As we get older, we always begin to sound like our parents and talk about how different America was when we were growing up. It seems to be an inevitability. No one really likes change that we did not initiate ourselves, and perhaps it is a reminder of our own mortality. But in 2023, it is not just a case of walking into an old man bar and listening to the old guys talk about what used to be on a particular corner, or how things used to be. It is much more ominous and, quite frankly, scary. In this age of government censorship and sitting presidents indicting their chief political rival, there is no shortage of people saying that the political mood of the nation is like nothing they have ever seen.
Derrick Evans is a former member of the West Virginia House of Representatives and is currently running for Congress. On Wednesday, he tweeted a question that perhaps many Americans have pondered to themselves, “Do you think we are already in the early stages of a civil war?” Wow. A pretty loaded question, but maybe a pretty complex one. It certainly depends on what side of the political aisle you come down on as to how you might answer it. But Evans may be more equipped and may have earned the right to ask it more than most. Evans was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He was arrested and charged with one count of civil disorder and served three months in prison.
Again, a pretty volatile question. The ingredients for any civil war don’t happen overnight, and that would also be the case here. Many conservatives might argue that the groundwork was laid in 2008, when then-candidate Barack Obama famously (or infamously) announced that “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” What did he mean by that? Chances are, we never would have gotten a straight answer. Since then, polls have shown that many Americans think that Barack Obama, who had a golden opportunity to bring all Americans together, did just the opposite and made race relations much worse. The left and the media took every opportunity to brand anyone that criticized or disagreed with Obama a racist. Perhaps this was the first step.
The presidency of Donald Trump is arguably one of the most significant in American history for many reasons. Trump delivered on many conservative principles when it came to things like the economy, foreign relations, crime, and immigration. But the demonization of Trump has gone way beyond just him being the target. We have gone from simple dislike of Trump to a rabid obsession to destroy anyone and anything remotely associated, not just with Trump, but his supporters, and conservative ideals in general.
But for all the things the left assured us Donald Trump would do, Joe Biden has done all that and then some. His administration and Biden himself are among the most corrupt American leaders in our history. We have never seen government overreach and all-out attempts to erase Americans’ freedom of speech and expression, in addition to other constitutional rights, like this before. And it has divided Americans like no other time since, well, before the Civil War. Americans are languishing in jail because they went to the Capitol to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Many Americans feel they are being forced to comply with social and secular issues like gay pride, transgenderism, and climate change. The pandemic brought us mandatory lockdowns, vaccines, and censorship of vital information, all initiated by the government. They see the rights of fringe groups, often those that comprise less than one percent of the population, being placed above their own rights. They see, more and more, a government that has nothing but disdain and hatred for them and views them as the enemy that must be squashed.
Replies to Derrick Evan’s tweet were brutally realistic and had a twinge of fear to them. One response was, “No, but we may see states begin to question federal authority.” That is a possibility and, it might be argued, is the next step. Other responses went something like this, “It’s definitely brewing,” “Something’s about to give,” and “Every indicator is there.” Another said they believe that the 2024 election may speed up the possibility, and still another described the current state of divided Americans as “a cold civil war.”
Whether cold or hot, human nature tells us that you can only push people so far, and then they begin to push back. In what form that comes in is at present unknown. One response to Evans may have put it best, “I pray that’s not the case, but history is the teacher.”