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The current situation with abortion will pose a threat similar to the slavery divide. There's a clear division of states which allow it and those with bans. Som

The current situation with abortion will pose a threat similar to the slavery divide. There's a clear division of states which allow it and those with bans. Some of the states with bans are threatening prosecution of women who cross state lines for the procedure. There's a similar situation coming up regarding gay and trans rights. Some states will continue having equal rights. Other states may not. This situation will get even worse if the Supreme Court overturns gay marriage and sodomy law precedents. All of this will create even further division. One of the harbingers of a coming civil war will be internal refugees and increased internal migration. If people start fleeing the red states in noticeable numbers, then that's the time to start getting worried. Especially if some of those fleeing make their moves suddenly. If you start seeing hundreds, or even thousands, who leave their homes in the middle of the night to escape, then you know something bad is coming. There's already a trickle of such people. A few in Texas did just that. Parents of trans kids who wanted to get away from a situation where the state posed a threat. And they felt like they had to leave immediately with no notice to anyone. We'll start to see more of this if some states decide to ramp up prosecutions of women and investigations into miscarriages.

jonnycomputer 4y ago
But how does this effect the wealth and power of elites? That's the point. A civil war has to be organized from the top, and elites, who always look out for their own self-interest first, aren't going to organize an expensive, disruptive war to prevent 10yo rape victims from getting an abortion.
- wishfish 4y ago
  Sometimes these things come from the bottom up. In some countries, a small number of violent people set the spark and the flames start. The elite do have far more power than the rest of us, but sometimes they're also caught up in a wave they can't control. Just like the rest of us. The elites of the South wanted to keep their slaves and their wealth. Many of them ended up having their plantations burned down or seized. Their wealth diminished or vanished. Their cities occupied. They lost control of the situation fairly quickly. And it's not like the wealthy are unified exactly. Some, maybe most, would like to avoid future conflict. While others give money to the groups that seem hellbent on creating a conflict of some sort. You're correct. No one's going to immediately start the civil war based on abortion. But, to me, it feels like dry tinder being set. Just needs a spark. I'm not saying it's a certainty by any means. We have a decent chance of muddling through the current crises. But it does feel like the stage is being set.
  - jonnycomputer 4y ago
    Perhaps this is because I think there is a difference between a civil war and a revolt. A revolt can become a civil war, but only as soon as both sides are embraced by institutional leaders, i.e. elites.
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    The Southern elites probably felt strongly they would "win" early. The sheer incompetence of the Union army in the early battles suggest to me that there were some sympathies in the Union leadership and this was probably common knowledge. They probably intended this to be a little tussle to show everyone they were serious.
    - wishfish 4y ago
      Oh definitely they thought they would win early and easily. They were a bit delusional. They thought solely of heroic battles winning everything through sheer courage, cleverness, and grit. And didn't think about what it meant for a largely agrarian society to go up against a highly industrialized one. But it's interesting how they lost control of the situation over time. Not just in the battlefield defeats and the industrial machine crushing them. But also in other ways. The Confederate government was short of everything and turned towards a centralized economy to produce what it needed. The elites found themselves constrained by the wartime needs. By 1865, they were planning on arming black men to fight in the Confederate forces. Had this plan succeeded, it would have meant the end of slavery in the Confederacy. The very reason why the war was started by the elites in the first place.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > A civil war has to be organized from the top No, it doesn't. A regional separatist movement (which the first ACW was, but not all civil wars are) generally is top-down organized, with a specific conscious elite decision to break away, but civil wars more generally don't need to be, at least to get started. EDIT: In general, the discourse around both revolutions and civil wars in America tends to be full of misconceptions driven by the fact that both the American Revolution and the American Civil War we're elite-driven regional separatist movements, which are not the norm for things labelled as either “revolutions” or “civil wars”.

jonnycomputer 4y ago

But how does this effect the wealth and power of elites? That's the point. A civil war has to be organized from the top, and elites, who always look out for their own self-interest first, aren't going to organize an expensive, disruptive war to prevent 10yo rape victims from getting an abortion.

wishfish 4y ago
Sometimes these things come from the bottom up. In some countries, a small number of violent people set the spark and the flames start. The elite do have far more power than the rest of us, but sometimes they're also caught up in a wave they can't control. Just like the rest of us. The elites of the South wanted to keep their slaves and their wealth. Many of them ended up having their plantations burned down or seized. Their wealth diminished or vanished. Their cities occupied. They lost control of the situation fairly quickly. And it's not like the wealthy are unified exactly. Some, maybe most, would like to avoid future conflict. While others give money to the groups that seem hellbent on creating a conflict of some sort. You're correct. No one's going to immediately start the civil war based on abortion. But, to me, it feels like dry tinder being set. Just needs a spark. I'm not saying it's a certainty by any means. We have a decent chance of muddling through the current crises. But it does feel like the stage is being set.
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  Perhaps this is because I think there is a difference between a civil war and a revolt. A revolt can become a civil war, but only as soon as both sides are embraced by institutional leaders, i.e. elites.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  The Southern elites probably felt strongly they would "win" early. The sheer incompetence of the Union army in the early battles suggest to me that there were some sympathies in the Union leadership and this was probably common knowledge. They probably intended this to be a little tussle to show everyone they were serious.
  - wishfish 4y ago
    Oh definitely they thought they would win early and easily. They were a bit delusional. They thought solely of heroic battles winning everything through sheer courage, cleverness, and grit. And didn't think about what it meant for a largely agrarian society to go up against a highly industrialized one. But it's interesting how they lost control of the situation over time. Not just in the battlefield defeats and the industrial machine crushing them. But also in other ways. The Confederate government was short of everything and turned towards a centralized economy to produce what it needed. The elites found themselves constrained by the wartime needs. By 1865, they were planning on arming black men to fight in the Confederate forces. Had this plan succeeded, it would have meant the end of slavery in the Confederacy. The very reason why the war was started by the elites in the first place.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> A civil war has to be organized from the top No, it doesn't. A regional separatist movement (which the first ACW was, but not all civil wars are) generally is top-down organized, with a specific conscious elite decision to break away, but civil wars more generally don't need to be, at least to get started. EDIT: In general, the discourse around both revolutions and civil wars in America tends to be full of misconceptions driven by the fact that both the American Revolution and the American Civil War we're elite-driven regional separatist movements, which are not the norm for things labelled as either “revolutions” or “civil wars”.