Is the United States Facing a Second Civil War?"
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August 2018)
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"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO."
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"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Martin Niemoller (c. 1946)
I am posting this column on the morning of January 16, 2026. Five days ago, (Jan. 12) I walked into the office of one of the medical specialists who provides routine care and health-status monitoring for me on a regular six-monthly basis. Before any part of the examination started, he said to me "it's over." This practitioner is what I would describe as a left-wing Democrat, who has a particularly strong interest in politics and what is going on in our nation. But hardly is he a specialist in U.S. government and history.
We always spend time during our visit on current politics (and he knows well my position and perspective). But that discussion usually comes after at least sometime through the exam. This time it came first. A bell was rung and I have been working-on/thinking-about this column all week. Many questions and concerns have arisen during it, following the Minneapolis Murder that took place on Jan. 7. Underlying at least some of the discussion/analysis that has occurred is the question stated in the title of this column. And so, here are some notes on various aspects of the events, that the President is, and is not, doing, and what some of the political responses have been.
Here is a comment that I posted on a Steve Schmidt Video/Substack on Jan. 14, 2026:
"Most considerations of the First Civil War set its date of beginning as April 21, 1861, when what would become the 'Confederate' forces opened the shelling of Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. Harbor. However, another consideration is that it actually began with the (un-Constitutional) secession of South Carolina from the United States of America on December 20, 1860, which in effect declared that a State of War (not yet violent) between (some of) the slave states and what came to be called The Union. Our nation is currently descending into what may become the Second Civil War. If that does happen, the start of this one will dated to Jan. 7, 2026, the date of the first ICE murder, in Minneapolis --- the existence of ICE as currently constituted by the Trump Administration, with role it has been given --- being entirely Unconstitutional." (For openers see the 1st and 4th Amendments, e.g., Free Speech and Probable cause).
While I did not quote them in that Comment, here are the relevant sections of the Constitution (which both Trump and key members of his Administration and principal outside-of-government-advisors have either not read or [more likely] have decided just not to pay any attention to them):
AMENDMENT I: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
AMENDMENT IV: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
As for the fascist state that what I call the TrumpRepubloFascists are attempting to impose, here is a definition of "fascism" that I have used for quite some time:
"There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of an industrial/financial/sales-and-marketing/communications ruling class, that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. They are all held by the Executive branch. There is no independent judiciary/civil/criminal/justice system. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using the big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."
Presently, the main engine of their revolution is, as is very well-known, the unit of the Department of Homeland Security (how ironic is that name now) that is "Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE for short. I first posted a description of ICE late July 2025, under the title "How do you Spell ICE in German: G-E-S-T-A-P-O":
"In the governments of democratic states, there are established constitutional/-legislated powers to: 1) arrest persons for suspected crimes; 2) subject those persons to some kind of criminal procedures, in which the accused is to have: certain rights before the law, such as the right to know of the charges against them in some detail, the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and the right to be subject to a defined, written due-process-of-law; and 3) imprison persons convicted of crimes, again following a defined due-process-of-law.
"The Nazi-German Gestapo had the power to arrest anyone they deemed liable to arrest, with a legally-sanctioned 'probable cause' or not; decide on the guilt or innocence of that person inre the crime being charged, without the person being subject to an established-in-law judicial procedure; and then upon determining, on their terms, whether or not a crime (as they defined it) had been committed, decide upon and mete out punishment as they deemed fit. ICE has similar, discretionary, powers".
Am I going too far here? Well, consider this very brief statement on the "situation" in Minneapolis, MN, by the of the Trump Administration's Stephen Miller, with the oh-so-innocent sounding title of "Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy:"
"To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and anybody who lays a hand on you, or tries to stop you, or tries to obstruct you, is committing a felony . . . You have immunity to perform your duties and no one-- no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist-- can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties. The Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice."
As it happens. on foreign policy as well, Miller is considered to most right-wing-radical voice in the Administration:
" 'We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,' he argued in an interview with CNN on January 5, in which he defended the United States' claim to Greenland because 'we're a superpower.' The United States is in charge. But obviously that doesn't mean President Trump is setting the bus fare schedule inside the country [even if he is Acting President of one, like, say Venezuela, Stephen?] We are in charge because we have the United States military stationed outside the country [in this case, Venezuela indeed]. We set the terms and conditions. . .'"
So, as of now, both at home and abroad, Trump is acting with impunity. He has no Congressional authority to do what he is doing, nor is he seeking it (as for foreign wars he needs do under Art. II of the Constitution) and he is either ignoring the courts or announcing broadly, by his actions at least, his intent to ignore them. As is well-known, he is threatening to "send Federal troops," under the provisions of an early 19th Century statue called the "Insurrection Act," into Minneapolis, or more broadly Minnesota. A key provision of that Act is that it: "empowers the President of the United States to nationally deploy the U.S. military and to federalize the National Guard units of the individual states in specific circumstances, such as the suppression of civil disorder, of insurrection, and of armed rebellion against the federal government of the U.S." And so on and so forth.
And so, are we staring down the barrels of numerous guns at a Second Civil War? A) it is clear that the Trump Administration is paying no attention to the law in regard to what ICE is doing on the ground in Minneapolis and has made clear that it has no intention of doing so. B) They are, for example, preventing the local and state law enforcement authorities in Minnesota from conducting this own investigation of the ICS shooting/killing that occurred on Jan. 7, and (e.g.) Miller's increasingly bellicose statements on what ICE is doing and the powers it has (according to himself). C) The sides of a potential such war are getting evermore clearly defined, as in: the Constitutionalists vs. the TrumpRepubloFascist/P2025/Second-American-Revolution-ers. D) Neither of the political Parties (most especially, of course, the Republicans-in-awe-and-in-the-awbit-of-Trump) is doing much to try to stop him (even if they could). E) Generally, the Dems. aren't doing much better (although their powers in Congress are very limited). And E) Trump is moving evermore quickly in the direction of open dictatorship, e.g., from what he is doing in Minneapolis to his threats to invade Greenland, (which clearly would be done without a whiff of Congressional authorization).
(In re the European response to the "Greenland threat," who would have thought that any of us old enough to have "seen the news" during the Second World War would have been very happy to see the word "Luftwaffe" on the side of an aircraft? Which indeed it was, right there on a German military transport on its way to provide support for the Government of Greenland against the TrumpImperialist threat.)
In sum, in my view (and most certainly of others) the chances of a Second Civil War increase with every passing day. This is a subject that has a wide variety of parameters, perspectives, and strategic/tactical considerations. It is one to which I shall (obviously) return. As my friend and physician said: "It's over." Or is it?