the coming U.S. civil war
We already had one; zero out of ten, would NOT recommend.
24 Likes
Best case scenario it is a cautionary tale designed to make people work against the conditions that could lead to Civil War. But in that case you would need the movie to address the actual political divisions that are most likely to lead to such a war.
You would also need to depict the war itself as an unmitigated clusterfuck of horror rather than a series of glorious battles fought by heroic men and women of honor.
8 Likes
The writers clearly come from the horror/apocalypse school where everything just kind of collapses suddenly and for not any particularly cogent reason other than the plot needs it to happen that way.
7 Likes
One positive note, it looks like the protagonists are journalists documenting the war, not someone fighting in it.
7 Likes
Maybe the California Texas Alliance is techbro billionaires, who fight a war against everyone else?
11 Likes
“Austin, capital of Texifornia”
10 Likes
I thought so at first, too. But then I remembered driving through the Central Valley on my way home from San Francisco. It’s VERY red, there.
9 Likes
Based on Offerman’s involvement I was hoping this was an absurdist comedy in the style of “Canadian Bacon” (a 1995 film about an accidental war between the US and Canada). Then I watched the trailer. Nope.
5 Likes
I feel like Austin would be more like West Berlin, surrounded by a wall.
6 Likes
“Every time I survived the war zone, I thought I was sending a warning back home-- don’t do this”
Civil wars and revolutions lead to massive bloodshed on both sides, and end up with dictators or military juntas in control.
Jackasses like the Oath Keepers like to talk about protecting the constitution, but we do in fact have a process to protect the constitution legally, without violence.
Maybe the militia folks are buying into the idea of “American Exceptionalism” to think it would be different this time, but I ask them “If the American right-wing wins a civil war and takes control of the government would anyone on the left still have basic constitutional rights like free speech? Because I’m not sure what your end game is except one-party rule.”
(Also: for a second I thought it was El-P as the militia guy in that last clip??!)
5 Likes
Yes, but that just supports the idea that a modern civil war wouldn’t fall along clearly divided territorial lines by state.
There’s a whole lot of red country in California but the majority of the state’s residents wouldn’t throw in their lot with conservative rural Texans.
4 Likes
George Burbank in The Power of the Dog
4 Likes
At least there’s a great tagline they can use: “The coming US civil war – see it while it’s still fiction.”
5 Likes
Maybe it’s going to be like a Twilight Zone episode-- for the entire movie they play it vague and we assume it’s fascists in the Western Forces, only to find out at the end Offerman declared himself president for life and the militias are like a US version of Zapatistas.
3 Likes
Yup. “The Day After” did more to make people give up on the idea of nuclear holocaust than any treaty or agreement might have done. Changing the conversation sometimes requires people to visualize just how horrible this kind of thing would ultimately be, unless the movie is a glory-fest.
7 Likes
For everyone in here commenting on the seeming implausibility of a California / Texas alliance, as a life long denizen of the edges of the burbs of Sacramento I don’t think its as crazy as it might seem.
First, there’s a lot of Red and Purple in California. Outside of the cores of the major cities here, things turn purple in the burbs and then red in a hurry. And many of these people could potentially see value in throwing their lot in with rural Texas.
Despite that, Texas and California together would create an economic bloc vanishingly close to the entire rest of the nation combined, and unlike many other potential state team-ups would be capable of being completely self sufficient. If the stability of the United States got shaky, banding together out of convenience would make lots of sense, potential culture clashes aside.
9 Likes
as a Reno resident who has been in and through plenty of rural California, thank you. This was my thought, too – despite its reputation, there’s a LOT of deep red sentiment in California. If SF and LA became essentially bunkers of liberalism, the rest of the state probably would be just fine aligning with Texas.
6 Likes
I wonder what the big issue will be for this civil war? No doubt they will avoid anything that actually might be an issue. Noble causes all-around. 
2 Likes
Battleship?
3 Likes
There are a lot of right-leaning areas of California – OC, Shasta County, etc. California had more people vote for Biff than a bunch of other states combined in 2016.
But unless there was a previous internal coup over-turning democratic elections within the state, they wouldn’t be in control of the governor’s mansion and the legislature to the point where they’d have a legitimate claim to join Florida in seceding from what they’d presumably see as an illegitimate left-wing federal government.
In a more realistic nationwide civil war scenario, you’d have California’s far-right in the role of militias and terrorists pushing for an actual “State of Jefferson”, opposed by Sacramento and the majority of Californians (including Wilson/Schwarzenger conservatives and SV Libertarians who don’t want to see the state’s economy trashed by a bunch of gun-toting bumpkins setting up roadblocks and blowing up aqueducts).
The scenario where the state of California might secede is one in which the federal government is taken over by fascists and/or Xtianists, but in that case Florida and Texas would not secede along with them.
3 Likes
