By Danny R. Johnson – Political News Editor
WASHINGTON – “Civil war” is among the many terms we now use too quickly. The American Civil War was a bloodbath driven by the inevitable confrontation between the Union and the organized forces of sedition and slavery.
But at least the Civil War was about “something,” which in no way justified the Southern states seceding from the Union as a just cause. Compared with the bizarre ideas and half-baked wackiness that now infest American political life, the arguments between the North and the South look like a profound treatise on government.
The United States now faces a different kind of violence from people who believe in nothing—or at least, in nothing tangible. We do not risk the creation of organized armies and militias in Virginia, Louisiana, or Alabama marching on federal institutions. Instead, all of us face random threats and unpredictable dangers from people among us who spend too much time watching television and plunging into the internet rabbit holes. These people, acting individually or in small groups, will be led not by rebel generals but by narcissistic wannabe heroes, and they will be egged on by cowards and instigators who will inflame them from the safety of a television or radio studio—or from behind the shield of elected office. Occasionally, they will congeal into a mob, as they did on January 6, 2021.
No single principle unites these Americans in their violence against their fellow citizens. They will tell you they are for “liberty” and “freedom.” Still, these are merely code words for personal grudges, racial and class resentments, and a generalized paranoia that dark forces are manipulating their lives. These are not people who will accept the flag of a state or a more profound cause; they have already taken up the banner of a failed president, and their causes are an assortment of conspiracy theories and pulpy science-fiction plots.
What makes this situation worse is that there is no remedy for it. When people are driven by fantasies, resentment, and an internalized sense of inferiority, there is no redemption. Winning elections, burning effigies, and even shooting at other citizens do not soothe their anger but deepen the spiritual and moral void that haunts them.
Donald Trump is central to this fraying of public sanity because he has done one thing for such people that no one else could do: He has made their lives enjoyable. He has made them feel important. He has taken their itching frustrations about life’s unfairness, created a morality play around them, and cast himself as the central character. Trump, to his supporters, is the avenging angel who will lay waste to the “elites,” the smarty-pants and do-gooders, the godless and the smug, the satisfied and the comfortable. Some of these people are ready to snap and resort to violence. A Navy veteran in Ohio was killed in a standoff two weeks ago after he attacked the Cincinnati FBI office; a man in Pennsylvania was arrested and charged today for threatening to “slaughter” federal agents, whom he called “police state scum.” But that does not stop charlatans and con artists from throwing matches at the fuses every day because those hucksters, too, have decided that living everyday life and working a straight job is for saps. They will gladly risk the occasional explosion here and there if it means living the good life off donations and purchases from their marks.
When enough Americans decide that a cult of personality matters more than a commitment to democracy, we risk becoming a lawless autocracy. This is why we must continue to demand that Trump and his enablers face the consequences of their actions: To cave in the face of threats means the end of democracy. And it would not, in any event, mollify those among our fellow citizens who have chosen to discard the Constitution so that they can keep mainlining jolts of drama from morning until night.
We will live in this era of political violence in the near future. All any of us can do is continue, among our friends family and neighbors, to say and defend what is right in the face of lies and delusions.
