First a comment about the title. Not the author’s fault, but coupling the word civil with war has always struck me as the ultimate oxymoron. A more precise use of the English language would be to call it civic war?
In this alarmingly pessimistic but timely and perhaps realistic book, the Toronto-based writer and thinker presents five richly documented what-if possibilities, from trends already established, that would lead to civil war and chaos in the nation to our south. These range from presidential assassinations to secession of states from the union, failure to address climate change, increasing political polarization and the outbreak of widespread violence. With a combination of a vivid imagination, dozens of little-known indisputable facts, and interviews with politicians, political scientists, historians, psychologists, academics, military leaders, and radical racist conspiracy theorists like Richard Spencer, the possibilities are made to seem realistic, and the outbreak of civil war to seem almost inevitable. He presents no time line, but makes it clear that he thinks the disintegration of the nation is imminent.
The recent alarming developments in Canada that he could not have foreseen even last month when the book was published clearly show that we are not immune to similar developments.
He claims that although “[the founding fathers] created the greatest democracy and the greatest economy in the world”, their worshipped constitution is now a deeply flawed document that fails them in the modern world and that the most dangerous job in America is to be president. The unnecessarily heavily armed police and the military brass often align with and encourage right wing antigovernment extremist organizations, as some police in Ottawa did recently.
One great quote among many (with respect to potential assassins): “Social alienation comes with anger at their lot in life.”
The last section delivers the hopeful possibility that they can yet avoid all of the dire predictions he presented earlier, but, with what came before, that seems like whistling in the dark past the graveyard.
I have a few quibbles. The writing is largely in short alarmist-toned sentences and phrases. He describes the U.S. as the longest duration democracy in the world (debatable) and the richest country in the world. Perhaps it is the latter by total GDP, but certainly not by GDP per capita. The few maps and diagrams are so small as to be useless. He leaves the (probably unintended) impression that some radioactive material in the hands of antigovernment extremists is equivalent to them possessing nuclear bombs. The pagination in the ebook edition is all off and the book is at least two or three times as long as the page numbers indicate.
A sobering read that I didn’t enjoy at all but an important cautionary warning to anyone who values democracy.
Thanks,
Din
The Passionate Reader 