A little over a year ago, I wrote in this blog that we are at a turning point in human history, that the American Empire is crashing and that there is a serious risk of a new American Civil War. The blog was illustrated by automatic weapons being accumulated by millions of American citizens and by the following map of the United States showing the states in red expected to vote for Trump and those in blue to vote against him. The results turned out to be more or less as predicted.
I pointed out in a later blog that the map corresponds, for the most part to the division between urban and rural.
Trump supporters feel, with good reason that rural areas are impoverished by rich capitalists. As I stated in the blog, in the United States, as in the rest of the capitalist world, “the modern capitalist state also serves the interests of industrial agriculture instead of the small farmer, despite the fact that small farms still produce the majority of the food on the planet. For almost a century now, the small farmer continues to be driven out of business by industrial agriculture. The people in rural areas that should gain a good living from agriculture continue to work hard for ever-decreasing income, while those who profit from industrial agriculture sit behind the desks in banks and bribe the legislatures to pass laws in their favor.”
Factors continue to develop that may lead to the crash of the American Empire. In particular, the US government, now led by Democrats, continues to pour its resources down the rat-hole of military spending (see January blog this year) and raise tensions that could lead to wars with China, Russia, Iran, etc. And the impoverishment of rural areas continues.
Civil war did not break out on January 6 of this year when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and the Empire has not yet crashed. But the tensions between the different regions of the United States that I described at that time continue to develop, as shown by the following new maps.
First is a map of states, showing in red those that are likely to ban abortion if the US Supreme Court decides next summer, as expected, to allow the states to do so. Those needing an abortion in those states, if they have enough money, will have to move to another state in order to get an abortion. Note the resemblance to the maps above.
Second is a map of states showing the blue and purple those with many weapons possessed by citizens. Again, those who voted for Trump are more likely to have accumulated weapons that could be used in a civil war.
In another blog, written one months later than the one mentioned above, I wrote that “in the face of pessimistic predictions for the United States, to the point of civil war, there are many progressive initiatives advancing.” I mentioned progressive initiatives by trade unions, universities, civil rights organizations, climate activists, peace activists, city governments and progressive members of congress. These also continue to develop.
It’s the dialectics of history in action, raising hopes that the crash of the empire will have a soft landing. Where is all this leading?
Only time will tell