If things continue on their course, will we see a similar civil war and bloody right's battle soon?
I'm a firm believer that history repeats itself.
EDIT: C'mon lets have a discussion, if you're downvoting please just post why you think I'm an idiot and/or wrong.
Posted Apr 20, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC · edited
I'd argue that what you're seeing is not something like the Civil War, but more just a reflection of the general fault lines that have run through US politics virtually from the very beginning.
There have generally been two poles. As a caveat, I'd like to point out that these are extremely general categorizations and therefore if someone says "but wait, X stood for this too!", they are probably absolutely right. But anyways:
Pole 1: Business and "self-interestedness" to steal a term from Gordon Wood. The American system is designed to allow everyone to compete on an equal playing field known as the market and everyone is involved in the market. At best, the federal government should facilitate the market and business through building roads, providing a unified currency, encouraging the development of banks, encouraging a favorable balance of trade, etc. etc. etc.
Examples (again, broad generalizations): Federalists, Whigs, Republicans (beginning as early as the 1850s with the push of free labor ideology)
Pole 2: Virtue and Disinterestedness. States that while everyone is involved in the market and that the market is beneficial to the growth of society, the market is in fact the creator of inherently unequal relationships. There will be winners and losers. The government therefore looks out for the best interest of everyone regardless of their status in society. While the government does not necessarily punish the winners, it attends to the needs of exploited losers through aid societies, public education, sometimes collective bargaining, etc.
Examples: Anti-Federalists, Jacksonian Democrats, Populists, Progressives, sometimes-when-they-feel-like-it-20th-century-Democrats
I'd argue that these fundamental poles create the ebb and flow of agreement and hostility within American politics. Both modern parties have sustained themselves for so long because they both incorporate elements from each. However, what we're seeing right now is a rhetoric between them that has moved towards opposite poles. While the policies are not necessarily all that different than they have been, the Democrats now sound more like Progressives while the Republicans now sound more like 1870s Republicans. This has happened before, especially in the Progressive Democrat vs. Classically Liberal Republican phase of the 1870s-1910s, and before that between Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs. History might be repeating itself rhetorically, but that doesn't mean war is around the corner.
TL;DR This is all normal. Go read something else.
Thanks for your input, I'll look into those times in American history a little more closely now.
Well son, i have been hearing this crap for 61 years, hasn't happened yet, the only thing i see is a widening of economic gap between thems that has and them that don't, but i've seen that before.