The Nature of a Soft Civil War in the US

Defining Civil War

• ⚠️ The common perception of civil war as a sudden event with uniforms and declarations is often inaccurate.
• 💡 Historically, civil wars can begin subtly with politicians demonizing groups, leading to local militias, disinformation, and random violence.
• 🇷🇼 In Rwanda, radio hosts calling ethnic groups 'cockroaches' was an early sign, escalating to lists, mobs, and genocide.
• 🇭🇷 Similarly, Yugoslavia saw the start of its civil war with politicians demonizing ethnic groups on TV.

Signs of a Soft Civil War in the US

• 🇺🇸 In the United States, a civil war is unlikely to resemble 1861; instead, it manifests as death threats to school boards and judges, stalking of officials, and election workers fleeing their jobs.
• 🏛️ Other indicators include state legislatures threatening cities with punitive policies and presidents discussing suspending the Constitution.
• 📉 This form of conflict is characterized by chaos and political violence alongside institutional collapse, often occurring one headline at a time.

The Normalization of Authoritarianism

• 🎭 A 'soft civil war' may feel normal, with one side enacting policies to maintain power and the other urging restraint, obscuring the gradual slide.
• 🧠 The concept of hyper-normalization describes how absurdity and surrealism can make extreme situations feel normal, leading to a lack of resistance and the death of democracies.
• 🚫 If people stop paying attention, the start of a soft civil war might be missed or lost before it's even recognized.

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