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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

257 replies

spitofyou · 19/01/2026 07:22

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
13
EasternStandard · 19/01/2026 09:13

Underthinker · 19/01/2026 09:05

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?

Agree. Who wants any kind of war with high causalities.

Also agree with pp it’s not looking likely.

One post made me think is there usually a stronger Democrat leader at this point? It seems to be quiet but maybe that’s how their system usually is.

Zov · 19/01/2026 09:15

I don't nomally subscribe to stuff like this, and don't take any notice of people scaremongering, (not accusing you of that @spitofyou ...) However, I really do believe there's a chance of war here. Civil war though? Not sure about that. More like war between America and Europe, especially with Trumpton trying to take over one of Europe's countries.

.

FFSToEverythingSince2020 · 19/01/2026 09:20

European nations will not take actual tariffs lying down. And who owns how much of the US’ debt now? Exactly. Just five countries own 40% of US foreign-held debt - Japan, China, the UK, Luxembourg (dark horse), and Canada. I think the UK should make it clear that they intend to negotiate the handling of US debt with those other four countries.
SOURCE:
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/

Which countries own the most US debt? | USAFacts

As of April 2024, foreign countries own approximately $7.9 trillion in Treasury securities — or 22.9% of total US debt.

https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/

Dragonflytamer · 19/01/2026 09:23

I think there is always a danger of civil war in the US. You'd just need on lunatic to decide rather than going on their killing spree in a school, as is the custom, that they would shoot out a republian rally

OldGothsFadeToGrey · 19/01/2026 09:23

Underthinker · 19/01/2026 09:05

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?

The last civil war started in 1861. Weapons and technology have somewhat moved on from muskets and minie balls.

2750 were killed in minutes in just 2 adjacent buildings on September 11th 2001. 2 buildings, 2 ‘missiles’, albeit large. I think it’s reasonable to assume that the death toll would be far higher than 6.8m.

bombastix · 19/01/2026 09:23

I think it is a sad end to our international relationship with the US tbh. We have a lot of legal agreements with them that given the last few days must be totally worthless. The tariff threat particularly, because both the EU and UK would have assumed that their agreements would be honoured by the US. In fact it is very clear that Trump would just change this on a relative whim.

Tariffs today, security tomorrow. You will see the EU and the UK scramble for economic security now and make deals with China within a year.

Fulmine · 19/01/2026 09:26

I wonder whether a point will come when the US military will say no - they won't go to war against Europe over Greenland, they won't back up ICE thugs, and they won't go to war against other Americans. At which point you're almost looking at a coup.

Fulmine · 19/01/2026 09:27

Underthinker · 19/01/2026 09:05

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?

All of that assumes Trump will agree to a free and constitutional election. Can we be confident that he will?

Dragonflytamer · 19/01/2026 09:35

Fulmine · 19/01/2026 09:26

I wonder whether a point will come when the US military will say no - they won't go to war against Europe over Greenland, they won't back up ICE thugs, and they won't go to war against other Americans. At which point you're almost looking at a coup.

I heard an ex US Military General on Times radio giving the view that the US military are required to consider the legality rather than just the command of the president and that if he had been order to invade Greenland he would have refused, Hopefully there will be more like him.

LemaxObsessive · 19/01/2026 09:35

WaryCrow · 19/01/2026 08:39

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.

Really? Watch this from a Doctor to many Dementia patients, in the US https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRkEj1kh/

Laska2Meryls · 19/01/2026 09:36

Well this about says it all about who we are dealing with doesn't it ?

BBC report today "Trump references lack of Nobel Peace Prize in letter to Norway's PM published at 9:13 on the BBC website.

US President Trump has sent a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, saying: "The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland."

Trump also says he no longer feels "an obligation to think purely of Peace" after Norway "decided not to give" him the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the message, which Støre confirmed he received to press in Norway, Trump says he can now "think about what is good and proper for the United States of America".

He also questions what right of ownership Denmark has to Greenland: "It’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also."

Støre told national newspaper VG that the message was in response to short message he sent to the president on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb."

APatternGrammar · 19/01/2026 09:36

Fulmine · 19/01/2026 09:27

All of that assumes Trump will agree to a free and constitutional election. Can we be confident that he will?

Even if you base your view only on things he has said himself, no.

marsaline · 19/01/2026 09:43

I think he will move to take Greenland and I think at that point he will destroy the world order. We will be in military conflict with the US alongside Europe. The US will then be required to leave all their Military bases in Europe and the UK and this severely impacts their access to the rest of the world. Europe will then sell off US bonds and the dollar will crash. We will then see them becoming an isolated country with authoritarian leadership. Whether that then leads to civil war, who knows. There doesn’t seem to be a strong voice in opposition apart from Gavin Newsome possibly.
I’ve sold my US bonds this morning. There were there for stability (only very low growth) - the country is no longer a good bet for stability.

Ukefluke · 19/01/2026 09:51

millymollymoomoo · 19/01/2026 07:58

totally agree with ICE

youre illegal you shouldn’t be in the country
simple as

Will you say the same about Americans in Greenland?

Underthinker · 19/01/2026 09:51

Fulmine · 19/01/2026 09:27

All of that assumes Trump will agree to a free and constitutional election. Can we be confident that he will?

Ah ok, Trump might try and resist a fair election.

Probably the safest option is to have a civil war then.

OldGothsFadeToGrey · 19/01/2026 09:52

marsaline · 19/01/2026 09:43

I think he will move to take Greenland and I think at that point he will destroy the world order. We will be in military conflict with the US alongside Europe. The US will then be required to leave all their Military bases in Europe and the UK and this severely impacts their access to the rest of the world. Europe will then sell off US bonds and the dollar will crash. We will then see them becoming an isolated country with authoritarian leadership. Whether that then leads to civil war, who knows. There doesn’t seem to be a strong voice in opposition apart from Gavin Newsome possibly.
I’ve sold my US bonds this morning. There were there for stability (only very low growth) - the country is no longer a good bet for stability.

This post has been circling FB recently, I agree with both of you.

The Suicide Pact: What Happens the Moment We Touch Greenland…

By Brent Molnar

If the United States follows through on the threat to invade Greenland, we need to be crystal clear about what happens the next morning. This is not a real estate transaction or a routine military exercise. It is the geopolitical equivalent of pulling the pin on a grenade in a crowded elevator. The moment American boots hit the ground in Nuuk to seize territory from a fellow NATO member, the world as we know it ends. The consequences will not be temporary sanctions or angry letters. They will be total, permanent, and devastating.

The first domino to fall is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization itself. NATO is built on the sacred promise of Article 5, that an attack on one is an attack on all. If the U.S. attacks Denmark, we are not just breaking the treaty; we are triggering it against ourselves. NATO dissolves instantly. The alliance that kept the peace in Europe for 75 years evaporates, leaving the continent to rearm and realign against the new aggressor across the Atlantic. We don't just lose an ally; we create a unified enemy.

The military repercussions will be swift and humiliating. Europe will immediately demand the closure of every U.S. military base on the continent. Ramstein in Germany, Aviano in Italy, Lakenheath in the UK, all gone. Our ability to project power into the Middle East and Africa vanishes overnight. We will be evicted from the very soil we helped liberate and defended for decades, forced to retreat to our own shores as a fortress nation, isolated and friendless.

Then comes the economic nuclear option. The European Union is the largest single market in the world, and they will weaponize it. Europe will likely move to call in U.S. debt and dump their dollar reserves, sending the value of our currency into a death spiral. The U.S. economy, which relies on the dollar being the global reserve currency, will collapse. Inflation will make the post-COVID spikes look like a rounding error. Your savings will be worthless before the ink dries on the invasion orders.

Corporate America will face an extinction event. U.S. companies will be expelled from the European market. Apple, Google, McDonald's, and Tesla will see their assets seized or their operations banned. Trillions of dollars in market capitalization will be incinerated in minutes. The stock market will not just crash; it will close. We are talking about the complete de-globalization of American industry, cutting us off from the wealthiest consumers on the planet.

The skies will go silent. European aviation authorities will almost certainly ground all Boeing jets and ban U.S. airlines from their airspace. Transatlantic travel will cease. If you are in Paris or Berlin, you are stuck there. The logistical arteries that feed our supply chains will be severed. We will be cut off from European medicine, machinery, and technology. We will be an island nation in the worst possible sense.

The cultural isolation will be just as stinging. The International Olympic Committee and FIFA will have no choice but to bar the United States from competition, just as they did with Russia. There will be no World Cup matches in New Jersey. There will be no Team USA in the Olympics. We will be treated as a pariah state, unwelcome on the global stage, forced to watch the world celebrate without us.

For individual Americans, the consequences will be personal and painful. Visa-free travel to Europe will end immediately. Americans currently living or working in Europe will lose their legal protections and residency status. They will become persona non grata, potentially facing deportation or internment. The "blue passport" that used to open every door will suddenly be a red flag at every border crossing.

This is the end of trust, and it does not reset. You cannot invade a democratic ally and then say "my bad" four years later. The psychological break will be permanent. Europe will realize that the United States is no longer a partner but a predator. They will build their own defense architecture, their own financial systems, and their own alliances that specifically exclude us. The West will continue, but the United States will no longer be part of it.

Invading Greenland is not a show of strength; it is an act of national suicide. We are trading our reputation, our economy, and our security for a frozen island and a handful of minerals we can't even process. The price of this real estate deal is everything we built over the last century. If we cross this line, there is no going back. We will be the lonely superpower, ruling over nothing but our own decline.

@Underthinker agree with you too. I fully expect the events of Jan 6 2021 to be repeated, maybe exceeded.

HectorPlasm · 19/01/2026 09:54

So if I've got this right

Its ICE and the army on one side and the police and the National Guard on the other in Minnesota?

bombastix · 19/01/2026 10:02

I don’t think the police and the National Guard are going to fight ICE and the Army.

It seems more likely that there will shootings of ICE agents where they operate. I understand they are being shot at in Chicago. This is how these things grow.

HectorPlasm · 19/01/2026 10:04

And civil war is coming to the UK too

May be not now, maybe not in 30 years but its coming

bombastix · 19/01/2026 10:08

In the long term we are all dead. You can only deal with the here and now.

Now seems pretty bad in the US.

JHound · 19/01/2026 10:13

It would be unsurprising. New(ish) democracies tend to have teething issues and the USA is no different. I wonder if in 250 years certain states will simply have gone their own way.

JHound · 19/01/2026 10:14

HectorPlasm · 19/01/2026 10:04

And civil war is coming to the UK too

May be not now, maybe not in 30 years but its coming

I don’t see it. The UK is not nearly as divided. Maybe riots by society’s failures (again) but that’s about it.

noctilucentcloud · 19/01/2026 10:17

I feel the US is further away from a civil war than it was when Biden won the election and Trump didn't accept the result. However, I feel we're much closer to an international war because of US actions.

FlyingApple · 19/01/2026 10:18

No, most people just want a paycheck and to go home to their families and I can't blame them.

JHound · 19/01/2026 10:18

Vivi0 · 19/01/2026 08:33

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.

Well yes - that’s because few Americans know much about what is actually happening in other countries.

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