Actually, it has already started. Charlottesville. Ferguson. Watts. It’s been brewing for a long time.
I had a conversation with my father years ago and it was his opinion that the continuing racial issues in America would lead to “another great civil war”. At that time, the ’60’s, we lived near the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, NY and had front line knowledge of the racial conflict that was going on around us. My dad was not a racist by any means, but he was discouraged at the demise of our traditional neighborhoods. The race issue was either complicated or not depending on your perspective. Race, injustice, poverty, unemployment, crime, drugs, etc. all combined to make for a volatile situation.
I wasn’t sure what my dad meant by “another great civil war”. Although we witnessed the devastation of the Bushwick area with the crime, drugs, violence and all the other things that went along with the racial upheaval happening at the time, and although we watched on the news the violence of the race riots on the other side of the country, in the Watts section of Los Angeles, I couldn’t imagine the whole country breaking out into an actual “civil war” where a million people could die in bloody conflict on the streets over race and prejudice. I felt that these race riots and crime waves were sporadic and short-lived and would be handled appropriately by law enforcement, and the National Guard if necessary. Around that same time, LBJ was sending National Guard troops to “supervise” the civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama.
I should have noticed, seen the bigger picture of what was going on around me. The whole country was in turmoil. Simmering, boiling. But certainly there wouldn’t be “another great civil war” like my dad thought. It wouldn’t come to that ...we were too civilized.
Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King ...their fate proved me wrong. We are not a civilized, enlightened people.
Someone should give a “State of the Society” address, similar to our president’s State of the Union address. It would detail all the advances we’re making as an enlightened society, and direct us to where we want to go to become even more civilized and enlightened. But who would give the speech? What politico would even recognize the trouble we’re in, or admit it? Certainly not our current president who is single-handedly directing America toward the “another great civil war” that my father feared.
Our society, our government, our systems of reproach can make laws to govern. Our sciences can fly us to the moon and back, and to Mars and beyond, they can perform medical miracles. They can detail, monitor and log every specific step of the way. We can watch it on television between the commercials and be amazed at the wonder of it all. But somehow, those same systems choke and fail us when they can’t even perform the simple administrative task of defining our president’s tax returns. Or getting a straight answer from him, or from his multitude of lawyers (why does he need all those lawyers anyway?). Or from the Republican Congress. Or the Democrats for that matter. It always seems like the blind leading the blind.
Corruption has corrupted our corrupt society’s corrupted systems. We are a corruptible people.
Some will argue that our first Great American Civil War was about economics and states rights, not race. Race mostly, I think, but more so about hate. The kind of hate that our president, Donald Trump, lives and breathes, eats and sleeps, preaches and teaches. He has divided America to the point of civil war.
Against my better judgement, I was willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt as president. But after watching his “performance” over the last two years I’ve come to the conclusion that he is not just merely the as**ole that he appears to be, but a “monster”, a monster that I was warned he was from someone who knows him personally, who has worked with him, and whose judgement I trust. Anyone who has watched Trump’s career and life unfold over the decades would come to the same conclusion just on face value. The guy is slimy, he associates with slimy people. His closest confidants and colleagues are slimy ...and indicted, sentenced and imprisoned, or about to be. The only standing question in my mind is ...is the man an unwitting idiot, or is he the personification of evil?
Oddly, sadly, unimaginably, Trump has a following in America and it was strong enough to elect him to the presidency. Elected through an outdated and broken democratic system, a weakened system that plays by the rules and forms committees while the renegade Republicans with Trump as their leader and king break the laws and rules laughing in our faces ...and all while our illustrious media hopelessly picks at the scabs of truth.
“Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.”
Bob Dylan
So, what to do? Obviously, something must be done. Our democratic systems, our congress, are not working expeditiously. Trump is putting all of us in extreme harm’s way.
The options are few and not good. If Trump is re-elected in 2020 it will just prolong the inevitable pain and misery (but make for great TV!). If he resigns and forms his own party, of which he has a strong following, or if he is removed from office and imprisoned, I’m afraid this will be the spark that ignites a national confrontation between his followers and the rest of us ...between the Nazi white supremacists and moderate liberals ...between Democrats and Republicans ...biblically, between good and evil. There could be Charlottesvilles and Gettysburgs all over America with a civil war escalating to some horrid conclusion or until reason and humanity take hold. Either way, it could get ugly with the racial issues complicated by the catalyst of greed, arrogance, and stupidity that has alarmingly become a multiracial mainstream political and social America.
Now I think I understand what my dad meant when he predicted and feared “another great civil war.”
I realize this is a shocking premise to consider, but it could happen, and it looks like we’re on track.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
