“We’re American, OK?”
“OK. What kind of American are you?”
This exchange between a frightened news photographer and an AK-clenching militia man at a rebel checkpoint encapsulates the angst and confusion of the new movie “Civil War.”
Diabolically framed so audiences don’t know the cause, the film depicts a nation split in regional factions. The central government is in the crosshairs of advancing insurrectionists whose politics we can’t discern.
On-air news is wholly disconnected from the moment: a coup in the making. Empty words of assurance from the White House ping off pavement like discharged ammo. No one is in charge here.
“It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.”
I’m not sure anyone who slides into a theater seat for this horror could slink away thinking, “Couldn’t happen here.”
Of course it could.
Observe how red-state demagogues brag about defying the federal government and court orders. Yes, you, Greg Abbott.
Observe initiatives like the “Greater Idaho” movement – right-wingers pushing for Eastern Oregon to secede from their “left coast”-dominated state.
Colorado has something similar in rural Weld County, where Republican leaders have pitched secession to Wyoming. Caw. Caw. Neither crow will fly. Both require legislative action and governors’ signatures. But it sure sounds good to certain people who live in their respective information bubbles.
One of the sad ironies of the information age is how poorly informed so many Americans are. It explains why a massive chunk of our population thinks Donald Trump isn’t lying in his claims about a stolen election.
Whether through cable “news” that is rank propaganda or social media tailored to one’s tastes, it is easy and convenient to fence oneself off from reality.
Recently writer Thomas Haley, who lives in France, went to rural Oregon to write about the secessionist movement, emblematic of what one right-wing writer coined a “cold civil war.”
The central grievance, said proponents, is a “values gap” – a state government that undermines traditional values of “faith, family, freedom and self-sufficiency.”
All right. Exactly how has the state government in Oregon undermined these things? Haley pressed for explanations.
What popped up often, he writes, was Portland treated as the “boogeyman.” Its offense: representing “urban values.”
The would-be secessionists kept coming back to what Portland is – a highly diverse place in which Black Lives Matter protests commanded headlines. Katy, bar the door!
Brought up most often were big-picture concerns like immigration and, of course, abortion rights, which Oregon protects by law.
If anyone who thinks the Greater Idaho movement is driven by, say, property taxes, agricultural issues, highway maintenance, school funding – you know, stuff states do – Haley wasn’t finding much of that.
What he was finding was stuff that’s the focus of distant MAGA barkers and cable propagandists.
It has less to do with plows, cows and wide-open spaces than it does with Sean Hannity’s latest itch.
Haley’s analysis brings to mind a study that found that the people most alarmed by immigration, “wokeness” and diversity initiatives are those least likely to encounter people of color.
No wonder. “Build the wall” plays well where barbed wire rules.
As we approach another election, and as GOP candidates telegraph that should Joe Biden win we’ll be in for Big Lie Part Deux and refusal to abide by voters’ will, it really seems we are inching toward a breaking point.
Will we be governed by the population centers on the coasts or by the South and its no-population comrades on barren plains?
Seemingly there’s a midpoint to be found somewhere, and we’re not talking Topeka.
Will we be autocratized by the Prince of Retribution?
Or is there still the hope that bipartisanship and consensus can prevail, a hope embodied by an old-fashioned Joe?
“What kind of American are you?” Scary.
If “Civil War” were even more real, the question would be, “What cable channel do you watch?”
John Young is a longtime Texas newspaperman who now lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com. See johnyoungcolumn.com.
From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2024
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