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Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

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Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#111

Post by Izkata »

Aaronstotle wrote: post #21
post_break wrote: post #5

Is it bad that I'm not surprised by this? Or the fact that I'm kind of in the 50% that can see it coming.

Maybe I'm too naive, but I feel absolutely no need nor desire to act violent towards my fellow Americans. I feel the divineness growing, I don't know what a "civil war" would actually look like. It seems like most Americans already live in bubbles where most people are aligned politically, so who are they going to fight?

> It seems like most Americans already live in bubbles where most people are aligned politically

We're not.

The most likely geographic split would be urban/rural, cities against everyone else. Around half the population is tightly concentrated and align mostly with the Democrats, the rest are spread out and align mostly with Republicans. Even blue states are mostly red outside of cities.

For just one example of something that could spark it, the current hot topic of abortion access: the often-disregarded side sees abortion as killing babies, not even close to how the other side sees it. With that viewpoint and tensions rising in general, how long do you expect such a huge number of people to simply endure?

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#112

Post by jokethrowaway »

hinkley wrote: post #56
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

Source is apparently a preprint (that is, not peer-reviewed) uploaded here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v... > Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for. Given how weird some of the interne…

Hasn't 60% of the population of Texas expected a civil war soon for the last 100 years? And what are those rebel flags all about? It's posturing. Just like all of those surveys that say 50% of tech workers anticipate quitting this year. Nearly all the places that talk about secession are the same states that generate less federal tax revenue than they spend. Which is both why it would be a terrible idea, and why peop…

Very interesting!

Generally, in the country in the Europe I've lived in, the people who want to secede are those who don't want to see their taxes go to the country's lazy and scammy region (almost all countries have one).

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#113

Post by nequo »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

Source is apparently a preprint (that is, not peer-reviewed) uploaded here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v... > Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for. Given how weird some of the interne…

> 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited

This is from the PDF listed on the page that you linked:

    To establish a nationally representative panel, members are recruited on
    an ongoing basis through address-based probability sampling using data
    from the US Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File. Recruited adults in
    households without internet access are provided a web-enabled device and
    free internet service. A probability-proportional-to-size procedure was
    used to select a study-specific sample. All panel members who were aged
    18 years and older were eligible for selection. Invitations were sent by
    e-mail; automatic reminders were delivered to non-respondents by e-mail
    and telephone beginning 3 days later.
    
    A final survey weight variable provided by Ipsos adjusted for the
    initial probability of selection into KnowledgePanel and for
    survey-specific nonresponse and over- or under-coverage using design
    weights with post-stratification raking ratio adjustments. With
    weighting, the sample is designed to be statistically representative of
    the noninstitutionalized adult population of the US as reflected in the
    2021 March supplement of the Current Population Survey.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#114

Post by nverno »

thechao wrote: post #42
jonnycomputer wrote: post #7

Civil war, for what? Every time I see this mentioned, I think, "for what?"

The voting system in the US (FPTP) is fundamentally unfair. Combine with post-red-map gerrymandering, it is becoming obvious even to the people "on the wings" that our election system fundamentally disenfranchises large swathes of the population. As a short hand, think "Democrats and Independents in red states" and "Republicans and Independants in blue states". Being disenfranchised sucks . The system is designed to…

I dont think the 'system' is designed to be unfair, but instead our two political parties have corrupted the voting process through gerrymandering. Then again, it's not as bad as some people seem to imply it is - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-new-national-congre.... We are talking about a net gain of a seat or two in either direction. If the two parties weren't so dominant this problem wouldn't be nearly as bad either. Given most Americans are independents, it would be great to see more candidates breakthrough without party alignment.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#115

Post by moduspol »

jasonjayr wrote: post #28
jonnycomputer wrote: post #7

Civil war, for what? Every time I see this mentioned, I think, "for what?"

A deeply religious conservative America, or a secular progressive America. Groups are not seeing eye to eye on the fundamental role of government, and lines in the sand are being drawn.

Which side has 95%+ of the guns and land?

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#117

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ipnon wrote: post #48

The Civil War was preceded by a constitutional issue divided geographically. The question of slavery in new states was forced by pro-slavery presidents, congressman, and justices. They sought to erase all middle ground, the tenuous bridge maintaining the union. Once it came to blows, the geography of slavery allowed the slavery states to band together. The upshot is that not all of these factors seem possible at once…

States are increasingly polarized, as people move to states that have politics that they like. The states don't clump all that nicely, though.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#118

Post by jeffbee »

javajosh wrote: post #68

It will probably more like an insurrection. The more Trumpian states will choose to ignore the Federal government in various ways, especially regarding election laws. Opportunistic politicians will take advantage of this to consolidate power to the extent elections become a formality. Well-armed Trumpians will be targeted at specific people, places and events, and it will work. Meanwhile, police services, national gu…

Not only are the cops going to be useless, they are the ones who are trying to stage the coup. Things like the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association are just organized gangs of armed people who reject the authority of civilian oversight. Right now, today, a prominent CSPOA member is trying to arrogate to himself control of elections in Overland Park, KS. Armed men who say they alone can adjudicate elections is no different from any other coup in any backwards banana republic.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#119

Post by buscoquadnary »

tjstankus wrote: post #67

A full-blown civil war, circa 1800s? Probably not, although a growing number of fascist types are fantasizing about it and planning for it. More frequent and extreme episodes of violent civil unrest? Yes. I think it's going to get worse. https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-...

See that's an important thing people don't realize about a new civil war.

In the civil war you had various clearly defined government apparatuses that chose to withdraw themselves from the union to form a new nation state. This time however it isn't a certain group of geographic area it is divided along urban vs rural lines. If a "civil war" were to come again it is much more likely that we'll see something more along the line of the "The Troubles" that happened in Northern Ireland than anything approximating what happened in the 1860s.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#120

Post by antonymy »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

Source is apparently a preprint (that is, not peer-reviewed) uploaded here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v... > Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for. Given how weird some of the interne…

The article itself espouses similar doubts from one of its subjects:

>Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who was also not involved in the study, agrees. But she suspects the survey responses overrepresent the number of Americans who would be willing to turn to violence because, she says, surveys tend to overstate what people actually think. “The numbers always tend to be shocking, but in essence, are probably not true.”

Hardly sensational to lead with "all this is probably BS" but that probably wouldn't get as many clicks. For sure the alarmist title got me to read it, only to wind up feeling I wasted my time.

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