The Next Civil War - Is It Inevitable?

The Next Civil War – that’s what the new issue of Harper’s magazine is calling the growing fissure between red and blue America. The country’s majority rallied in record numbers in the presidential election – and then in the Georgia Senate runoff race – to take back the country from a white nationalist minority. And President Joe Biden has surprised everybody – and delighted progressives – by using Republican-like tactics to push through his massive relief bill, while advocating constraints on the filibuster so he can win party-line Senate approval for his other big legislative goals.

 Meanwhile, the white Republican minority is in full revolt against majority rule, trying to sabotage voting rights in state legislatures across the country and to spin the bloody January 6 insurrection at the Capitol building as a “largely peaceful protest.” But the violent mayhem that day – and the massive Republican support for disrupting the democratic process – must be seen in the glaring light that Harper’s does. January 6 was an alarming escalation in the new “antebellum era.”

 To the credit of President Biden and his administration, they’re not backing down in the face of solid Republican opposition – even with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell threatening a “scorched earth” response. And progressives continue to push Biden to go all the way in bailing out America, with Reps. Pramila Jaypal and Debbie Dingell introducing a Medicare for All bill today, and Senator Bernie Sanders proposing a new tax on corporations that pay their CEOs obscene fortunes.

 As I’ve long argued, the only way that aggrieved workers, veterans and other dispossessed Americans who fell for Trump’s MAGA mumbo-jumbo can be won over is for a Democratic administration to really deliver for them. Green jobs that can support families, fair taxes, affordable health care. And voting rights and immigration reforms that are seen as sensible and equitable.

The McConnell cabal will do everything it can to block Biden’s legislative agenda. And Republicans across America are doing everything in their power to limit access to the ballot box. Because that’s the only way they can win – by subverting democracy.

We can’t let them win. We have to keep organizing, keep winning political offices, and keep delivering real change for the American people. Or it’s the fire next time.