rubber soul

Well, first of all, a second civil war will actually have to break out. The consensus in the news is that we are in for a period of a lot of civil unrest, riots, etc. but no actual war. I think it all depends on whether the military will take sides or if they'll also spilt into factions (considering the racial makeup, more likely the latter).

As far as the Europeans, and I mentioned this earlier, I would not trust America right now, even and especially with NATO. You really can't predict how were going to vote even if we had an even playing field. As noted in my rather long diatribe, our divisiveness didn't happen overnight. It's been brewing for a long time. The best I can tell you is to protect yourselves the best you can. I think your bigger problem will more likely be Putin as I suspect we'll become more isolationist from a global standpoint.

Could other nations be involved? Well, maybe, but I don't see that boding well whatever side (and I assume it will be on the anti-Trump side) it takes. Don't forget we still have the nuclear weapons and I don't see a fascist America being afraid to use them, foolish as it may be.

__________________

Psy-Fi

__________________

She's a Brick House

Trollheart

I just wondered if a) NATO agreements and pacts would constrain European and British allies to come to, say, Biden's aid against Trump (or Abbot, or DeSantis, or whoever) and if they did not, and Biden won (all assuming there is a war, which of course we all hope will not be the case) would he then look unfavourably on the countries that were supposed to help and did not? Conversely, if Trump (as it were) was victorious, would he then go after the countries that had helped Biden? I feel it's a real damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. And yeah, I'm aware Comrade Werewolf will be out on the prowl, waiting to take advantage of the chaos. Hey, at least I'll soon (in relative terms) be dead and I have no kids to leave behind. Every cloud, huh?

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

rubber soul

Yeah, that's how I kind of feel about it too. I would think that the NATO countries would be obligated to help whoever was in charge of the US in a war situation. After all, we (the US) went into Bosnia during that civil war. I think they'd admittedly be more willing to assist Biden or someone pro-democracy than some Trump-like autocrat, and yeah, it could backfire into a war on European land. It might be wise to just to stay out of the fray unless Canada ends up getting dragged into our mess.

__________________

The Batlord

If anyone's interested there's a very interesting, utterly terrifying podcast called It Could Happen Here whose first few episodes are dedicated to a sort of thought experiment about how the next American civil war could happen. It begins by predicting basically the George Floyd protests a year before they happened and the mass violence that ensued, posits that a few hillbillies with IEDs could shut down the highway system along with much of the US economy, and uses ISIS's open source weapons manufacturing and Apple Store drones with bombs to counter the notion that an insurgency couldn't fight the US military. It's a very well researched hoot.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-...-war-30751081/

__________________

The Batlord

Oh no doubt. I've listened to that **** like three times out of pure self abuse.

__________________

Lisnaholic

As I'm sure you've seen close-up with Northern Ireland's troubles, TH, there are many terrible scenarios that stop short of actual civil war. If the present political rhetoric doesn't calm down, I think there will be more distrust, more paranoia, more riots, as RubberSoul mentions. Then may come a catalyst: an unacceptable election or some particularly partisan politician is assasinated. If that happens, whether it's out of revenge or because they see it as a green light, I can imagine the already well-armed far right cranking up the frequency of Waco / Timothy McVeigh type incidents. That will prompt more police/National Guard presence on the streets, which in turn will provoke the "hillbillies with IEDs" that Batlord mentions.

That kind of drip-drip-drip of violence is not something that I would wish on any country because of the way it erodes the quality of life of ordinary people, who are always ensnared in the crossfire. And once that level of violence and armed response sets in it's v difficult to dismantle, as we have seen in NI; grinding injustices for decades leading to 30-years of escalated violence I believe, and whatever they have today, which is probably simmering resentment between one citizen and the next. I don't know the facts because they are so depressing to explore.

Would the situation in the US actually escalate to old-style civil war like the US once experienced? I don't imagine so, and for that reason NATO/ EU would keep their distance from the whole sorry mess I'm sure. Only Putin would be keen to lend a surreptitious hand, and I think we can guess which side he'd be rooting for.
_______________________________________

Yeah! If you'll take my advice, Batlord, perhaps you should stick with Insane Clown Posse instead.

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

The Batlord

Nah, shitlib.

__________________

Frownland

As fun as it sounds to chop off my nazi neighbour's head, I don't think that the civil war panic industry would let something like a civil war undermine their profits.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

FYI as to the "Troubles": it would be a gross overstatement to classify them as a civil war, or avoiding one. Put simply, we down in the south did not care, as long as it stayed up there. Yes, we seethed and booed when Catholics were interned and then kicked out of Northern Ireland, and our so-called leader at the time made some vague, not-to-be-taken-seriously threats about the Republic joining the fight on behalf of our Catholic brothers, but it came to nothing more than posturing and lipservice in the end. When it came right down to it, nobody in the (comparatively) affluent south was going anywhere near the north, except to shop.

The Troubles were never a civil war. The Republic was not involved in it (other than the IRA, which is not the same). There was never any serious effort by our government to interfere other than via political whining, and even when it found its way down here via the odd bomb or bomb scare, we more or less shrugged and thanked our Catholic God that that was over, now let them get back to killing each other in the North. No, for us it was always "up there" and we had a very dismissive attitude towards it. Despite so-called Republican yobbos scrawling BRITS OUT on a Dublin estate wall, nobody even contemplated "joining the fight". It wasn't like ISIS fighters going to Iraq: nobody here cared. To us they were "Nordies" and "Proddies" (the vast majority of Northern Ireland was and is Protestant anyway) and we just left them to it.

Not to mention that the Irish Army would only have scored any sort of victory against the British one due to the Brits being unable to shoot straight for laughing!

One of our local comedians did a great sketch recently where the leader (Jack Lynch) has everyone fired up about marching on the border, supporting our Catholic brothers, and they're all going "Yeah! Let's do it" and so on. Then there's a pause, and he looks around and says "But it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so we won't do it tomorrow." Choruses of "Oh no! Rain! Oh well then..." and it tails off. Very funny - you have to see it to really appreciate the irony and lack of commitment.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018