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Yes, it's true that now just as then the conservatives of this country are manipulated by the wealthy, who in turn are deeply invested in stodgy, evil institutions that cannot be easily changed.
Yes, the geographic lines of division are still similar, too, and will instantly become still more similar the moment the conflict arises.
But what was impossible back then, deploying an enormous and well-trained army against a mob of redneck amateurs, is exactly what's going to happen now. (The majority of our standing infantry army just before the Civil War fit into exactly one division, Sykes' Regulars, and it comprised only about five percent of the total troop strength of just one of the armies deployed against the Confederacy).
What that effectively means is that any armed conflict will 1) consume virtually the whole of any armed force the rednecks attempt to deploy in the first major battle; 2) immediately thereafter devolve into guerrilla warfare and terrorism; which in turn will 3) invite the government to fall back on its favorite anti-guerrilla trick of the past fifty years, which is to deploy assassination teams to kidnap, torture and murder the family and friends of anyone important in the resistance.
So keep that in mind. If they buck up, most of them will die on the first real day of fighting, the rest will quickly burn off their credit with the locals, and the social network (which will already be known thanks to Facebook) which holds the remnants together will be systematically murdered, their assets seized, and their ability to project any power or policy at all will be crushed. It's even easier than that because this time any revolution or civil war would be fomented and directed by the wealthiest Americans, who can be rounded up and killed in one night.
As easy as it would be, it would be tragic beyond description, and the nation as a whole would not profit from the venture even if every vocal conservative is stood against the wall in the first three days.
I think the real answer is that we're going to have to actively dismantle the disinformation network that keeps those poor, frightened, stupid people all those things. They are not bad people; they have bad ideas because they're being played like marionettes by a vanishingly small sector of the population. Cut off the hand that plays the puppet, and it's over before it has a chance to begin.
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