Why it feels like civil war

[donquixote99]

In a swell piece for liberals (conservatives may not get into it at all, it's heavy on the liberal introspection), Tom Kreider observes, writing in The Week, "I love America. It's Americans I hate."

But even conservatives will likely have sympathy with this: "It all feels less like the raucous squabble of a democracy than a war, in which the object is to win by any means necessary, our fellow citizens have become The Enemy, civility is appeasement and fairness is collaboration."

The author ends by reporting small successes in boosting mutual tolerance. This can be expected. The majority on both sides do not want an actual civil war, and have enough sociability to want to continue to get along with those they have gotten along with. The majority contemplates escalating hostility and all it might imply with at least some degree of disquiet, or even fear.

But the majority may no longer be big enough. If enough of a minority wants a civil war, they can make it happen. Events can spiral, with each side becoming convinced that those on the other side are immoral bastards committing outrages.

Keep in mind that conservatives think their prejudice is common sense, and the denial of the malice and danger posed by 'others' is what is immoral. The conservative contempt for social programs includes the conviction that it is violations of social Darwinism, the taking from 'winners' to support 'losers,' that are immoral.

As Geopge Lakoff observes in Moral Politics, "To conservatives, liberals seem either immoral, perverse, misguided, irrational, or just plain dumb. Yet, from the perspective of the liberal worldview, what seems contradictory or immoral or stupid to conservatives seems to liberals to be natural, rational, and, above all, moral."

Likewise, "...what is irrational, mysterious, or just plain evil or corrupt to liberals is natural, straightforward, and moral to conservatives." Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think

Lakoff's book dates to 1996, and what he said I think has been true all along. So why the intense feeling along the liberal/conservative fault line now? Because this is a time of powerful conservative reaction. The economic decline and social issue defeats suffered by the heartland have combined to energize them, the internet has pushed more people to greater extremes, and Trump has won.

The possible results of that victory look in turn to liberals like too much to be borne, if not an actual existential threat to the planet. It is not hard to imagine resistance turning violent, if fears start becoming reality. It is also not hard to imagine the conservative reaction to that.

Civil war is possible.