Former Alaska governor and Republican nominee for Vice President Sarah Palin believes that a second United States civil war could kick off if state and federal officials continue prosecuting former President Donald Trump.
Palin served as the governor of Alaska from 2006 and 2009. She was tapped as then-Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) running mate during the 2008 general election. Although the McCain/Palin campaign failed to defeat Barack Obama, Palin became an overnight conservative celebrity on the campaign trail by strongly positioning herself as a small-town, populist firebrand.
“Those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice, I want to ask them what the heck, do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen,” Palin said during an interview on Newsmax on August 24, 2023.
“We’re not going to keep putting up with this.”
Palin was doing this interview on Newsmax as Trump surrendered at a jail in Fulton County, Georgia. The former president had an iconic mugshot taken of him, which his campaign has used to rally his supporter base and raise vast sums of money.
Trump is currently facing 13 racketeering and conspiracy charges in Georgia, connected to his effort to overturn his defeat in Georgia at the hands of Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election. 18 of his allies, which includes former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, are also facing charges.
Trump is currently facing 91 criminal charges for four indictments. His most notable charges consist of allegedly subverting state and federal election, the illegal retention of classified records, and hush money payments he sent to porn star Stormy Daniel.
Naturally, Trump has maintained his innocence and stressed that the political class is subjecting him to political persecution and ultimately wants to shut down his 2024 presidential bid.
Despite the legal troubles Trump is facing, he is still at the top of the polls among his Republican rivals. According to RealClearPolitics’s aggregated poll, Trump enjoys 53.6% support among Republican voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stands at a distance second place at 14.3%. Trump’s lead is so large that he did not feel the need to participate in the first Republican Party presidential debate on August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Palin’s remarks about civil war are just the latest round of speculation that the country could be going down the path of civil war. The US experienced its first Civil War (1861-1865) when the Confederacy attempted to secede from the United States over a host of reasons that consisted of slavery, states’ rights, and an economic system that southern states believed exploited them to the North’s benefit.
The Union ultimately came out victorious in this conflict owing to its much larger industrial base. From that point forward, the US has not faced any civil conflict that could potentially threaten the territorial integrity of the nation.
However, the US could now be entering unprecedented territory in the 2020s. A combination of uncontrolled mass migration and the Civil Rights Revolution — both unleashed in the 1960s— has created the conditions for a disgruntled “Middle American Radical” class, largely made up of dispossessed members of the white working class, to lash out at the present political order. They did so in 2016, when many of these middle American radicals pulled the lever for Donald Trump.
This base of disgruntled supporters continues to stand behind Trump and is beginning to gradually gain more representation within the Republican Party. The Democratic Party and its allies in the business community, mass media, and the political system have responded by trying to prosecute Trump and prevent his allies from creating a credible opposition movement through social media censorship, debanking, and other methods designed to kneecap their ability to politically organize.
Such political actions, combined with a precarious economic climate, could potentially create the conditions for a civil conflict. Barbara F. Walter, who authored How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them, argues that civil wars generally take off after a previously dominant group starts to see its power diminish or at least perceives a reduction in their power. Because these once dominant groups believe they’re entitled to political power, they will do whatever it takes — even opt for violence — to hang on to power.
In many respects, Trump is an avatar for legacy America, a civilization state of predominantly northern European extraction, that has largely been diluted by relentless waves of mass migration since the 1960s and public policies that privilege non-whites at their expense.
While the US is touted as exceptional, it’s still very much a slave to the harsh realities of politics. Should the political class continue persecuting Trump and clamping down on his supporters, Palin’s otherwise outlandish remarks could become a reality — a situation that America’s present ruling class is simply not prepared for.
