Who would win a civil war left vs right

Separation would constitute dissolution of the states that are most dependent upon federal assistance. The highest federal aid recipients are: Mississippi (45.3%), Louisiana (44%), Tennessee (41%), South Dakota (40.8%), Missouri (39.4%), Montana (39%), and Georgia (37.9%)

Of course, the states that are prospering would be relieved of that fiscal burden.

Why would the poorest states want to separate themselves from their desperately-needed cash cow?

 

A civil war would be an economic catastrophe for everyone, but if one become likely, calculations of government benefit are unlikely to drive peoples' actions.
The desire to be governed by people like oneself is extremely strong, and trumps all other considerations. If it didn't, the poor Africans would be begging for the white colonialists to return.

I wouldn't be sure about the Left-governed seceeding states being relieved of the fiscal burden of supporting the other states. Veterans tend to lean Right, and would probably head for the Rightist-leaning states, so not having to pay their benefits would be a boon for the Left. But there might be a compensating factor.

Probably, if they did think about, people on the Right in a looming civil war situation would figure that a lot of Federal assistance goes to welfare cases, who would probably find life more congenial on the other side and would leave. Small business owners and those whites who cannot afford to live in gated communities would tend to go the other way. (California has a third of the nation's welfare recipients now, and could look forward to getting a lot more. Some work would be generated from this however, as all the people living within gated communities in Calfornia -- is it really 40%? -- put in another ring of electrified barbed wire around their compounds.)

As the border with Mexico came down, the Left governed states would get a real upsurge in population as well, probably by people who would not be net contributors to tax income.

Plus, with all those horrible Republicans gone, the Left-governed states would face no barriers to greatly expanding their welfare programs.

In any case I don't think rational economic calculations will play any role at all in a looming civil war situation.

 

Not even close!

At most only about 10% wants a civil war and believes that they would "outgun" everyone else.

Alabama should be able to easily hold 30 million people given that a great many of them are already there anyway.

 

No, a multiplicity of factors would dispose people to remain loyal to the union, one being that internal dissent and the likelihood of further fragmentation as the states that absconded would have set the precedent for secession. Nevertheless, the states that are most dependent upon federal assistance - Mississippi (45.3%), Louisiana (44%), Tennessee (41%), South Dakota (40.8%), Missouri (39.4%), Montana (39%), and Georgia (37.9%) - would not blithely bite the hand that feeds them.

If such a thesis were correct, progressively greater dissolution would ensue - urban vs rural, well-educated vs less-educated, wealthy vs poor, men vs women, race, ethnicity, religion, age, etc. becoming increasingly applicable factors in the reductive pursuit of homogeneity.
Personally, I feel enriched in a number of respects by the diversity.

I have no qualifications to speak for African slaves.

I assume that the preponderance of military veterans are loyal Americans, especially those who fought for their country.

If Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Dakota, Missouri, Montana, Georgia, and other states dependent on the federal government feel they desire such a cleansing, they can reject federal assistance now.

Would their business and agricultural interests that rely upon cheap, undocumented labor eagerly embrace the evisceration of their workforce?

No one of whom I am aware is calling for the border with Mexico to "come down." If you are aware of any Democratic office holder or candidate who is advocating such a thing, please provide a link to your source.

Undocumented immigrants contribute to tax revenue, and derive little benefit in return - i.e., payroll withholdings.

Your hidebound, ideologically-driven, simplistic fantasy ignores the reality that most advanced states are not undeviating in their political predilections, e.g., the voters of Massachusetts, a very "blue" state consistently electing Republican governors, and all those Democrats rate their current Republican governor, Charlie Baker, the most popular in the nation. Nevertheless, their Attorney General, Secretary of State, the majority of their State Senate and House, and their entire congressional delegation are Democrats. Ideological zealots in locked goose-step for either party is a very bad idea.

Proud Americans will stand by their nation.

 

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As for a civil war, it would depend on the loyalty of the military. Since most military leaders are respectable, they tend to despise trump. And they would refuse to follow illegal orders.

That aside, I've been calling for the right of secession for some time now. And I see no reason why the right and the left shouldn't support this. If the red states are really so hateful of blue states, AND they believe in State's rights, then give each state the right to choose.

As a blue stater, I want nothing to do with red state politicians EVER EVER EVER again. I don''t ever want someone like trump or sessions to have power in MY country. They and their supporters don't really support American values and they have hated blue states for as long as I can remember. They are dangerous. They are a threat to everything that was good about America. Beyond that, the civil war never really ended. The South has never given up its flag, or the memorials to men who waged war on the US.

The US has long been called a grand experiment. Well, we have the results. And the experiment failed.

You can't expect everyone in a country this large to live under one set of Federal Laws. And the office of president has become radically dangerous. Trump has proven that beyond any doubt. It is time to eliminate the office of president and most of the Federal government.

 

I don't know about the 'leaders', but that's not the case for the 'followers'.

The main impediment to seccesion in the United States is the American world role. If the Americans returned to a pre-WWII posture -- one big power among many, mainly concerned with the Western Hemisphere, that would change.

 

I think you've got an idealized picture of the US. I happen to agree with your last sentence, indeed with the spirit of your last paragraph, but as I look at trends, I am more pessimistic. Also, you've got to reckon with the effects of a bit economic disaster -- it was the 1929 crash which did for the Weimar Repubic.

As for positions on the Border, we must distinguish public-relations-statements, made with an eye towards getting votes, with the realities of actions. It's quite clear that more and more Democratic politicians are moving towards having an effectively open border.

As for the Republican businessmen who rely on cheap exploitable labor -- yes, it's a delicious dilemma. It's what is tearing the Republican party apart, or at least, has separated its base from its top, the latter having been more concerned with the donor class than with their own voters. It's also revealed what some of us who are from the South have known for a long time -- social conservatives are often economic 'liberals' (and vice versa). (You're no doubt familiar with the Thomas Frank thesis.) It's just an unfortunate accident of history that a creature like Trump was the one to take advantage of this.

A different sort of Democratic Party could exploit this split, but I don't see that happening. The old Left was fully aware of the backwardness of the white working class in America, but did not despise them for this -- rather, they attempted to unite white workers in struggle with Blacks for their common economic interests. But the new Left see white workers as their social inferiors, irredeemably racist and despise them. You can see that on this board. The old Left chanted 'Black and White, Unite and Fight.' The new Left talks about White Privilege.

i wouldn't put too much reliance on economic rationality when it comes to separatism. It wasn't economically rational for the Kosovans to want to separate from their wealthier Serbian neighbors, it isn't economically rational for Quebec to cut loose from Canada, it isn't economically rational for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, and probably was not for Ireland as well, and Brexit is going to have a serious and negative economic impact on the UK, according to almost every economist.

But if you're sharing the same country with people you loathe, and if it appears that they will be governing you .... the heart will overcome the pocketbook.
I repeat that I think this is a bad thing. I personally would like to see the world going in the other way, with countries which are at a broadly similar level of economic and social/cultureal development lowering the barriers between themselves. But we have to face reality.

I don't know what you mean about not speaking for African slaves. Africans want to govern themselves -- ie to have someone who looks like them in charge -- even if that means turning their countries into impoverished, violent laughing stocks, or objects of horrified pity, of the world. And this is not some specifically African feature. I was astonished years ago when visiting Hong Kong, to find my academic colleagues eager to be re-united with the mainland. Perhaps they've changed their minds now. Too late. Not that they could have done anything about it anyway.

I deeply hope that the US does not come apart. Or rather, I hope that political and economic developments in the US don't start to make this idea a realistic one. But if the worst comes to the worst, it's better that the idea of a peaceful separation have been widespread and discussed beforehand. (Not that it would be very peaceful, of course -- there would be mass population transfers, which are never voluntary. And in situations of effective civil war or near civil war, it's the hard men with guns on all sides who will emerge as the political arbiters. The decent people on both sides will face the likelihood of this man's fate.)

 

I don't pretend that is the case, no more that I would fantasize that xenophobes hope to close all borders permanently. Contriving wildly exaggerated disparities is a common ploy.

If such a rift exists within the GOP, conflicting agendas are not merely between political parties.

I know of no political office holders or candidates of either party who frequent these boards. I have been very critical of the Democratic Party's having neglected the less-educated, blue-collar workers that had once thrived under Democratic policies and were, as a result, extremely loyal to their Party. That there has been considerable support for Sanders from this demographic, and that others have picked up on his focus, is encouraging.

In all those cases, a bifurcating geographical separation has been a significant facilitating factor.

The reality is that, despite some politicians provoking and exploiting loathing by Americans for one another, patriotism endures, and there is a diversity within most states that dictates against ideological separatists. Again, if a state were to exercise a right to secession, is there not then a precedent for counties, parishes, cities, towns, villages and neighborhoods to secede from that state and every other jurisdictional context within it?

Unless you are an African, you are speaking for others. I have never heard an African proclaim, "I want to have someone who looks like them in charge even if it means turning my country into an impoverished, violent laughing stock, or object of horrified pity, of the world."

Assassination has long been a practice of fanatical ideologues exploiting division and promoting disunity. It underscore the need to transcend the inevitable differences in the common interest.

 

I don't have enough familiarity with the structure of American political parties to make a really informed observation. I assume that people who post on discussion boards are unusual, but are also a reflection, or more likely refraction, of lots of others.
Of course the logic of separation is one that separatists don't want re-applied. The Virginians were probably not happy with West Virginia when it secceded from the former. Nigeria crushed the seccessionists in Biafra. The Serbs didn't want to let Kosovo go.
In the end, these questions are decided, as old Bismarck said all serious questions in politics are, by blood and iron.

 

I for one think we should just let the red states secede like they always threaten to do. They don't even want to be Americans, so they shouldn't have to. And I think it will be run watching their economies collapse, and having them bed to be let back into the US, and even more fun to tell them no.

Almost all traditionally red states use far more in federal aid then they pay in federal taxes. The federal government holds up their entire governments and economy, and once they secede that means no more aid.
The only red state that isn't completely in debt to the federal government is Texas, but even they rely very heavily on federal money.....No more subsidies to oil companies....No more NASA facilities....A lot of money leaving their economy.

 

Assuming this map is accurate, and that the monetary transfers are the relevant ones, it doesn't seem to me that there is a huge difference among the states. Texas gets about 32%, but New York gets about 33%. California gets 26%. Oregon gets 36%. Maine gets nearly 37%.

It would be interesting to know just how this largesse breaks down -- how much is for good things, like military spending, and how much for bad, like welfare, but I couldn't find anything that explained that, in a quick search.

Just for a quick comparison, here are the states that went for Trump:

 

So....

are you serious about this?

Sounds like you are.

Another person was saying this thread is just a theoretical game.

Seems like a weird game to me.

But, you don't sound like you're playing a game, you sound serious.

Are you?

 

That is the wrong way to look at it. Which states are most likely survive without the other? Red or blue states? My guess is that those blue states are going to get mighty hungry, but the red states can survive without the technological advantages of the blue states.

 

Some shared such dreams of self sufficiency in 1860 as well.

Of course, the more prosperous states can be expected to conduct international commerce in a free market unimpaired by punitive tariffs.

 

I sincerely hope this is just 'a theoretical game.' At this moment, I suppose it is. The question is whether that remains to be true in the future.

For many Americans, if presented with the political ultimatum of sacrificing their constitutional individual rights to the mob rule of unlimited democracy (and the collectivism those pushing it seem to be embracing), fighting (and dieing in) a war will be the preferable alternative. Of that I am quite serious, and so should anyone be that values the stability and unity of our nation.

 

A stupid conclusion. There is such a thing as trade.

 

Certainly. You can buy your food from us in the red states.

 

Thanks but no thanks. Feel free to live with ancient technology. Perhaps Google and the like will stop serving all the red states plunging them back in to the stone age.

 

"Who would win a civil war left vs right"

the only winning move it not to play....

 

"Trends suggest a leftist domination of US politics is likely only a matter of time. Which means a civil war is likely only a matter of time unless we split the nation and go our seperate political ways."

so when republicans lose control they want to go to war? it's like a kid playing a board game that quits the minute he starts to lose

the truth is, it's our debt that will cause America to go the way of Russia and declare BK and start over - those will be hard times for Americans sadly

 

That just shows your ignorance of the red states.

 

Looking at things the way you are looking at them doesn't seem like you value stability and unity at all.

I can't imagine someone on the left starting a thread like this one.

Threatening war against your own country?

The irony is hilarious and frightening that people on the right think it's the left that are the "dangerous" ones.

I would hope any normal person would look at this sort of thing as a sign that it's the right who tend to threaten mob rule, violence, and just all around insanity.

What's really scary is even Trump has referenced the violent types that support him.

 

If Lincoln would have left things alone we wouldn't be having this debate. But nooooo he had to have the Civil War to "save" the country.

 

No more so than your ignorance of the blue states. Like I said, keep on underestimating the other side. Whatever helps you sleep at night.