Instead of the North and South now it's the Blue and Red.
In January, 2025, I am reading Erik Larson’s, The Demon Of Unrest, with the online Allnonfiction book discussion group. I will be posting my book notes here for davidgmarkham,substackcom’s readers for their edification, enlightenment, and enjoyment. Here’s topic #1
I suspect your sense of dread will be all the more pronounced in light of today’s political discord, which, incredibly, has led some benighted Americans to whisper once again of secession and civil war. —Erik Larson New York, 2023
Larson, Erik. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War (p. xii). Crown. Kindle Edition.
Some people are saying in 2025 that the US, with the re-election of Donald Trump as President, the nation is once again on the brink of a civil war. Instead of the war being between the North and the South, it will be between the Red and Blue states. With more guns than people now in the US, and the current President elect and his MAGA base justifying violence to achieve their political ends, an armed conflict is not beyond imagining. And in fact a violent attempt to overthrow the democratic process on January 6, 2021, and the pardoning of the insurrectionists by the President elect, Donald Trump, might make an observer concerned about the future of a unified nation.
Before we consider how we might move forward, it might be helpful to review where we have been, as a nation, in our past. Erik Larson’s new book, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga Of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism At The Dawn Of The Civil War, might give us some ideas about where we’ve been, where we are now, and how we might proceed into the future.
Questions:
To what extent, due to the increased political polarization and the normalization of violence, do you think the US could turn to armed conflict to resolve its political differences?
To what extent do the seeds of white supremacy from the slave history of the US still fuel animosity and racial and political hatred in the US?
If the nation further bifurcates would you gravitate to the blue states or the red states?