Is America More Likely Headed Toward a Civil War or Race War?

How Many Must Die Before We Recognize What’s Happening?

Photo by William Spivey

As I write, there is a manhunt going on for a man suspected of two separate shootings at the homes of Minnesota Democratic legislators. Much is unknown about his motives. A list of several other people was found in his car, possibly targets, along with fliers for “No Kings” events in Minnesota in protest of Donald Trump. Those events may also be targets.

There is a lot of conversation in the news, even more in Internet chat rooms, about civil war between right and left-wing groups. My television is on in the background, and crowds of protesters are being cleared and pushed back by officers on horseback with flashbangs going off all around. Thousands of protests are taking place across all 50 states, with many counter-protests also occurring.

I live in Palm Coast, FL, in NE Florida, which has a high percentage of retirees. We don’t take protesting that seriously here. The “No Kings” protest was scheduled between 10 am and noon, and people dispersed before the temperatures got too high. I recognized a counter-protester I interviewed weeks ago at another protest. The name he gave then was Fred Flintstone. He was still waving his “Democrats Suck” flag. I didn’t get the opportunity to ask if that was appropriate, given that two Democrats were pronounced dead and two others were wounded in Minnesota.

There is a commonality between several mass murderers of the recent past. Charles Manson and Dylann Roof planned to start a race war. An Arizona man, Mark Adams Prieto, planned a mass shooting of Black people at a 2024 Atlanta concert in hopes of triggering a race war. An FBI source who had been conversing with Prieto for months said the following:

“Prieto believes that martial law will be implemented shortly after the 2024 election and that a mass shooting should occur prior to its implementation.”

White supremacists and white nationalists are increasingly willing to use violence targeting critical infrastructure to destabilize society. Extremists have started using the term “accelerationism” to describe their desire to create social chaos and societal collapse that leads to a race war and the destruction of liberal democratic systems, paving the way for a white ethnostate. The Order, Atomwaffen Division (AWD), the Active Club Network, The Base, Patriot Front, and others have all made it clear to start a race war. White people will soon become an ethnic minority in America, and some aren’t ready for that to happen. One could argue that the tipping point was the election of Barack Obama.

There are difficulties in starting either a civil war or a racial war. The geographic boundaries that defined America’s first civil war don’t exist to the same degree. While the South makes up a significant portion of one side, like-minded people comprise most of the West and Northwest, as well as the majority of rural areas in the country. Efforts to start a race war by killing Black people don’t take into account the lack of desire of Black people to engage in a suicidal conflict. We’ve always known that urban areas in most major cities have been cut off by railroads and Interstate highways. Urban planning is designed so that the National Guard can roll right in.

A case can be made that both a civil war and a race war are already taking place—the civil war requires self-identification so that people know what side they’re on. Read the comments on any political site, and you’ll see the rage is there. Black people have long known they are being picked off. Brown people are just recognizing they are under attack, often by their new so-called friends. I don’t see a civil war or race war being widespread, unless the casualties reach a new tipping point, that is.