Who cares who is US President as the campaign has so polarised American politics that a second Gettysburg battle is inevitable, according to controversial commentator Dr John Coulter in his latest Fearless Flying Column today.

The Battle for the White House 2020 will not be remembered for the ‘nip and tuck’ counting of votes between Biden and Trump, but more for the polarisation it has caused in American politics, heralding what I honestly believe will be America’s Second Civil War.

The original American Civil War between the Northern and Southern states erupted over a four-year period in the latter years of the 19th century - 1861 to 1865, with some estimates suggesting it caused more than 850,000 deaths.

It is somewhat ironic that it will also be another four years until the next Presidential elections in 2024 and already Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for that battle.

The state of Pennsylvania was key to deciding the eventual outcome of the original Civil War as the state hosted one of the bloodiest battles of that war - Gettysburg between 1st and 3rd July 1863.

The Union forces defeated the Confederacy, and the battle cost an estimated 7,000 dead and 51,000 casualties, but decided the course of the war in favour of the Union.

Pennsylvania is also a key state in deciding who gets the keys to the modern White House.

America has always been championed as one of the Western world’s great global democracies. But after this year’s Presidential campaign, American democracy urgently needs at least a major reboot, certainly an in-depth rethink.

The Black Lives Matter campaign saw vicious clashes between protesters and the police. But now it seems that the two main political ‘big beasts’ of American politics - the Democratic and Republican parties are both gearing up their supporters for street confrontations.

Trump has now moved beyond a contentious figure in American politics. The Trump Movement now dominates the traditionally Right-wing of the Republican Party, just as Joe Biden’s ultra liberal bandwagon now runs the rival Democratic Party.

Compromise and concession seem to have been eradicated from the American political vocabulary and it seems America as a country now finds itself back in time in 1968 Northern Ireland when the sectarian strife known as the Troubles finally erupted.

As Republicans and Democrats take to the American streets to confront each other physically, previous historical confrontations, such as the campaigns for American civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War, seem to pale into insignificance as this Second American Civil War Looms.

Hard Left agitators will hijack the Democrats’ campaign, just as the Far Right militias and the KKK will seek to use the Republican cause for their own ends.

It would be one of the great ironies of global politics if we in Ireland - in terms of power-sharing - were called upon to show the Americans how the politics of compromise works, given the massive role which the United States played in bringing about the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the ensuing peace process.

The rows of the Stormont Executive will seem like a Sunday school picnic compared to what could be unleashed in the White House, House of Representatives and the Senate over the next four years - and beyond.

The economic and health fallouts from the Covid 19 pandemic will take second place as Republican and Democrat supporters lock horns over every issue imaginable.

In spite of this picture of future doom and gloom across the Pond, the key questions remain - how can, if its possible, America be healed? Can Democrats and Republicans ever reconcile themselves to work together for the greater good and benefit of its citizens?

And as a Christian myself, I must ask - what role can the Churches play in this healing process? After all, the Churches did play a major role historically in the civil rights campaign of Sixties America.

Over the decades, especially in the 20th century, the so-called Moral Majority of Christians has been a key lobby group which many Presidential candidates have courted.

But in an ever increasingly secular society, do the Christian Churches still wield the same political influence as they did during the Kennedy and Reagan years? Is that really a bygone era in American politics?

In Ireland’s conflicts, it was often suggested there was ‘too much religion and not enough Christianity.’ Has America of 2020 now coined the maxim - ‘there’s too much confrontation and not enough compromise’?

Just as Northern Ireland once packed off all its Assembly members to South Africa to observe the peace process in that land, should we send all our MLAs to the White House and Washington to teach the latest generation of American politician how to work together in a spirit of reconciliation?

For generations, missionaries from Ireland travelled the globe to bring the Christian message to foreign cultures. But with Ireland, as an island, becoming increasingly secular, missionaries from those foreign lands are now coming to the Emerald Isle to evangelise us!

The real worry about the state of American politics is; are there people in the United States who are considering starting a global war with some nation simply to divert attention away from the deep internal political rifts which have emerged?

Okay, I know that last paragraph may sound like a line straight out of the famous 1964 black comedy, Dr Strangelove, but as I write, is someone, somewhere in America devising a ‘new enemy’ which needs to be challenged and eradicated to ‘ensure the safety of the land of the free’?

Whatever the fragile and volatile state of current American politics, one fact cannot be ignored - the United States has a vast arsenal of weapons, especially on the nuclear front.

America was for decades sending peace envoys to Ireland to heal the sectarian rifts which had polluted Irish politics for centuries. Perhaps the time has now arrived for a joint Stormont/Dail delegation of envoys to arriving in Washington to calm tensions before the red buttons are pressed?

 Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

 Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning   around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online   at www.thisissunshine.com

Stand By For American’s Second Civil War!

Who cares who is US President as the campaign has so polarised American politics that a second Gettysburg battle is inevitable, according to controversial commentator Dr John Coulter in his latest Fearless Flying Column today.

The Battle for the White House 2020 will not be remembered for the ‘nip and tuck’ counting of votes between Biden and Trump, but more for the polarisation it has caused in American politics, heralding what I honestly believe will be America’s Second Civil War.

The original American Civil War between the Northern and Southern states erupted over a four-year period in the latter years of the 19th century - 1861 to 1865, with some estimates suggesting it caused more than 850,000 deaths.

It is somewhat ironic that it will also be another four years until the next Presidential elections in 2024 and already Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for that battle.

The state of Pennsylvania was key to deciding the eventual outcome of the original Civil War as the state hosted one of the bloodiest battles of that war - Gettysburg between 1st and 3rd July 1863.

The Union forces defeated the Confederacy, and the battle cost an estimated 7,000 dead and 51,000 casualties, but decided the course of the war in favour of the Union.

Pennsylvania is also a key state in deciding who gets the keys to the modern White House.

America has always been championed as one of the Western world’s great global democracies. But after this year’s Presidential campaign, American democracy urgently needs at least a major reboot, certainly an in-depth rethink.

The Black Lives Matter campaign saw vicious clashes between protesters and the police. But now it seems that the two main political ‘big beasts’ of American politics - the Democratic and Republican parties are both gearing up their supporters for street confrontations.

Trump has now moved beyond a contentious figure in American politics. The Trump Movement now dominates the traditionally Right-wing of the Republican Party, just as Joe Biden’s ultra liberal bandwagon now runs the rival Democratic Party.

Compromise and concession seem to have been eradicated from the American political vocabulary and it seems America as a country now finds itself back in time in 1968 Northern Ireland when the sectarian strife known as the Troubles finally erupted.

As Republicans and Democrats take to the American streets to confront each other physically, previous historical confrontations, such as the campaigns for American civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War, seem to pale into insignificance as this Second American Civil War Looms.

Hard Left agitators will hijack the Democrats’ campaign, just as the Far Right militias and the KKK will seek to use the Republican cause for their own ends.

It would be one of the great ironies of global politics if we in Ireland - in terms of power-sharing - were called upon to show the Americans how the politics of compromise works, given the massive role which the United States played in bringing about the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the ensuing peace process.

The rows of the Stormont Executive will seem like a Sunday school picnic compared to what could be unleashed in the White House, House of Representatives and the Senate over the next four years - and beyond.

The economic and health fallouts from the Covid 19 pandemic will take second place as Republican and Democrat supporters lock horns over every issue imaginable.

In spite of this picture of future doom and gloom across the Pond, the key questions remain - how can, if its possible, America be healed? Can Democrats and Republicans ever reconcile themselves to work together for the greater good and benefit of its citizens?

And as a Christian myself, I must ask - what role can the Churches play in this healing process? After all, the Churches did play a major role historically in the civil rights campaign of Sixties America.

Over the decades, especially in the 20th century, the so-called Moral Majority of Christians has been a key lobby group which many Presidential candidates have courted.

But in an ever increasingly secular society, do the Christian Churches still wield the same political influence as they did during the Kennedy and Reagan years? Is that really a bygone era in American politics?

In Ireland’s conflicts, it was often suggested there was ‘too much religion and not enough Christianity.’ Has America of 2020 now coined the maxim - ‘there’s too much confrontation and not enough compromise’?

Just as Northern Ireland once packed off all its Assembly members to South Africa to observe the peace process in that land, should we send all our MLAs to the White House and Washington to teach the latest generation of American politician how to work together in a spirit of reconciliation?

For generations, missionaries from Ireland travelled the globe to bring the Christian message to foreign cultures. But with Ireland, as an island, becoming increasingly secular, missionaries from those foreign lands are now coming to the Emerald Isle to evangelise us!

The real worry about the state of American politics is; are there people in the United States who are considering starting a global war with some nation simply to divert attention away from the deep internal political rifts which have emerged?

Okay, I know that last paragraph may sound like a line straight out of the famous 1964 black comedy, Dr Strangelove, but as I write, is someone, somewhere in America devising a ‘new enemy’ which needs to be challenged and eradicated to ‘ensure the safety of the land of the free’?

Whatever the fragile and volatile state of current American politics, one fact cannot be ignored - the United States has a vast arsenal of weapons, especially on the nuclear front.

America was for decades sending peace envoys to Ireland to heal the sectarian rifts which had polluted Irish politics for centuries. Perhaps the time has now arrived for a joint Stormont/Dail delegation of envoys to arriving in Washington to calm tensions before the red buttons are pressed?

 Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

 Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning   around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online   at www.thisissunshine.com

11 comments:

  1. Larry Hughes comments

    I think John makes some really good points in this article. Trump for all his personal faults wasn't a war monger and I would be surprised if the foreign wars don't resume now he has been ousted. It could be a very dark time ahead. On a less negative note isn't it incredible a Covid-19 vaccine has also appeared the minute the election was over.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trump was an isolationist who sold out the Syrian Kurds in their battle withy ISIS; who by moiving the US embassy to Jerusalem and brokering of deals between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain without involving the Palestinians hammered another nail into the two-state solution and my brown nosing Putin, Kim Yong-Il, Sisi, Erdogan etc while insutling US democratic allies in NATO could have made global conflict more likdely in the long run.

    As well there was Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal; from the World Heralth Assocaition and gthe Paris Climate Agreement. Had Trump been rdeturned to power, he could have bdeen a hypothegtical Chrles Lindbergh in relation to a modern aggressor like Putin.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Larry Hughes comments

    Barry you are quite negative toward Israel I hope you're not anti semitic. Agree regarding Iran deal I think the USA needs to stop that obsession. I expect a resumption of the Iranian bogey man in 2021. Exiting NATO and WHO made more sense. They are both a waste of time.

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  4. This is the first time on this blog that I have been accused of beinbg "negative towards Israel". The counter accusation is usually made. Perhaps you are joking, Larry.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Barry,
    Your rationale is non military intervention is more violent in the long run? Is that what people like yourself, NATO apologists are afraid of, the US becoming isolationist and you wouldn't have their might? Is that what drives your irrationality?

    ReplyDelete
  6. David

    History tells us than an isolationalist US that did not join the Lerague of Nations was a contributory factor in the rsie of fasciswm in the 1930s and the victory for General Franco in thde Spoanish Civil War as a result of "non-intervention"

    It is better that the USA be integrated into a rules based interrnational order of which NATO, UN and EU are parts of rather than acting unilateralloy as it did with Iraq in 2003 or in 1930s isolationaliost sgtyle.

    I do not support military intervention willy nilly around the world. I do support interentions with clearly defined objectives and exit strategies to uphold the UN Responsibility to Protect doctrine of 2005 and the Genocide Convention of 1948. Interventions to protect civilian populations worked well in what is now Kurdish Autonomous territory in Northern Iraq in 1991; Kosovo in 1999 and Sierra Leone in 2000. Failure to intervene cost 800,000 lives in the Rwandan genocide in 1994; tens of thosands of lives in the Balkans and of course in Syria at this momenbt.

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  7. Barry,
    That's overly simplistic. Fascism rose for a number of reasons one of them a fear of communism which the US shared.
    Your delusional when it comes to the US, they will serve their own interests like all empires it's a happy accident that benefits people from this part of the world.
    The US doesn't need the UN, it's military is terrifying. It's had the capability to stop genocide for a long time, it obviously choses not to. Everything they do is with their own agenda in mind.
    Basically that's a long way of saying yes, you are afraid the US becomes isolationist. You should not be. America will do what she does, the rest of the world will react accordingly. You've no control over it. Pointless to worry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. David

      The point I was trying to make was that the toothlessness of the League of Nations due to the absence of the US and the appeasemewnt agenda in Britain and France gave carte blanche to Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Imperial Japan to bulldoze their way until a belated stand had to be made over the Nazi invasion of Poland.

      Delete
  8. David

    Lke it or not the world requires robust rules based architecture of inter-governmental institutions underpinned by a collective detremination to act to maintain peace and to respoind to violations oif international laws and norms relating to genocide, use of chemical and biological weapons and invvsasion by one country of another's territory. It helps that major powers are locked in these arrangements.

    Have no fear about the USA; their empire will be supplanted by China's. Happy with that?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Barry,
    My like is irrelevant. In theory we need inter governmental institutions to negotiate. In reality the strongest military has the loudest say. Maintain peace for whom? A lot of the globe is at war.
    I would prefer the US to China all day long. Doesn't mean I won't point out hypocrisy of the west.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. David,

      Well said, and the problem is China is quickly becoming a dictorial state despite what the media tell us.

      Delete