The United States is fraught with social and political turmoil, as talks of secession and civil war heighten in a climate where voting rights are under attack, protests continue over the genocide against Palestinian people and President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are embroiled in a tight race toward the 2024 presidential election.
Dissatisfaction in a tight race
Trump and Biden are nearly neck and neck in the race for the next four years of presidency. Trump has 46 percent support, and Biden has 44 percent, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll that surveyed 2,200 adults.
Like past elections, there is significant talk about the Black vote.
In his book, “The Fall of America,” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, spoke about the national election and the Black vote.
“The Black vote could be cast or not cast. The White citizens of the government are going to win and continue to rule anyway. There is much talk of this man and that man (who shall the vote of the people put in the White House for the next four years?)” he wrote.
“How much good have the two parties (Republican and Democrat) done for us for the last century in the way of freedom, justice, and equality? Regardless of what party wins, the die is always set against us (the Black people in America),” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad added.
While a large portion of Black people still support President Biden, the level of support has decreased from where it was in 2020. There is also a generational divide between younger Black voters and older Black voters, with younger Black voters voting for Biden 15-30 percent less than older Black voters.
Biden is not doing well with young voters in general. Political analysts trace young people’s dissatisfaction to a myriad of issues, with some of the top issues being jobs and inflation.
The president’s support of the genocide unfolding in Gaza is not helping his case. Several poll results indicate that younger Americans between the ages of 18-34 are more critical of Israel and of Biden’s support of Israel.
The anger of young people has manifested through campus protests at colleges and universities across the country. Students are demanding their institutions stop supporting Israel and stop doing business with and accepting money from companies aligned with Israel.
“I think this is the first time in history we’ve seen a concerted resistance on behalf of the Palestinian people. I think time is running out for there not to be an independent Palestinian state and justice for the Palestinian people. This is a generational shift,” Rev. Mark Thompson, member of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and host of the “Make it Plain” podcast, said to The Final Call.
A Gallup poll from early in the year speaks to record-low dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working in the U.S. Only 28 percent of U.S. adults are satisfied.
“Americans are preparing to elect the next president at a time when they are less happy about the state of U.S. democracy than at any point in at least 40 years. The 2024 election is expected to match a historically unpopular incumbent president with a former president whom voters previously rejected for a second term,” Gallup analysis says.
Amid the tight presidential race and overall dissatisfaction, Republicans continue to engage in voter suppression tactics. The Voting Rights Act itself has been whittled away over the years. Efforts to attack voting rights have been occurring all over the country. Some Black voters operate in states that do not have fair legislative districts.
In at least seven states, Black and other non-White voters have been deprived of the right to fight unfair districts and discriminatory voting laws, according to analysis by Democracy Docket, a platform covering voting rights and elections.
“There’s definitely a White backlash that’s going on, and it’s been going on for a long time,” said Dr. Sekou Franklin, a professor of political science at Middle Tennessee State University.
He mentioned voter suppression and redistricting as examples of White backlash due to the belief that Whites are being replaced.
“As a response to that, you’re seeing attacks on, again, voters, voter suppression. You’re seeing that renewed interest, too, on zero-tolerance criminal justice policies. And, of course, the redistricting issues in places like Indiana, and also the deannexation,” he said. “And we’re going to continue to see all of that as part of a broader White backlash and I think a broader intent to whiten or to re-whiten parts of society.”
Secession and civil war
The nationwide division in the country has led to talks of secession and civil war.
A recent survey by Rasmussen Reports revealed that 41 percent of voters they polled believe that the country is likely to experience a second civil war within the next five years. The poll surveyed 1,105 voters in April.
Nearly 25 percent of Americans said they would support their state seceding, according to a February poll by YouGov. The company surveyed over 35,000 U.S. adults on the topic of secession. The poll found that Alaska, Texas and California are among the top states whose residents are most likely to support secession.
Some states are already paving the way. In late April, the Louisiana Supreme Court approved plans for White residents in a Baton Rouge community to break off and form their own city.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been proposing secession for the last few years. In September 2023, she posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that “states should consider seceding from the union.” In 2021, she spoke of a “national divorce” that she referenced again in a February 2023 post on X:
“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s [sic] traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
Dr. Franklin traced secession plans back to voting rights. He noted that in the 1960s and 70s after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, local jurisdictions separated themselves from majority-Black areas through deannexation, thus forming new voting constituencies. The same thing could be happening again due to the growing number of Blacks, Latinos and Hispanics and Asians in the U.S.
“A third of the electorate are non-Whites: Black, Latinos, Asians,” Dr. Franklin said. “Across the country, you see a diverse population emerging, whether it be accelerated growth or whether it be slow growth.”
This growth is causing hysteria and backlash, as rightwing media talk of White voters being replaced by non-Whites, Dr. Franklin added.
Rev. Thompson described what’s happening as a “more sophisticated form of White flight.”
“These are the last gasps of White supremacy around the world, and so there are going to be more desperate things going on,” he said. “But their desperation just shows that we’re winning, even without trying as hard as we could be, even without being as organized as we should be. Imagine if we were as organized and mobilized and consistently unified and disciplined as we should be,” he added.
Trump has been leading the charge for political violence. In January, he warned that there would be “bedlam in the country,” or uproar, chaos and confusion, if the criminal charges against him cause him to lose the election. Following suit, Kari Lake, a Republican senate candidate in Arizona, advised supporters to “maybe strap on a Glock” to prepare for the intense election.
And in reference to protests over Palestinian genocide, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called on Americans to “take matters into [their] own hands” by forcibly removing protesters, if traffic is blocked.
Talk of civil war increased after the release of the movie, “Civil War,” in mid-April. The movie insinuates that the real issue in the U.S. is militia groups composed of armed citizens.
Though the U.S. population is a little over 330 million, U.S. civilians possess an estimated number of 393 million firearms, according to a 2018 Small Arms Survey. U.S. law enforcement and military account for only 5.5 million firearms in the country. In total, almost 40 percent of the world’s firearms are in the hands of the U.S.
“If the United States avoids an actual civil war, it is not difficult to imagine a variety of dark scenarios spanning a range of politically violent potentialities that would destabilize the country, further entrench existing divisions and severely challenge our government’s ability to protect its citizens,” opines political analysts Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware in a March CNN article titled, “Is the U.S. on the brink of another civil war?”
Dr. Franklin doesn’t believe a shooting war will happen, but he said a political civil war is already happening in the U.S. in the form of a “soft war,” which he described as “a war that can be fought out politically, a war that can be fought out in the courts, … a war fought out where they can reduce the vote through voter suppression tactics.”
“We’re seeing the consequences right now,” he said. Accelerated consequences include federal courts being completely taken over by judges who reinforce the White backlash, which would have wide-ranging impacts on environmental regulations, voting rights, labor laws and more.
Rev. Thompson voiced that a bloodless civil war is just the start.
“I think it’s more than rumors. Donald Trump has promised it. And in many ways, it’s already begun. It may be a bloodless civil war for the moment, but I think he’d like to see and others would like to see an actual civil war,” he said.
“In this type of situation, the hour will come when some of us will have to decide what side we’re on. We won’t be able to be neutral, and we’ll have to decide whether we are on the side of God or we’re on the side of those who are against God. We can’t afford to be silent,” he added.
Divine warnings
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has continuously warned America of what was coming to her doorstep. He warned about the unraveling of America in February 2020 in a message titled, “The Unraveling of a Great Nation.”
“You, my poor, pitiful brothers and sisters, you are opting to be a part of that that is unraveling right in front of your eyes. You see the country cascading downward. You see the moral fiber of America getting into the gutter,” he said.
He described former president Donald Trump as “a president who wants to be king.”
Just one year ago, Minister Farrakhan warned that “The War of Armageddon Has Begun.” He also issued prophetic warnings of civil strife 30 years ago, in 1994.
“The United States of America is moving closer and closer to great civil strife, unrest and bloodshed. Although the American people are supposed to be citizens of one nation, the division between labor and management is growing more intense. The division between the haves and have nots is getting wider and wider, and that breach is being filled with hatred.
The division between politics, right and left, so-called Christians, right and left, liberals, conservatives and all of the many causes that people are giving themselves to, whether social, religious or political, are now beginning to show signs of bloodshed,” Minister Farrakhan said in a Final Call article titled, “Is America headed for civil war?” originally published on August 31, 1994.
“People do not seem to be willing to argue their point and let truth prevail, but the frustration of arguments is leading to resolution of conflict by means of the gun. So, the weapons of war are being sold legally and illegally throughout the United States in unprecedented numbers. The proliferation of weapons of the assault kind are mounting in the Black and White communities,” he continued.
“Civil unrest in the future will not be able to be handled by the police. The police will be supported by the National Guard, and the National Guard will be supported by federal troops.
When this day arrives, and it will, the breakdown of law and order will be so great in America that it will be as the prophets foretold, ‘a time of trouble such as never was, since there was a nation even to that same time,’” the Minister added.
“Blood, as John the Revelator saw, ‘will be running in the streets even up to the horse’s bridle.’ This is a terrible prophecy, and it does not appear that it will be avoided or averted.”
