Has a New Civil War Already Begun and What Side Is Phil Bredesen On?

In a Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) op-ed published at The Tennessean, the law professor and argues that said civil war is already underway: Is America headed toward a civil war? Sanders, Nielsen incidents show it has already begun

Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kirstjen Nielsen experiences at restaurants suggest a ‘soft’ civil war is well underway. It will get worse unless we learn to stop hating each other.

The other day, author Tom Ricks asked whether we’re heading toward a civil war. “I don’t believe we’re to Kansas of the 1850s yet. But we seem to be lurching … in that direction,” he wrote.

Ricks was commenting on “What Democratic rage would look like,” a Bloomberg opinion column that quotes political scientist Thomas Schaller as saying, “I think we’re at the beginning of a soft civil war. … I don’t know if the country gets out of it whole.”

That sounds pretty serious. The column by Francis Wilkinson presents a catalog of things Democrats are mad about — from the existence of the electoral college to Trump’s “propaganda apparatus” — and predicts that if Democrats lose the midterm elections, there will be hell to pay. (And Republicans, you know, could make a similar list of their own complaints.)

As is being pointed out elsewhere, including at The Tennessee Star, to date, Democrat candidate for Senate Phil Bredesen appears to be fine with the intolerance, anger and even violence coming from some of the very same democrats supporting his camapign and has offered absolutely no sign he is the least bit interested in tamping down the hate on his side of the aisle.

If, as Reynolds posits, there is indeed a new civil war, it doesn’t take a weatherman to know which side Bredesen has opted to be on.

The civil war is already starting

Well, actually this sort of thing seems to be well underway. Hollywood has basically turned its products, and its award shows, into showcases for “the resistance.” Americans are already sorting themselves into communities that are predominantly red or blue. And in heavily blue Washington, D.C., Trump staffers find that a lot of people don’t want to date them because of their politics.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was even kicked out of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, because the owner and employees disliked her politics. This seems like a small thing, but it would have been largely unthinkable a generation ago.

And, in a somewhat less “soft” manifestation, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was bullied out of a restaurant by an angry anti-Trump mob, and a similar mob also showed up outside of her home.