope it will be more of a revolution than a civil war, in which the thugs are vanquished into the ash heap of history and we can start over fresh without them.
I don’t understand why it hasn’t happened already. If things continue it seems inevitable
Had to unfollow him for my mental health.
"We are no where close to fighting back" might actually scare me more
I'd argue that we're well into a cold civil war. Think Years of Lead. Right wing terrorist attacks are a regular occurrence and met with little to no institutional resistance. Politicians are being assassinated and the state is standing behind it. It's not open combat but it's here.
Don’t forget the 180 rounds fired at the civil servants in the CDC building.
I think we’re gonna see an American La Violencia before this all ends en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Viol...
Civil War in USA isn’t battlefield and trench warfare with cannons and rifles. I would argue we are already in a civil war. Events like the CDC shooting, the assassination of state reps in Minnesota, and the assaults on innocents by ICE are the new battles in this war. We are losing, badly.
If Trump tries this in New York we will be at civil war stage. NY national guard v SC national guard. This is the plan. Start with a place where it can work. Then escalate.
There's kind of two different things people can mean when they say "civil society" and despite the direness of the times, it can be a bit humorous to think you are saying there is a very well-armed group of NGOs in the USA ready to have shootouts with the federal agents.
the state has already declared war on a significant proportion of the population
bsky.app/profile/jack...
Those who think we aren’t close to a civil war will simply explain away all the signs
I don’t agree that war and concomitant cataclysm is not close. That’s because events can develop really quickly when the heat is on. Just looking at history.
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This will not be the Civil War of the 19th century. What you describe is how it will start, and it will inevitably escalate, because that's what the administration needs to finish its plans. It's coming whether we want it or not, and it's time people start processing that.
And I want to be perfectly clear.... I don't fucking want this. I had a front seat to the aftermath of the Yugoslavia dissolution in the second half of the nineties. I know the horrors that are coming. I've seen the results first hand.
Alex Garland's Civil War is an apt depiction of what we are faced with.
Blue citi/States should immediately legalize gambling, prostitution and strip clubs wherever these kids from red states get stationed in blue cities.
I fear something like Kent State II, where someone gets spooked and starts firing, and then things escalate from there.
That’s a likely way it might all start.
I think we are. It was my first thought when today’s news says they might arm them.
I think we are a lot closer to armed insurgency or something of the sort than we want to admit
This of course won't be N vs. S. Civil War, but I think that's getting hung up on semantics. If on one side we have a repressive government, and on the other some kind of resistance with at least some violence involved, well, like the judge who said about pornography, I know it when I see it...
America is going to need one of these: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromai...
appreciate your thoughtfulness and caring....here's hoping we find a peaceful solution but we must be frank about what we seem to be up against....essentially concerned about a trigger it seems to me....& roiling forces of fascist values and actions could trigger an event that could morph into ???
I wouldn’t say culturally we are close to a hot civil war. It’s still a cold civil war. But these moves, for no actual reason, stink of the right trying to force a hot one.
Thanks (I think?), but I’ll disagree w/ your read of it by agreeing with your dissent. Point I emphasize in every interview & talk is that inevitability is first lie of fascism. In tpost, I said it’s close to opening stages—which precede, sometimes by months or years, worse. Time to find other ways.
I think maybe the disagreement is on what makes for a civil war and what makes for something like the years of lead. One-sided state repression of a population with rippling insurgent violence isn’t uncommon, but civil war—the contest over central authority with multiple armed mobilized sides—is
we could very clearly land on a pathway with constant state repression of the population and periodic episodes of greater violence that isn’t actually civil war, and I do think, as you do, that we should move as quickly as possible to avoid that pathway, too
I guess the question is whether Jim Crow and Reconstruction violence would count as civil wars—in my fields, we’d say no, & classify them as state terror against a population. Those periods, and the dirty wars of Latin America, have I’d say more lessons for what an ICE-driven terror might look like
Steve Witkoff proposed to Putin a "West Bank model of control" for Ukraine. Israelis justify apartheid and genocide by pointing at US history, and now vice versa. Rejecting ethno-nation ICE-terror against stateless and POC gets harder when US is hand-in-glove with IDF www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025...
I think we're going to see 30s Germany or 40s Spain type state terror on any who resist, but we don't teach those in the US well or at all so we're trying to explain that blue vs gray w/cannons, or invading Poland, are equally unlikely to a population with those 2 (and only those 2) mental models 👀
You are already seeing IDF terror in US against anyone who speaks up for Palestinian human rights or even charity for children. Advocates for Palestinian human rights are taken into arbitrary detention, deported, visas revoked, taxes audieted and of course careers ruined. 99% of academics are cowed.
The citizens of DC are currently an insurgency. Each area Trump attempts to control will become the insurgency (not their choice). This insurgency will become effective by targeting areas where the occupiers come from rather than fighting in their own streets and backyard.
1980s Guatemala in the U.S.
This validates what I've been telling others; since the violence is asymmetrical, and since we don't /actually/ have a two-party system, it will end up being "State vs. People" and not "Party vs. Party". The only "opposition" Democrats will provide is telling civilians to lay down arms.
I would say that something between the Years of Lead in Italy and The Troubles in Northern Ireland is more likely
I would like to suggest that that's *exactly* what a civil war in America in 2025 is going to look like.
Northern Ireland had an armed conflict for 30 years. It wasn’t civil war, not even close. But the level of deaths, maiming of civilians and living in a militarised zone with road blocks, street/house searches by soldiers and trampling of human rights was horrible for all
Don’t just fear civil war: fear the other forms of armed resistance and its consequences that can erupt
What is the distinction or is this merely sarcasm?
This is dangerously naive when the war has already vegun and people are disappeared from your streets.
I mean, how is this not civil war? bsky.app/profile/lore...
It’s because the obvious thing to do would be to send other national guard units to oppose them, but that would be The Thing, and so…
"Agents" are already shooting at families here in LA. I don't know what to say. Everybody on the non-fascist side is doing their damnedest to fight this without turning it into a bloodbath and everybody on the fascist side is going "cool - easier to exterminate you"
We, the people, cannot relinquish our #PeoplePower Now people of color are being harassed in our neighborhoods, at their own homes, for no reason other than skin color. No more pretense. #FightRacism #StopProject2025 #StandUnited #Resistance #Resist Make a plan-Sept. 1st www.fiftyfifty.one
The gap between billionaires and the average family is exponential. On top of it, social programs have been killed and taxes altered to redistribute wealth, while most will not be able to afford the health of their children. That mixed with fascist ideologies will counter to our conclusions.
Might be that if MORE people thought of "red state" aggressors as actors in a nascent civil war, MORE people would do something besides wring their hands, pound their keyboards, walk around holding signs, and/or yap (Jeffries, I'm looking at you). Historical precedent doesn't engrave the future.
No, actually I think we are closer to civil war than we admit
who is the other side tho?
I would imagine that the divide is between those who support the president and those who he’s attacking If we have a civil war, it’s not going to be neatly divided into two contiguous blocs of states; it’s going to be fought on a much smaller and yet more widespread scale
Which is how fascist authoritarian dictatorships typically spill out. The US Civil war was the south trying to leave vs. a leader attacking its own people. When it's the latter it's usually piece by piece, though type of fight varies on when people realize what is happening. Still have time.
No. The civil war was definitely not about the South “trying to leave.”
Hey Zoe, did I say it was?
Unless this was speaking rhetorically. And then in that case I apologize for the misread.
Well, thank you. I wish we could understand that on the Internet and in real life that it’s okay to ask for clarification as it makes sense that we all communicate differently even when speaking the same language. Misunderstanding is normal. I make similar mistakes, so I try and pause more.
Perhaps instead of assuming the worst take, imagine that the world has a history of civil wars and what I’m saying is, a civil war happening today wouldn’t be like our previous civil war because this time the traitor is in the WH, so it’s wiser to compare it to civil wars with similar makeup.
Uh your second sentence here is definitely not accurate my guy
What do you think I’m saying? Genuinely curious how three people responded to me assuming such takes.
The U.S. civil was was the *seceded* Confederate States of America's treasonous war against the United States of America.
Yeah? My sentence doesn’t go against this. My point is, the US civil war differed on a physical level vs other countries’ civil wars, which is why it’s worth it to compare today’s issues with countries who had to combat a fascist leader rather than our civil war where that wasn’t the case.
you mean more like Syria? with sectarian violence
two standing armies with uniforms is very last millennium, so it wouldn’t happen that way. it would sooner be like Syria or Algerian Civil War (1992-2002). there would be red-blue violence, and attacks like we’ve already seen (El Paso, black neighborhood supermarket in Buffalo, AME Church etc). ⬇️
but i’d also count on intra-maga sectarianism as they fight over who is the apostate maga versus the true maga
Yeah, def! Terrifying times… it’s wild to see them just legalize illegal moves that our constitution should protect us against, but kinda what every progressive was terrified of since before Trump won. Like the court stacking and districting was years in the making. Germany encountered this too.
Maybe? I grew up hearing about Nicaragua, so my mind jumps to that a lot, but we differ from both being where we started off as, a nation with a whole lot of influence and power. Very easy to compare to Nazi Germany, unfortunately.
Russia has a hand in this. Those that Trump targets should find inspiration in the Ukrainian people.
stop it. American fascism is American.
Right, but Trump has Russia's support and benefits from their intelligence.
Nah, we're actually really close to a civil war.
Can I ask the ppl here debating wether the US is entering a civil war: Who are you imagining are the sides here? Fascist feds vs who?
It might be Alabama National Guard troops ordered into Minnesota, fighting Minnesota National Guard for example.
I think so far the assumption at every step of trump’s success has been “people/courts/soldiers/whoever won’t stand for this” & we’ve found that, besides spontaneous unorganized civilian resistance, actually yes they will
Does that mean you're arguing that it's already over? Because I dont know how else to interpret what youre saying.
Oh I think it’s just beginning. But it’s not a “war.” It’s more an uncontested coup, or regime change, or apartheid, or setup for a genocide
My fear here in Alabama is that a bunch of godly white people, mostly men, w/ encouragement from higher-ups in MAGA, go to Black & brown neighborhoods and start shooting. Please understand that I have no information. It's a theory I came up with to explain the elimination of concealed carry permits.
that’s terrorism and irregular warfare and skirmishes. it’s not a civil war.
Even if those who are attacked fight back?
that depends on a lot of things
I guess the classic definition is a territory and a frontline.
I guess yr example here sounds more like Gaza rn, which I would not classify as a war
(It’s a genocide. Which is exactly what this admin wants for Black Americans)
What exactly do you think a civil war is?
Two organized sides fighting each other for control. We have one organized side.
What exactly do you?
“a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.”
the armed part and the conflict part could be examined
The rest of us
How do u see that manifesting or organizing
I often wonder if society has changed enough in "first world" countries where the risk of death camps like 30-40s Germany is actually possible. Has social media somewhat ended that secrecy? Is the comparison of Nazism immediately voided? Would we even KNOW when a civil war actually starts?
