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[Pre-order a copy of Daniel Greenfield’s first book, Domestic Enemies, by clicking here. Orders will begin shipping on April 30th.]
A moronic liberal president opens up the borders to mass migration in order to change the nation’s demographics and win an election, but instead touches off a civil war when the governor of a conservative state refuses federal orders to let any more refugees inside.
It’s not just the state of the Biden administration, but The Second Civil War, an HBO political satire from the era of the Clinton administration, that does what Civil War, a 2024 movie, won’t.
Civil War, currently number one at the box office, has a lot in common with its 1997 predecessor, both are civil war movies whose posters feature a battered Statue of Liberty and show the country being torn apart through the eyes of the media, but the difference between them is that The Second Civil War brought up issues while Civil War carefully avoids them.
In 1997 it was still possible for a prestige production to discuss issues like immigration from both sides, to take shots not only at the conservatives, caricatured predictably as hypocritical xenophobic buffoons, but also at an equally mindless liberal elite using immigration for political gain, while being blind to the economic and social damage that it’s inflicting on the country.
Such a position is inconceivable in 2024. That is why Civil War imagines California and Texas teaming up to topple an abusive president, but not the issues that would drive a civil war. The Western Forces militiamen are culturally coded as right-wing and xenophobic, and the reporters as liberals, but otherwise cannot touch on what would make Americans kill each other.
In The Second Civil War’s black comedy, the administration is importing millions of migrants “the lumps at the bottom of the melting pot” with the specific purposes of winning swing states. Faced with pushback from The Nation of Islam, representing black Muslims, who are fighting the Reconquista Latinos of California, the president plans to import millions of Koreans.
What was satire in 1997 is just politics in 2024. The nation’s foreign policy is being determined by a sizable Muslim minority in Dearborn, Michigan, which supports Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. The implausible demographic transformation in 1997 is a reality now as Muslims make up 10% of the Georgia State Senate delegation. Everything is diverse and in a state of perpetual war.
The Second Civil War’s Republicans don’t actually oppose immigration, they just posture for political reasons but have no intention of actually closing the border. Neither side in this bleak farce believes in anything, but is just falling into a civil war to gain a political advantage. The only truly implausible thing in the movie is that it depicts media people fighting each other over political issues. The media of 2024 is far too much of a political monoculture to ever dissent.
And so is the entertainment industry.
Hollywood today operates under codes stricter than anything in the Hays era. Everything from the number of minorities to the depiction of other cultures, religions and countries (especially China) is closely governed and passes through multiple layers of censorship. Much like in China, the only acceptable position is advocacy and the lack of it is its own sort of protest.
If Civil War, like The Second Civil War, were to address immigration in the current cultural climate, it would be impossible for the movie to do anything except take a militant open borders position and to spend its entire running time denouncing and demonizing anything else. And the same would be true for any other political issue or position. The only safe way to tell a story about a civil war that isn’t just going to be non-stop political scolding is to suppress the politics.
And that negative space may be more revealing than anything that actually is in the movie.
Liberal critics are not wrong when they point out that Alex Garland, Civil War’s director, has done little more than transplant a conventional civil war narrative that could have just as easily been set in the former Yugoslavia to America, and that it offers little substance beyond the obligatory celebration of the heroism and horror of war journalism and the shock at a nation tearing itself apart, but what they miss is that they are the reason for the civil war.
And for the obligatory silence.
Nations tear themselves apart when they can no longer talk to each other or about the issues at issue. Cautionary warnings about a civil war do no good when the political atmosphere is so totalitarian and stifling that we can’t even discuss why we might end up fighting one another.
Talk isn’t a remedy for everything. The North and the South understood each other pretty well and there was plenty of vigorous discourse before the onset of hostilities. And sometimes differences are indeed irresolvable. Or unlikely to be resolved. But there were actual efforts to find a compromise, like the redemption of the slaves, or a third option such as expanding America into Canada or Mexico, but there are no longer any efforts at a middle ground now.
The Left refuses to accept limits on anything. Borders must be fully open and every migrant must be allowed to come and live here. The most graphic kinds of pornography must be forced on children in public schools. Men must be allowed to pretend to be women. Terrorists must be allowed to kill without resistance. Money must be spent by the government without limit. DEI racial quotas must be imposed everywhere. All reliable energy sources must be banned.
There is no middle ground to any of this. Every institution in our cultural, intellectual and political life has been ideologically compromised and broadcasts the same absolutist position while insisting that any dissent is a “threat to democracy” that must be urgently suppressed.
How does that trajectory end in anything other than a civil war?
There are already two Americas separated by culture into mutually exclusive echo chambers. In the nineties, there were still debates, but by the late oughts, an iron curtain had fallen over the culture. Conservatives exist in the liberal echo chamber only as broadly stereotyped caricatures, racist idiots in red hats carrying guns, with no awareness of what they actually believe.
In that blind spot, Civil War can only conceive of a civil war, but not what might bring it about.
Garland suggests that the absence of clear motives provides a space in which people can draw their own conclusions, rather than being told what to think about the war. There’s something praiseworthy about a movie asking the audience to make up its own mind, but it’s also a calculated evasion. Ambiguity is the cultural dissent most present in totalitarian systems.
It’s one thing to let people make up their minds, another to be afraid of saying what you think.
Say what you will about The Second Civil War, a lopsided and fumbling political satire that crammed in everyone from James Earl Jones, a badly miscast Phil Hartman (coming off his Saturday Night Live portray of Bill Clinton) as a moronic president, and Dennis Leary, from the director of Gremlins and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, but it wasn’t afraid to offend anyone.
(Can you imagine any contemporary movie showing an LA mayor laying claim to the city in Spanish before being shot and killed by the Nation of Islam without everyone getting canceled?)
And that was as typical of 90s culture as the total political monoculture is of the current age.
Civil War is a movie about a civil war that is careful not to offend anyone. And in doing so it already offended the same leftists who complained that Don’t Look Up was only metaphorically, not literally, about global warming, and every show isn’t sufficiently committed to the cause.
Silence and ambiguity are evasive and ineffectual responses to such a totalitarian movement.
What’s driving us toward a civil war are not vague concepts like “divisiveness” and “polarization”, it’s that we have no hope of resolving conflicts that we can’t even talk about. One of the few relics of the vigorous debates of the 90s is Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect. And even it has been ghettoized as “right wing” because its liberal host sometimes dissents from the Left.
That’s why the civil war we’re in is mostly silent. At least to the Left which is incapable of even seeing the other side and is convinced that with enough pressure and open borders, it will disappear. The numbers, whether Biden’s poll numbers or national polls, show otherwise.
Faced with pushback, the Left embraces state repression and political violence, whether it’s the Trump trials or the rioting mobs in the street who alternate between terrorizing cities for BLM, abortion or Hamas, rigs elections and centralizes its authority all to “save democracy”.
But what is it saving democracy from except the other half of the country? Or democracy itself.
A generation later, The Second Civil War, can appear prescient about what is actually happening and more importantly about how we stopped being able to talk to each other. Its sendup of the follies of the media is in stark contrast to the humorless journalists of Civil War who are willing to die to report on what is going on for no other purpose than to bear witness.
The Second Civil War allowed us to laugh at each other which is about the best possible counter to a civil war. In the era of Civil War, satire like the rest of comedy is dead because it’s been replaced by partisan mockery aimed squarely at the other side. When there are no other perspectives, all that remains is a sanctimonious seriousness with no vision or imagination.
Civil War’s journalist protagonists travel the country to Washington D.C. to report back that war is violent. This kind of reductive narrative is what happens when we don’t talk about what’s actually going on and out of that silence, a civil war that will tear us apart really can come.
You forgot to use quotes, Mickey, which makes it appear that you’re describing yourself, although you forgot to add an arrow pointing upward to your name. “Hypocritical buffoon” certainly, but I’m not sure you’re xenophobic, although I’m sure that we American patriots (a/k/a MAGA Republicans) are not – we’re just trying to preserve our culture and freedom.
Orson Scott Card wrote a good book published in 2006 about another Civil War in the near future entitled “Empire.” In his introduction, he noted that Americans are much more divided ideologically now than during the Civil War and that another one could be fought, even though most people don’t believe it will happen.
He followed up the first book with one entitled “Hidden Empire” in 2009 about a deadly pandemic, the assassination of the President and the election of a brilliant one.
They’re both good reads and thought provoking.
Many Americans don’t believe that each and every American will soon be FORCED to choose a tribe, or local gang to stay protected from outside marauders… because that “thin blue line” got painted over by BLM and other Marxists revolutionaries.
The days of the rugged-individualist are eclipsed by these Vietcong insurgent tactics.
Blaine Lee Pardoe’s books about a possible near civil war are also excellent potboilers. I read three of them in a row, starting with “Blue Dawn.”
They sound fun but are they really potboilers? Card’s aren’t. He’s a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction author although he writes other stuff, too. He once one both awards for the same book, “Ender’s Game, which was much better than the movie.
Thank you for the book recommendation. Sounds almost prophetic. I’ll check it out.
We’re already in a civil war, but so far, only one side is fighting it.
The patriotic, conservative side is & has been entirely on the receiving end.
The false flag ops is one facet & has been well established.
The Tea Party patriots got used to it, and began holding “He’s not with us” signs next to leftist provocateurs infiltrating rallies.
At the time, that was performed by intern punks working for DNC campaigns (some were followed back to their DNC overlords & I.D.ed)
The Jan 6th set-up, courtesy of the FBI & AntiFa punks (both dressed in MAGA gear) took setting up conservatives to a whole new level. That time the DNC state apparatus was involved.
The fake bomb, that the DNC is desperately laboring to make go away, removed any remaining doubt. (My 1st clue was the lie about officer Sicknick.)
That was then. Now a newer low has arrived.
Soros funded DAs are now performing banana republic prosecutions – invented from laughable 3rd grade imagination devoid of any legality, (Imagine a fraction of that lawfare bullshit tried on B. Hussein.)
Sooner or later, a breaking point arrives. This privileged two-tier justice system edges us closer – not farther.
The lawfare has been proved beyond refutation. Trump’s lawyers got a judge to un-redact court papers and other documents which prove this illegal plot was directed by Alzheimer Joe’s handlers in the White House, who don’t want to lose their puppet. They ordered and colluded with the DOJ, FBI, National Archives and all those crooked prosecutors.
“ Nations tear themselves apart when they can no longer talk to each other or about the issues at issue.”
There’s lots of issues that nobody anywhere in the western world is allowed to discuss. It’s not just the USA.
The danger is that political views have degenerated into theology, accompanied by resultant excomunication and stake burning. Leftist political views border on delusion – the idea that gender is a choice and that meritocracy is racist and evil, or that law enforcement causes violent crime, among others. It’s not possible to have rational debates over irrational ideas. When there is no debate, the only resolution left is violence. I fear we are at that point now.
Xenophon wrote one of my favorite books, Anabasis. Some of his other books were not as brilliant, and he was too optimistic about Sparta’s victories, not seeing the troubles looming ahead. Use of “Xenophobic” as a pejorative just shows the intellectual vacuity of the perp.
Great book. It was the inspiration for the cult classic, “The Warriors.” (1979). There was a modern(90s) version of the story in a book called, “The 10,000,” by Harold Coyle, set in Eastern Europe, with a stranded US armored division. It was a disappointment after “Team Yankee,” but it led me to “Anabasis.”
It was also the basis for several scifi books, including the excellent, four book, “Empire of Man,” series by David Weber and John Ringo. The first book in the series was titled, “March Upcountry.”
It’s a story like “Beowulf,”(which is supposed to be the earliest story written in the English language), that’s been redone over and over, in every way.
So well written, thank you Mr. Greenfield.
Grant and Lee never had to strategize against omni-directional warfare…or as the Chinese PLA refers to it “unrestricted warfare.”
Think of a disco ball. Every shaft of light is another form of warfare.
Economic warfare, political warfare, cyberwarfare, psychological, educational, legal, environmental, diplomatic, homeless, immigration, ad nauseum.
Add to that, we’ll give EVERY moron that can hold out their hand a super-highly sophisticated shiny-thing that they can stare at all day getting their geo-located marching orders and online college courses in civil destruction. (and the gov’t will pay for it)
Also, Grant and Lee had stylish and distinctive uniforms. This insurgent warfare generation is like a shape-shifting Hydra-like monster with deep pockets and a severe case of jealousy against humans flourishing… with really ugly uniforms.
You’ve made Daniel’s point perfectly. The problem those of us have with the left is often we don’t know what you’re talking about. Then upon reflection we realize, you don’t either.
Here is something that is verboten to talk about …
Fact …. Mexico and the Mexican government are the enemy of America and US citizens.
Mexica president Obrador is a mass murderer of US citizens with Mexican manufactured drugs/fentanyl
Mexico sponsors and effectively implements the INVASION of 12 millions of illegal alien hordes across the Mexican border into America.
Mexico is directly responsible for the murder of more than 100,000 US citizens by Mexican manufactured drugs pushed into America by the Mexican government.
Because of its total ineffectiveness I can see now that the GOP is going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose the Presidential election in November. 2024.
Apparently the GOP also cares little about US citizens and the Mexican INVASION and the Mexican fentanyl murders of US citizens.
The GOP House has the power of the purse to squash bad spending bills.
But the GOP refuses to use their power to stop the Ukraine funding, and the GOP refuses to provide the funds for the protection of the US-Mexican border.
So screw the GOP. as well as the depraved Biden/democrat stab Israel and US citizens in the back policies.
…hard as I might, I cannot understand today’s leftists…nor do I want to. They are about as immoral and godless as can be assessed in this age. They make absolutely no sense!
Every time type or open your mouth, you put your low-octane child on full display (Your leftist credentials are fully intact.)
As you, no doubt, have solidarity with those other cosseted children camped out on campus, I have a word of caution . . .
If you go to join them, leave your rainbow flag & fishnet stockings at home – Islam tends to act on their distain of that behavior.
I think the AI media outlets have scrubbed the word “Sharia” from all news feeds.
“BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER!” (read on)
FEBRUARY 17, 1986 at University of NM. A speech by George Myers, head of the CPUSA Labor Department, hosted by Gerry Bradley, head of the NM Marxist Educators for Socialist Action, (He angrily denied he was a Marxist only two weeks before during his NM Peace Council meeting where he had glowing remarks about his trip to Cuba. I spoke on this and more on national talk radio shows.)
Many students and outsiders were there. Before the speech, some people were speaking, one was the editor on The Daily Lobo and a member of the NM Communist Party. She denied ALL my letters and even her own reporters who I spoke with at protests to expose the Communist connection to these protest groups like the Peace Council’s.
Another man was Nelson Valdes, a Cuban Sociology Professor, and a “New Marxist” as he told me. Very radical who FPM author Humberto Fontava knows well.
MYERS: “THE OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES… THROUGH FORCE IF NECESSARY! *****BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER!” EVERYONE CHEERED!
CIVIL WAR… look at the hatred on FACEBOOK. Family, Students, Friends, colleagues, co-workers, UNFRIENDING EACH OTHER as they write comments that are easy to write, but they would never do in person, to their face!
I saw the movie a few days ago… boring and unexciting. TURN ON FACEBOOK FOR THE REAL ACTION!
When asked why I say Marxists want to burn down your city? It’s what Marxists do.
It’s a highly funded cult of jealousy, and it’s merging with a 7th century death cult…. sorta like the Euro-style rape-gangs join the BLM Urban Destruction Posse, but worse.
Hey Mickey, why don’t you bug us about how we are all colonizers here, you pathetic leftist.
Because he’s a colonizer too.
I would like to know if someone other than Front page Mag is intercepting our comments and stopping them from being on the website.
“There’s something praiseworthy about a movie asking the audience to make up its own mind, but it’s also a calculated evasion. Ambiguity is the cultural dissent most present in totalitarian systems.”
Praise would only be merited by a full presentation of the issues. Ambiguity is a weapon to obscure meaning to the end that no thought or communication can take place, and we become mindless cattle incapable of self-government.
Here in Ukistan the police will be protecting and helping the ROPers.
I must say Daniel………..”The Civil War is Here.”.
I think I read that somewhere a few years back.
Perhaps a bloody civil war is the only thing that can or will save this country. It’s not by choice but if the democrat party and their neo-Marxist cohorts (aka, progressives/far left) keeps painting Americans further and further into a corner, a civil war will be the only way out.
In my view, that’s been the left’s game plan all along. Either accept their Marxist agenda or be crushed under their Marxist jackboots. Part of the reason they’re moving heaven and earth to get rid of the 2nd amendment is so that the American people have no means to forcibly resist.
Once the ability to resist is gone, they’ll amend or drastically redact the US Constitution to their liking (in a November 2008 interview, Obama disparaged the US Constitution as a “charter of negative liberties” in that it empowered the people, not the government.)
We the American people cannot let that happen. If it means a civil war then so be it. Otherwise, we are unworthy of a Constitutional Republic and deserve whatever fate the Marxist democrat party has in mind for America.
Well … a civil war will not help. The Left controls all institutions – and that includes the military and the police. They do not control Sheriffs, but that can be fixed.
What they need is justification, and for that … they need an outburst. That’s the theory behind J6 – but it failed to convince anyone with two braincells and no control file.
If we could defeat the Left politically, a civil war would not be necessary. And if we cannot defeat the Left politically, we do not have the power to do so.
Anyone saying otherwise … is probably a Fed – trying to provoke a violent outburst.
What we need are leaders who know how to hamstring the system with reverse tactics – and donors and institutions to feed, house, and cloth those who will be destroyed by the leftists.
We NEVER had this before – and we still don’t. If you lose your job – conservatives are still more likely to say you’re a loser – than to recognize that you were fired for being fill-in-the-blank.
G-d help us all.
I don’t think the msm would be wearing “Press” all over them. That would just get them targeted faster in much of the country.