Beyond Government and Resistance IV
While I truly believe that there is reason to be hopeful, even in this godforsaken year of 2025, I don't want us to lose sight of the things that are poised to come down on our heads. Even with a successful class movement, we are still in dangerous territory–and will be, long after. It will be a fight, one way or another, and the kind of conflict that is likely to come from the death throes of capital–or, perhaps more probably, pre-death-throes–is going to be vicious. And there are a couple key factors here that I want to share that, in my thinking, have changed in the last couple years.
I've talked at length about the potential of a cold civil war in our future. I don't know that I expect it, anymore, and the reason isn't "because things are peachy keen, actually." Despite my belief that we're in a more powerful position than we have been in a long time, I think that the reason a cold civil war is unlikely is due to a lack of sides in the conflict. A cold civil war, or a hot one, for that matter, needs at least two sides–and the United States only has one.
Scratch a Liberal
Key to having the kind of civil war that I posited in the above linked posts–the kind of civil war people have anywhere these days–is opposition. Where I previously thought that we'd see a state like California withhold its considerable monetary might from the rest of the nation and become its own country, the last few years have made me doubt that a liberal body would rise against the federal government in such a way. On what grounds would California, for instance, leave the union? It wouldn't be treatment of the houseless or incarcerated folks. It wouldn't be less-than-judicious use of natural resources. Would California secede because of abortion rights? Can you truthfully think of any state that would secede in this climate? There simply doesn't exist the sort of opposition I supposed in these previous letters.
While a modern civil war does not play out neatly along state lines like the historical Civil War, I had anticipated–and others had anticipated–some kind of involvement from liberal state and city governments. This brings to bear against the feds a considerable amount of economic and military might, seeing as how California alone is the 5th largest economy in the world, and one of the largest sources of enlisted personnel. That's just one state out of a probable several that one might expect to secede if not outright fight against a sundered United States.
But at the end of the day, the liberal apparatus in this country is pleased with authoritarian moves. Liberals have moved so far to the right that, while they disagree with conservatives on a few social issues, they're willing to sell out on those issues, to hedge their bets, and do basically whatever it takes to remain in the election cycle. They're willing not only to sell out their values, but they were willing to lose an election over a fucking genocide. This rightward slouch is evident in the way that they resist Trump and Musk–which is to say it's evident because they aren't resisting. The House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has said that with the GOP in control of every governing body, there isn't much the Dems can do. Meanwhile, in South Korea, when the President attempted to declare martial law, the opposition party leader literally scaled the walls of Parliament to stop him. But Dems here in the states? Powerless. To make matters worse, we've seen their plans to return to power: shun the left, harken to patriotic imagery, and embrace rugged individualism.
The one way I do see an Alex Garland Civil War still occurring is essentially an invasion–on the grounds of border security–of California by the federal government. Troops are being deployed to the border as we speak, after all, and a loose enough deployment of said troops in a more hostile territory than Texas could see some risen dander. Hostility to allies like Mexico and Canada, likewise, could force the hand of some parties. But I don't see this as terribly likely. More likely the Dems suffer whatever lashes may come as part and parcel to their job: hobbling opposition to the neoliberal establishment.
What's Left
While I doubt any of you were looking forward to any kind of civil war scenario, cold, hot, secession-y or otherwise, this dims the prospects of what we may look back on as a favorable alternative. Without defensible bastions like blue cities and states, what we're left with is less civil war and more underground resistance–think Casablanca. Not that that's not a romantic idea.
This doesn't mean that we're facing an unbeatable enemy. In truth, fighting the United Fascist States from the Republic of Cascadia was not likely to be all that advantageous for most of us; the brunt of the people who would make up the governments of these new bodies are just a few hairs to the left of the people on the other side. So despite how things might look on some kind of battlefield map, the reality of our fight hasn't changed all that much. We've just had a future conflict (the next rise of fascism) dealt with ahead of time.
How we win has been and always will be the same way: through a titanic amount of solidarity. This simply puts a fine point on the fact that we cannot look to any kind of government, or potential government, as an allied body. The libs would draw a line in front of our progress someday, and not that far off. But we want it all, right? We don't just want scraps of social progress held hostage for the sake of billionaires–the "good" billionaires, according to Dem Party Chair Ken Martin–we want equity, an end to white supremacy, an end to labor exploitation, to our money funding wars. All of it. And that won't happen holding hands with Gavin Newsom.
The Bright Side
So I guess we do get to end this series on a high note, which is that while I don't think we can expect the libs to fight beside us, they were never going to anyway–and they were likely to be just one more obstacle on our path to the abolition of the state. And that's the goal, right? We take hold of this moment in front of us, this brief flicker of class consciousness, and we make a flame with it. We recognize that for years and years there has been no us versus them as has been portrayed by our politicians. The wars that have been fought and the lives lost have not been in service of freedom, or democracy. They have been battles in service of the one real war: the class war. Now that we're starting to recognize that, it's time we fought back.
Before I go, a note on February 28th's economic boycott: this was a great first step! But it must be a first step. Keep talking about this movement with your people, and when the next boycott comes, participate. Even when it gets inconvenient for you--this is going to be an inconvenient thing. But we've got to keep up the momentum and keep folks feeling powerful. This is how we do it: we build on the small things until they're unignorable.