Trump warns there will be a civil war if he’s impeached, is he right?
Donald Trump tweeted that if he is impeached, another civil war would come. Is he right about that? Will this country take up arms again?
Just when you thought President Donald Trump couldn’t possibly stoop any lower, he yet again went off the deep end by posting a thinly veiled threat that if we impeach him, we’ll have another civil war on our hands.
“If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal,” POTUS tweeted Sunday, quoting longtime evangelical pastor Pastor Robert Jeffress, who made the comment during an appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend.
While some scoff at this ever being a reality, Republicans extremists suggest a new civil war between Democrats and Republicans isn’t so far fetched.
But just to jog everyone’s memories, the American Civil War began in 1861 over the enslavement of Black people in the United States. So in the same way that many pro-Confederate flag enthusiasts would have you think the Civil War was just about the North versus the South, the truth is: it was about race. And if we do have another one, be clear it would be about race yet again.
So in a nutshell, y’alls President just high-key threatened us with a race war if we impeach him.
Even Republicans think this is gross
When Trump first started his campaign to embolden bigotry during his 2016 campaign, many white people and die-hard Republicans of color, pretended that his casual racism could be overlooked, or even debated about during dinner parties. This mindset on its own is problematic because pretending there is any version of reality where pushing hateful rhetoric against minorities is palatable (as long as we “create more jobs”) is pretty morally apprehensible.
And yet, that argument was made repeatedly by people who could afford to watch others get discriminated against as long as they were assured their own wallets would benefit.
Three years and several, “Oh snap! This man is so corrupt even whiteness can’t protect me from him,” epiphanies later, those same people are singing a different tune and finally realizing that Trump actually doesn’t have much of an allegiance to anyone but himself.
This has caused a fracture in the GOP, unlike anything we’ve ever seen, because while Democrats thrive on intellectual debate – and often get called elitist as a result – Republicans thrive more on a hive mentality, and are notorious for showing a united front even when they secretly hate each other.
But for many in the GOP, this civil war tweet finally made them lose their minds and speak up in the way we wish they had back in 2016 when this all could have been avoided.
For example, Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger is the poster boy for conservative values. He’s a young, clean-cut, well-spoken, Air Force veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. When Republican women think about a dreamboat, this guy is probably the kind of person who comes to mind.
I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. @realDonaldTrump I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant. https://t.co/a5Bae7bP7g
— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) September 30, 2019
And yet Sunday, he put his political affiliations aside, and spoke out against the president, tweeting, “I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. @realDonaldTrump I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President.”
Then dropped the mic by characterizing Trump’s threat as, “beyond repugnant.”
Trump has always been able to hide behind the complicity of the GOP. But when someone at the frontlines of your base, starts telling the world they think you’re trash too, THIS is when you need to start worrying. People may be willing to turn a blind eye when the Commander in Chief targets four women of color in Congress, but invoking the ghost of the civil war is just gonna piss off everybody, for a myriad of reasons.
In fact, even Meghan McCain had to concede during Monday’s broadcast of The View that her party had completely lost its mind; an admission many of us never thought we’d live to see.
So now what?
Perhaps the greatest irony of the president posting what amounts to the political equivalent of, “Snitches get stitches” is that threatening us with war if we impeach him, is arguably an impeachable offense in and of itself.
“This tweet is itself an independent basis for impeachment – a sitting president threatening civil war if Congress exercises its constitutionally authorized power,” Harvard Law professor John Coates wrote on Twitter on Monday.
After years of our patron saint Maxine Waters screaming, “Impeach him!” to anyone who would listen, last week the House of Representatives formally launched an impeachment inquiry due to reports that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
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And let’s not forget that whistleblower complaint detailing concerns that POTUS was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”
OR the fact that the president got cocky and kind of confessed he did what he’s being accused of in a news conference that his team is having a really difficult time convincing us didn’t happen.
Based on this recent unraveling, the only civil war I really see happening at the moment is within the Republican party, because they are finally realizing that the egomaniacal reality star they planned to weaponize against the rest of us, has a penchant for eating his own. Which is kind of poetic justice if you think about it, unless this clown somehow wins another 4-year term. Then this just might start feeling like an installment of The Purge.
Moral of the story: REGISTER TO VOTE fam. Seriously. This nightmare of a social experiment has run its course and, hopefully, we’ve all learned our lesson about what happens when we don’t speak up and do our part.
Follow writer Blue Telusma on Instagram at @bluecentric
