Civil War III

The American Civil War in the 1860s was the deadliest in American history, with some 620,000 soldiers killed. Because of the nature of this war, virtually all the deaths and injuries were American, both military and civilian, and all the destruction was in the United States.

So the Civil War is singular. But major underlying issues of that war had descendants that contributed to continuing conflict and violence in the U.S., that flared into focused public conflict and violence in the Civil Rights era.

In the mid 19th century, the South depended on slavery for its agrarian economy, chiefly cotton. The North had an industrial economy, and its farms did not depend on slaves. It's difficult to call the South's support of slavery "racism," since the white leaders and citizens of the North by and large did not consider people indigenous to Africa, then called Negroes, as their equals in most ways. If not "equally" racist, the prevailing view in all of America was racist.

Whether Southerners were "more racist" is conjectural. That they supported their arguments for slavery with racist rhetoric is undeniable. Similarly, they defended their economic position (dependent on slavery) with the principle, or at least the rhetoric, of state's rights.

A century later, some of the same elements played into to the confrontations of the Civil Rights era (late 1950s through the 1960s.) By losing the Civil War, and losing slavery, the South did take a big economic hit, and arguably had not recovered a century later. While cities grew in the North, Midwest and West, the South remained far less urban.

Especially after the Civil War, the South was characterized as backward and undereducated. Southerners considered the North as elitist, overeducated and overbearing. The hostility on both sides had elements that were defined by class. The South had its own culture, defined by its own brand of Christian fundamentalism, as well as by a continuing sense of being aggrieved and oppressed. White Southerners in some ways defined themselves in contrast to Negroes, but also seemed to feel that, as in the Civil War, the North--and the federal government--threatened their economic position and way of life by changing the status of Southern Negroes.

Though of course nowhere near the violence of the Civil War, the Civil Rights struggle did involve violence and death--including innocent children, white as well as black Civil Rights workers, and a leader whose life is now celebrated with a national holiday. In the South, city and state governments resisted changing discriminatory laws and in some cases fomented violence against Civil Rights advocates. Officials and political leaders incited violence and opposition by white citizens.

When the Civil Rights struggle moved North, the violence and opposition of some white citizens showed a commonality: they, too, felt threatened by racial equality. Apart from a racial repugnance, they believed as well that racial equality threatened their way of life and their economic status. Ending discrimination in hiring etc. meant more competition for jobs and contracts, and efforts to compensate for past discrimination made that worse.

The fears and resentments handed down, augmented and amplified from the Civil War were still most potent in the South--where federal Civil Rights legislation led to the Democrats losing the "Solid South" forever--but the underlying class-oriented component had strengthened and spread to the whole country. The archetype of "the North" became less geographically centered, and became a perceived oppression by a powerful cabal.

In the 1960s, historian Richard Hofstader defined some of these beliefs in his books, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Anti-Intellectualism in the United States. The perceived characteristics and membership of this cabal had changed over time, but there are two common threads: perceived class distinctions (expressed in wealth, power and education) and specific threats to what whites had, seemingly by right of white supremacy. Those who believed this most intensely tended to be the most economically and culturally vulnerable lower middle class whites, supported by politicians, religious leaders and others who made their living feeding this frenzy.

This is not to say that racism did not and does not remain within the ranks of middle class and wealthy whites. It does, and it functions to support political positions that seek to funnel even more wealth to the wealthy. This is also a protection of class position, but in this case, there's often willingness to rob from lower classes, regardless of race.

After the laws of the land changed to institute legal equality, and black Americans became more integrated into everyday life and the larger culture, overt racism died down. But writers such as Thomas Frank noted that even in the 21st century, white racism remained a potent political and cultural force, although couched in euphemisms and code words. It seems pretty clear now that the election of America's first black President in 2008--particularly in combination with the Great Recession-- brought these fears, resentments and hostilities closer to the surface, expressed in an anger and in the rhetoric of violence. If the Civil Rights era was in effect Civil War II, we now seem in the midst of Civil War III.

I'm not going to catalogue the latest manifestations--the violence and threats directed at Democratic Members of Congress ostensibly over the health insurance reform bill--especially since they continue to grow in number and seriousness. Fortunately the news is widely reporting them, and they are being discussed on TV and the Internet. Instead I want to speculate on the underlying elements.

Some of the mechanisms of Civil War III are repeated: politicians and other leaders inflaming and exploiting and directing the resentments; the rhetoric of state's rights and of oppression by powerful sinister forces. Instead of overtly naming regional, ethnic, racial or religious enemies, the rhetoric follows from the 1950s McCarthyite tactic of ascribing an ideology that moreover has deceptive and subversive intent (i.e. "socialism" and the imagery of Hitler, Stalin, etc.) But the racial component is pretty obvious, especially in the ingenious combination of racial subtext and conspiracy in the persistent charge that President Obama was not born in the U.S, or that he is secretly a Muslim ( a religion both identified racially and as foreign source of terrorism.)

A recent Harris poll confirms an earlier poll's finding that a majority of Republicans surveyed profess to believe that President Obama is a socialist and a Muslim. Such beliefs--and others, such as the "birther" contention, Obama as totalitarian and Democrats as threatening liberty --are central to the Tea Party movement, with a membership that is overwhelmingly white.

In what may be a difference, this phenomenon is financed and directed to a large extent by some corporations and their political P.R. and lobbying firms. This is perhaps only a reflection of the increased sophistication necessary for a fast-paced, media-dominated culture. But it is not at all unusual for the most powerful business interests to manipulate those much further down in the class system, in order to protect and extend their political and economic power. It's at least as old as kings convincing peasants to fight their wars by demonizing some neighboring country or tribe.

But why are such issues as health care or climate change inflaming Civil War III, if it is actually an outgrowth of the previous Civil Wars? Some of it is because these are advocated by President Obama, and anything a black President does is at least symbolically a threat. At least, that is the political calculation made and exploited by Republican professional politicians and political consultants.

But it is probably more direct than that. Despite the fact that white people are victims of the insurance companies, or that lower middle class whites are primary victims of growing income inequality, it may well be that the healthcare reforms are seen as benefiting mostly blacks, Latinos and Asian immigrants. After all, it was the federal government that gave racial minorities more economic power. This is just one more federal attempt to weaken the competitive position of lower middle class whites--especially white men, who arguably are taking the brunt of Great Recession unemployment as well as elements of economic and social change. This may be couched in the language of taxes and deficit, but the persistence of this belief in the face of facts that counter it suggest there's something more behind it.

There is also the rhetoric of state's rights, the beleagued sense of federal power and conspiratorial forces. But once again they revolve around elements of race and class.

Similarly, while some component of anti-choice ideology is sincerely based on religious conviction and a visceral support of life, some of it is fueled by class resentment (the image of choice advocates as rich white women and Hollywood stars), and some of it is probably part of a fear that poorer whites are targeted for extinction that goes back to the alarm over eugenics in the early 20th century. Almost certainly, the demographic reality of a growing non-white population--of whites as a soon-to-be minority race-- plays into all of these fears.

There's probably a class component even in climate crisis denial. As one writer put it, they are convinced "that it's a hoax cooked up by self-righteous environmentalist elites who can't stand to see common people have their mechanized fun." (ecologist J. Baird Callicott in Gaia in Turmoil.)

In any case, several people--including those who were victims of violence in the 60s--have noted that the current wave of violence and violent rhetoric and advocacy is reminiscent of the Civil Rights era. (This includes slurs not much heard since then.) I believe that's partly because the sources are the same, with the additions and alterations of history, that go back to the original Civil War. (As does some of the rhetoric. Secession anyone?) While the proportion and eventual political power of the white resenters is shrinking, they can still be still mortally dangerous. Their rhetoric of a Last Stand should be taken very seriously.

We need to be clear about taking the current threat seriously, if we are to avoid the horror of violence and assassination. Those who want to provoke more widespread racial and class violence may see this as their best opportunity. We also need to look beyond the political and ideological talk to the deep sources of these impulses. They tell us that those who are inflaming extremism and violence are sanctioning violent expression of powerful resentments and anger, and that they are responsible for any violence that ensues.