Did my first France game... it was amazing but a few questions

So I did my first France game where the military candidate wins and I was able to build up enough forces to take on Medvedev's Russia and then I was also able to beat them a second time later on. Overall a cool experience but nothing seemed too out of wack in my game.

However, with the US I have a few questions:

1. is it normal that the civil war takes like 6 or more years? In my game the Patriot Front won on the east coast and ended up battling it out with the People's Liberation Army.

2. I could not find this out in the lore when playing around a bit as the US, but how would any radical group (the far left and right) maintain any sort of compliance? I tried the ACG and even then it was a nightmare managing compliance, so I cant imagine how the Patriot Front occupying cities, or the Peoples Liberation Army occupying more rural areas would even work. Is there something in the lore that actually explains it?

Reason I ask is because any video or forum I look up people get lost in the "I dont condone this xyz ideology!!1!" and other performative distancing, which annoying and sad to watch when trying to get basic information.