Category: Civil war
Civil war chatter rises when Democrats fear losing power for good
Barack Obama used the same U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics as Donald Trump. During his eight years in the White House, his administration deported more illegal aliens than Trump has.
Yet the Obama years did not feature mass protests over deportations. No governors or mayors compared ICE to the Gestapo, a comparison so obscene it should end careers. No district attorneys vowed to “hunt down” ICE agents for doing their jobs. No late-night comedians insisted that ICE agents ranked “worse than Nazis.”
Democrats once drove the country into a civil war to protect slavery. Today they court conflict to protect power.
That backlash became routine only after Trump. Two factors explain why.
First, the left hates Trump to the core. Not as a political rival, but as a personal and moral affront. This visceral, uncontrolled hatred has swallowed identities and replaced judgment. It fuels social media tantrums, office politics, family feuds, and the constant need to punish dissent. Among allies, people congratulate each other for hating the right man. For everyone else, they virtue-signal.
This hatred will not fade with time. It will persist after Trump leaves office, and it may even outlive him. Ronald Reagan hate still lingers decades after his death. Trump hate runs hotter, deeper, and more irrational. It will not burn out on schedule.
Second, the immigration fight has turned strategic.
During the Obama years, the left had not yet internalized two tactics that now help it hold power.
Once Democrats win office, many push policy as far left as state and federal constitutions allow: higher taxes, soft-on-crime governance, heavier regulation, and soaring costs that punish families. That agenda drives productive citizens out of blue cities and blue states and into red states. Conservatives hold few truly red cities now; the activist class has captured many local institutions.
Red states gain taxpayers and workers. Blue states lose them.
Democrat leaders have chosen to replace the citizens who leave, but not with similarly productive citizens. They replace them with illegal aliens.
That strategy helps explain Joe Biden’s first-day border reversals and the torrent of executive actions that followed. The signal was plain: Enforcement would relax, entry would rise, and the federal government would look away. Millions came, many without legal status. Many settled in blue jurisdictions that offer sanctuary policies and advertise benefits.
Politicians sell those benefits as “free”: child care, health care, schooling, housing programs. Taxpayers pay the bills. Debt fills the rest.
California offers the clearest example. The state has lost large numbers of residents to Texas and Florida. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) does not treat the exodus as a crisis. He treats it as ideological sorting. If taxpayers leave, he can replace the head count with people who will not challenge his machine at the ballot box.
Illegal aliens are not allowed to vote. They still count. Biden made sure of that.
The census counts residents, and those numbers drive seats in the United States House of Representatives and votes in the Electoral College. Add population, gain power. Lose population, lose power. Democrats understand the arithmetic, which is why they fight enforcement as fiercely as they fight elections.
RELATED: ‘This isn’t organic’: Joe Rogan says Minnesota’s anti-ICE protests are ‘coordinated’ to induce chaos
Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images
Then comes the long game. Children born here can vote. Democrats assume those children will vote Democrat for life. They are building a future electorate while padding current representation.
Trump’s deportation strategy threatens that structure. Democrats have already watched citizens flee Illinois, New York, California, and other strongholds. If deportations also shrink the illegal-alien population those states have absorbed, Democrats lose House seats, Electoral College strength, and national leverage.
So they raise the temperature. They smear ICE as “secret police” and dare Trump to enforce the law anyway. They bait confrontation because chaos can create a veto: If streets burn long enough, Washington may flinch.
If Trump refuses to flinch, they reach for the next weapon: the camera. A clash becomes a “crackdown.” An arrest becomes “political persecution.” A dead protester becomes a martyr, and the headlines write themselves. The moral damage does not scare them; it serves them.
Democrats once drove the country into a civil war to protect slavery. Today they court conflict to protect power. They do not need tanks to do it. They need prosecutors, mayors, and media partners willing to treat law enforcement as evil and disorder as virtue.
Trump offers hilarious rebuttal to Tim Walz’s absurd Civil War analogy
President Donald Trump gave a hilarious response to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s attempt to compare the conflicts in Minnesota to the Civil War.
Blaze News asked Trump to address Walz’s remarks likening the hostilities at Fort Sumter that sparked the Civil War to the heightened tensions seen on the ground in Minneapolis in recent weeks. When asked if he agreed with the characterization, Trump gave Blaze News a viral response.
‘I was elected to do a job.’
“Does he know what Fort Sumter was, or do you think somebody wrote it out for him?”
“I was elected on law and order,” Trump told Blaze News. “I was elected on a strong border. We had a border that allowed 25 million people to come in. Many were murderers. … We had open borders.”
RELATED: Trump’s unusual Cabinet meeting may reveal which officials are on thin ice
Trump brushed off Walz’s remarks, differentiating his tough-on-crime track record from the Democrat governor’s state that is rampant with fraud and violent crime.
“I was elected on a lot of reasons, because when I took over we inherited a mess,” Trump told Blaze News.
“When I was elected, I was elected to do a job, and one of the big things I was elected to do is law and order.”
RELATED: ‘Horrifying situation’: Some Republicans retreat following Minneapolis shooting of anti-ICE agitator
Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Trump criticized Democrats’ refusal to embrace law enforcement, pondering if they really want criminals to remain in their cities.
“If you look at Minnesota, Minneapolis, we have crime down there because we took out thousands of people, despite all the mess and everything else,” Trump told Blaze News.
“But do these people really want to have rapists? Do they really want to have drug dealers and people from prisons and murderers?”
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America now looks like a marriage headed for divorce — with no exit
Marriages rarely end over one argument. They fall apart through a long breakdown in communication, a growing inability to resolve disagreements, and the slow realization that two people no longer walk toward the same future.
Healthy marriages don’t require full agreement on every subject. They require compromise on the decisions that shape daily life: money, children, priorities, responsibilities. They also require shared goals.
No tidy divorce court exists for a nation-state. We share one flag, one legal framework, and one public square.
When those goals diverge — and neither side will realign — the relationship becomes unsustainable. The law calls the condition “irreconcilable differences.”
America now lives in that condition.
We remain bound under one nation, one Constitution, and one civic home. But we no longer share a common purpose. We no longer share a common story about what the country is, why it exists, or whether it deserves to endure.
This conflict no longer turns on tax rates or regulatory policy. It turns on the legitimacy and direction of the American experiment itself.
The modern left no longer argues about how to preserve the American system. It treats the system as the problem. Democratic leaders and activists call for “fundamental transformation,” flirt with socialism, and talk about the founding less as a flawed but noble legacy than as a moral failure that demands replacement. In that worldview, America doesn’t need reform. America needs erasure.
The right still believes the country can be repaired and preserved. The left increasingly treats the country as something to dismantle.
This rupture shows up in concrete ways. In 2021, the National Archives placed a “harmful language” warning on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence — the documents that define the nation. That doesn’t signal ordinary partisan dispute. It signals contempt for the country’s moral foundation.
Socialism sits at the center of this divide. It contradicts the American system at its roots. America rests on the premise that rights come from God, not government. Socialism elevates the state over the individual and makes rights conditional on political approval. It centralizes power in the name of enforced equality — “equity.”
RELATED: Americans aren’t arguing any more — we’re speaking different languages
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
America protects private property as an extension of liberty. It channels ambition into innovation and prosperity. Socialism treats success as a social offense and demands equality of outcome. When people refuse to surrender the fruits of their labor, socialism turns to coercion. Coercion requires centralized authority. Centralized authority punishes dissent.
The pattern repeats: less freedom, greater dependency, and a governing model incompatible with constitutional self-rule.
The irony remains hard to miss. The left calls Donald Trump “Hitler” while cheering figures like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an avowed socialist. Yet the Nazi Party sold itself as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party — a collectivist project built on centralized power and state control.
The same left often excuses Antifa, a movement built on intimidation, street violence, and political enforcement designed to silence opposition. Those tactics don’t belong to liberal democracy. They belong to regimes that fear debate.
Even basic reality has become contested. The left and right can’t agree on something as elemental as what a man or a woman is. The Supreme Court recently showcased the collapse when ACLU attorneys arguing sex-based discrimination refused to define “woman.” When a society refuses to name biological facts that every civilization once treated as obvious, compromise collapses with it.
This crisis goes deeper than polarization. It reaches the level of knowledge itself. The left increasingly treats biology, history, and moral limits as malleable social constructs. The right still believes objective reality binds us all.
These aren’t normal disagreements. They describe incompatible worldviews. And incompatibility carries consequences.
During the COVID era, polls found majorities of Democrats willing to endorse coercive measures against the unvaccinated, including house arrest. Nearly half supported imprisoning people who questioned vaccine efficacy. Those numbers didn’t represent a fringe. They revealed a growing comfort with state force in service of ideological conformity.
After Trump’s 2016 election, many friendships survived political conflict. By 2020, after years of dehumanization — after constant accusations of “Nazism” aimed at ordinary voters — many of those relationships broke. The political battle stopped sounding like disagreement and started sounding like moral extermination.
RELATED: Washington, DC, has become a hostile city-state
Photo by Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
In September 2025, someone assassinated Charlie Kirk. Large segments of the left didn’t just rationalize the killing. Many celebrated it.
After Scott Adams died following a long fight with cancer, prominent voices responded with mockery instead of decency. People magazine ran a headline labeling him “disgraced.” Even death became a political verdict.
This is what irreconcilable differences look like at a national scale.
A country cannot endure when one side believes the nation stands as fundamentally good — worthy of preservation and reform — while the other believes it stands as irredeemably evil and must be dismantled. Marriages end when partners stop seeing each other as allies and start treating each other as enemies.
Nations fracture for the same reason.
America cannot solve this the way a couple dissolves a marriage. The Constitution binds us to one civic order. No clean separation awaits. No tidy divorce court exists for a nation-state. We share one flag, one legal framework, and one public square.
When irreconcilable differences exist but separation remains impossible, the danger grows.
Only three paths remain: recommitment to constitutional principles, enforced coexistence through expanding coercion, or escalation into open conflict as dehumanization becomes normal.
Pretending this amounts to another election cycle, another policy dispute, or another cable-news food fight invites catastrophe. A nation cannot survive when its people no longer agree on what it is, why it exists, or whether it deserves to continue.
Unlike a failed marriage, America can’t walk away.
Missionary Ridge and a Legacy of Courage
One hundred sixty-two years ago, on November 25, 1863, 18-year-old Lt. Arthur MacArthur picked-up the Union flag from the second…
Joe Rogan says we’re at ‘step 7’ on the road to civil war. Is he right? Glenn Beck answers
On November 12, Joe Rogan made a comment on an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” that gained significant national attention. Referencing the sadistic celebrations of left-wingers after the death of Charlie Kirk, Rogan asked, “Where are we right now on the scale of one to civil war? … I thought we were like four or five. But after the Charlie Kirk thing, I’m like, ‘Oh, we might be like seven.’ This might be like step seven on the way to a bona fide civil war.”
Glenn Beck says Rogan’s words ring true. We are indeed inching closer to civil war, but just how close are we?
On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn breaks down the nine steps of civil war and explains exactly where America is.
Step 1: Loss of civic trust
“Every civil conflict begins when people stop believing that the system is fair,” says Glenn, calling America “so far past the doorway” on this one.
Recent Gallup and Pew polls reveal that faith in Congress, media, judicial courts, the FBI, and government are “at record lows.” The most recent report from the Edelman Trust Barometer classifies the United States as “severely polarized.” Republicans at large distrust federal elections, while Democrats at large distrust the Supreme Court.
“Americans are really united on one thing, and that is the other side is corrupt,” says Glenn.
Step 2: Polarization hardens into identity
“Political disagreement is normal; identity conflict is fatal. But that’s what Marxists push – identity politics,” says Glenn. “This is when politics stop being about policy and start being about who you are as a person.”
The more people adopt the oppressed vs. oppressor mindset, the more society fragments into “incompatible tribes.” Now “opponents aren’t wrong anymore; the opponent is dangerous,” says Glenn.
Sadly, “We’re neck deep in this.” The fact that the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly a quarter of the population believes political violence may be necessary to save the country proves it.
Step 3: Breakdown of the gatekeepers
“The gatekeepers are kind of like the referees of society. It’s the media, political parties, churches, civic leaders. When they fail, extremism fills the vacuum,” says Glenn.
When you consider how the media has turned into “team coaches,” how tech platforms made rage its most lucrative commodity, how universities became Marxist indoctrination mills, and how churches have been utterly “useless,” it’s clear the nation has moved beyond step three.
Step 4: Parallel information realities
“Civil wars don’t require different opinions; they require different realities,” says Glenn.
Conservatism and progressivism are undoubtedly rooted in antithetical worldviews. One sees gender as immutable; the other sees it as a social construct. One believes experimenting on children is evil; the other calls it “care.” One says crime rates are surging in blue cities; the other blames spikes in violence on poverty, guns, and systemic inequities. One sees secure borders as a critical protection for citizens; the other calls it inhumane and xenophobic.
Then social media platforms capitalize on this divide by curating “customized political universes” that only cement the partisan factions. Dialogue, not to mention resolution, becomes impossible, as the paradigms of each camp are so radically opposed, they can no longer co-exist.
“Step four is complete,” says Glenn.
Step 5: Loss of natural rule of law
Glenn calls step five “the pivot point.” It’s the moment when civil war starts to look not just possible but promising. Once people at large begin believing that “the law is no longer neutral,” “the republic stands on borrowed time.”
Based on recent polling, America has ticked this box. A YouGov poll found that “67% of Americans believe the judicial system is used for political purposes.”
Glenn lists several examples that explain the loss of faith in the country’s justice system: “January 6 defendants given years in prison. 2020 rioters were released. High-profile political figures prosecuted or shielded based on party. FBI whistleblowers alleging pressure to inflate domestic extremism numbers. States like Texas directly defying federal directives on border enforcement and now leading the way with the federal government.”
Step 6: Normalization of political violence
“This is where violence stops shocking the system,” says Glenn. He points to Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, who was elected after it came out that in 2022, he sent text messages fantasizing about Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert getting “two bullets to the head” and expressing hope that his wife would have to “watch her own child die in her arms.”
Couple that with the dismissal of 2020 BLM rioters and the widespread celebrations of political violence, and it’s clear: We’re beyond step six.
Step 7: The rise of militias and parallel forces
This happens “when a state loses its monopoly on force” and political factions “start forming their own police forces,” says Glenn.
We’re seeing the beginnings of this with the organized groups that target ICE, but we haven’t moved past step seven quite yet, he says, confirming that Rogan’s estimation was dead on.
Step 8: The trigger event
“Civil wars don’t begin with a plan; they begin with a spark,” says Glenn. “We’re not here yet either, but the conditions are right.”
A “disputed election,” a “political assassination or a major attack,” a “Supreme Court decision that ignites mass unrest,” a “financial crisis or dollar crisis,” or a violent “state federal standoff” are all things that could light the match, he warns.
“Nothing is ignited yet, but the room is soaked in gasoline.”
Step 9: The point of no return
Once “police, military, or federal agencies split,” the war is on, says Glenn.
While this hasn’t happened yet, we can certainly hear foreboding rumblings. In New York City, police officers are leaving the force or relocating after socialist and defund-the-police advocate Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor. Glenn also points to the “tension between the state National Guard and the federal directives.”
“States openly defying federal rules on immigration, drug laws, sanctuary policies, whistleblower claims of internal politicization — all of these things are in play,” says Glenn.
He pulls it all together with a stark verdict on where America stands: “Steps one through four: completed. Step five: happening. Step six: happening. Step seven: beginning. Step eight: just waiting for it. And step nine: avoidable only if step eight never happens.”
“I’m not telling you for doom purposes. This is diagnosis,” says Glenn.
“The nation that refuses to look and wake up and stop calling their neighbors enemies is the nation that fails.”
To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the video above.
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To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Is it time to prepare for civil war? Glenn Beck’s answer might surprise you …
As the gap between the right and left continues to widen, whispers that we’re on the verge of civil war are rumbling across the nation. Some people are even wondering if they should start preparing.
Is this wisdom or folly?
Glenn Beck’s answer: Both.
“We must win the midterms, and we must win 2028,” Glenn emphasizes.
President Trump designating Antifa as a terrorist organization and vowing to investigate and potentially prosecute George Soros via his Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and other nonprofits for allegedly funding Antifa and related left-wing violence is a public declaration of war.
“When they have the opportunity to punch back, they are going to punch back. God help us,” Glenn says ominously.
He warns that if Trump doesn’t completely “wipe [the Antifa network] out,” retribution will rain like fire when the political tides turn.
In other words, civil war won’t look like citizens fighting in the streets; it’ll be warfare at the administrative level.
In some ways, it’s already happening. “They are blocking the feds from actually doing constitutionally what they’re supposed to do,” says Glenn. “And that then triggers the Constitution on an insurrection, which would mean the government then has the right and the power to go into those states and put down an insurrection.”
The fact that we’re even having to ponder the possibility of a civil war means that we’re close to one, he says frankly. “The likelihood of going into a civil war is higher than any other time in my lifetime because we’re all asking that question of is this going to lead to a civil war?”
The fact that Democrat officials are “using police to go against federal police” is a sign things are headed in the wrong direction.
Glenn estimates that the chances of civil war breaking out are sitting at about 15%-20% right now. “We now have proof that they are doing a color revolution here in America,” he says.
Meanwhile, X is saturated with posts encouraging people to riot and loot if SNAP benefits run out in the midst of the government shutdown.
“The perception here for a lot of people on the left is: The only way to solve [problems] is through violence,” says Glenn.
“That number is growing, and the apathy toward political violence is growing probably faster than the actual people that would commit the violence,” he adds.
But even if all of this does point to imminent civil war, Glenn urges his listeners to hope and pray against it.
“They’re dead serious about color revolution. … We have to go the opposite direction and try at all costs to hold things together, keep people peaceful as long as possible, to hopefully turn this corner because a corner is being turned,” he warns.
To hear more, watch the clip above.
Want more from Glenn Beck?
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
