To think the USA is on the verge of civil war?

[spitofyou]

I was reading this morning about trump readying 1500 troops to deploy to Minnesota following the murder of Renee Good.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/18/trump-minnesota-insurrection-act/

If this goes through, that’s it right? The insurrection act means he can suspend elections, and the military will be fighting the American people.

AIBU to think it’s inevitable at this point? Trump will never back down.

It's scarily like the handmaids tale. The US looks like it will become an isolated authoritarian state - possibly with California breaking off and becoming independent (which will cause civil war)

It’s only “simple as” if you’re a simpleton.

And what do you think due process is for? Everyone deserves to be given a chance to make their case. ICE behave like mobsters who arbitrarily target innocent people with impunity. If you support stuff like that you shouldn't wonder when at some point you're on the receiving end of it because when rules disappear and a group of people gets 'absolute immunity', everyone is at risk.
If you're not American and are writing this from the safety of the UK, I bloody well hope you don't think it's a good idea to import that shit.

No - the US is not close to civil war.

Funnily enough, many Americans have these exact same thoughts about the UK - that is is unsafe, close to civil war, is becoming an authoritarian state etc.

The new recruits only have 47 days of training & they are coming from selected locations & demographics.

If there was a Calexit (which indeed would cause civil war and is highly unlikely) they would join up with Canada. It's the old Cascadia idea. Might even join the EU (now there's a thought!) - I'm being facetious here...

The difference being trump is in power, he’s looking to start a world war, destroying NATO, in bed with Russia and has a police force knocking door to door to find people.

Someone needs to do something to get rid of their orange tyrant.

Hopefully they can do it by peaceful means.

The fact people think something doesn’t make it equally true.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that has caused the problems in the world today.

The idea that if one side says it’s raining and the other says it’s not, we give them equal air time rather than looking out of the window.

I don’t quite know why this spectre of cognitive decline keeps being raised, unless there’s medical evidence. Some people and cultures simply have different values. America’s culture has been going down the road of increasing inequality and empowerment of big rich guys for many years. Whatever power there was in the US constitution to keep democracy going in our times of unprecedented population, it lost it in the face of people with power gaining power and using it for their own ends. Trump is simply a spoilt very rich egomaniac in a country where the need for intelligence and thought was never very fixed and has now been superseded entirely by inherited wealth.

Worryingly Britain always follows the US like a little lapdog and has been heading down the same road too.

I don’t know America well enough to say if civil war will result, although the point about the need for organisation is well made. It is a country that has lots of local grassroots organisations capable of action and agency, plus the dreaded right to bear arms, so it may well disintegrate into a thousand uprisings first. Portland in Oregon seems like a place to watch as well as California.

I think the whole Greenland thing is more worrying than any of the other things mentioned here. As the Danish Premier said, there is no good business case for the outright ownership of Greenland (let alone a human one of course). It would cost an arm and a leg, possibly push the US economy to the brink and only result in the breakup of NATO- which I think is the actual point. I've always thought that MAGA's actual endgame (its elite circles, not your average follower) is the break up of NATO and the USA itself. It's not a coincidence that they've weaponised radical Evangelicals who want to go back to pre-USA Pilgrim Puritan America. Basically, those guys want to end the liberal West. Wonder who profits from that..

I highly recommend The Rest Is History's episodes on the American Civil War.

Don’t put words in my mouth.

What I mentioned was

• lack of a coherent opposition
• large % of population continuing to support Trump
• widespread apathy and lack of knowledge about the world outside the US

Because you can quite clearly see it.

@StandFirm , according to the Guardian it’s a billionaire called Lauder who stands to gain primarily. Heir to the Estée Lauder billions. Perhaps women need a new feminist movement rejecting the need for beauty and boycotting Estée Lauder specifically?

Thanks for the civil war episodes recommendation.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/ronald-lauder-billionaire-donor-donald-trump-ukraine-greenland

People don't want to believe it could happen because its so frightening but look at everything he's done so far, you can see he is preparing to give it his best shot.
I used to think the USA had systems in place that would prevent someone siezing control.
I'm not 100% sure now.

I'm fairly sure the insurrection act doesn't automatically mean he can suspend elections but I'm no expert, I've just been reading about it. Also, even war itself doesn't mean no elections either, I know the USA held elections during the Civil war (Lincoln was re-elected during the Civil war) and WWII

You mention that people are “illegal which implies there is a rule of law. If there is a rule of law then ICE must act within it, which they are not. You cannot puck and choose which laws you want to abide by.

He wasn’t allowed to take action in Venuzuela or tear down the East Wing without consultation but he’s done it anyway. So I wouldn’t expect him to restrict himself to what is strictly allowed.

It's not just immigrants though is it? It's gone well beyond that.

They shot a US citizen in the head at point blank range last week. I have colleagues in Minneapolis who say ICE are turning up at daycare centres and using children as bait for parents to try to target. They've reportedly physically assaulted students at colleges.

It's no longer limited to people of colour or people who may appear to b immigrants.

ICE has become the private MAGA militia.

It would have all the elements for a civil war except, as a PP pointed out, that there's no significant power base on the other side of the coin. There's no meaningful opposition (yet) in Congress.

But it's not just Trump, look at the people behind him they are the hardliners who have the real power, influence and the agenda - Vance, Miller , Rubio etc..Trump is the 'charasmatic voice' and the advisors are doing really well ( in achieving their aims) by appealing and using his narcissistic weaknesses for their change agenda ... Im.not saying that he isn't a highly dangerous volatile individual who certainly shouldn't be there, but he could keel over today and it wouldn't matter- in fact if he did, they'd be saying that they were just honouring his legacy and completing his vision ..

You agreed with a PP about the lack of conditions for a civil war and described that as depressing.

And the OP has also said a civil war would be better than continuing with Trump.

Trump can be voted out in 3 years.

Whereas the last US civil war lasted 4 years and about 2% of the US population died. So that would be about 6.8million Americans if repeated today.

Maybe keep things in perspective?

They voted for a severely personality disordered president. It is inevitable there will be serious harm from him. Inevitable and entirely predictable. The thing is a large proportion of people wanted chaos because the existing world order was not working for them but unfortunately chaos makes everything and everyone worse off.

Oh and ICE is his SS his personal militia. What is happening with them is textbook. They will be lawless and disrupters that is what you need as your militia.

But don’t Trump and his cabal of MAGA lunatics still have quite a bit of support- the majority in fact?

If he was carrying on like this without the support of the majority of Americans I’d agree with you but the sad reality is that this is exactly what most Trump supporters wanted and if a few lefty protesters get shot in the meantime, either they don’t care or they will reframe it as the victim’s fault.

I think it is very sad. All countries are shaped by the laws they have. If you override or ignore them then you have nothing.

I see ordinary citizens in Minnesota starting to openly carry weapons and confrontations with ICE. ICE being shot at in Chicago. It’s the start of fighting. Trump is the only president of the US who talks about Americans fighting each other.

The systems people describe in terms of the US constitution seem incredibly slow. I was in Washington DC last year and the army was on the streets. Lots of protests. A place on the edge.