How to Survive a Civil War in America: American Shakedown… A Second Civil War?
It feels like America is more divided than it has ever been. On a government level, on a state level, even within cities, we’re politically, religiously, and ideologically divided. Is the US on course for a second Civil War?
How this could happen – and how you can prepare for it and survive it if it does. Ideological differences are tearing this country apart… what will it look like if this spills over into widespread violence?
How to prepare for and survive a civil war in America
Definition of Shakedown: A radical change or restructuring, particularly in a hierarchical organization or group.
When ideological differences turn into hatred and compromise is dead…WAR
Many of you in the general public can feel the escalation in conflicting ideologies in this country. There is a schism between conservatives and liberals that isn’t getting any smaller, and it’s manifesting itself across all aspects of life. This ideological divide has been drawn across not just political lines – these lines are cultural, religious, behavioral… and they’re at a fever pitch. These ideological conflicts could cause a complete breakdown of government at some point – which would likely lead to either civil war or a fundamental restructuring of the country.
Not to mention that there are clearly foreign agents and influences at work here. Whether it’s America’s old foe in Russia or its new adversary in China… The bad actors from America’s rivals are salivating, spreading hate and discord both online and on our shores, hoping to open up a rift so large that America will never recover from it.
American Shakedown
It’s possible that you’ll wake up one morning to find the country that you lived in is gone. The news media on both sides profit directly from tension and eventually this tension will reach a breaking point. That breaking point might also mean the breakup of this country. Division is profitable after all. For more than two decades now the media and technology have been used to tear this country into two – along financial, racial, ideological, political, and religious lines – and we might be nearing the breaking point right now.
A Lesson From History
The death throes of the U.S.S.R.
The Soviet Union split up after a losing effort in the proxy war in Afghanistan. American military and economy strategy pressured the Soviet Union to a point where their economy became completely uncompetitive which left their citizens hungry and wanting more. And then…
The Crumbling Of The Soviet Union
The failure in Afghanistan destroyed the morale of both the leadership and the people of the Soviet Union, and cost them too much to recover from. Calls for independence in Poland, East Germany, and other Soviet states shifted the landscape of political power almost overnight, and the USSR was eroded from the inside out and collapsed. The most shocking thing about this is that very few people saw it coming (at least as quickly as it did).
America Divided … And What Could Happen
So – if America collapsed from within.. What would it look like?
A Peaceful Separation?
The “ideal” scenario would be if it were a peaceful split – the West and East Coasts would each split off as their own entities, and the South and Midwest might choose to form one larger nation-state or also split into two. America as we know it could be divided reasonably easy into four independent entities each with their own political, economic, and social philosophies. It would be complex to divide up the “assets” and “liabilities” in a way that all the new entities would agree to – but it’s doable. Again, in this situation, a peaceful transition would be ideal. Ideally, there would be at least an initial period of free travel between this entities – more conservative folks uncomfortable with living in a more progressive environment could migrate, and vice versa.
A Country Divided
However, given the tensions that currently exist in this country, it’s possible that things will no go so smoothly. Which of these entities would the military support? While it’s true that on average, members of the military tend to be conservative leaning, it’s doubtful that soldiers will want to give up their family and friends in their own home regions – so the military will likely be divided just like the rest of America. Could open civil war break out? Or would it be like a cold war, with each border heavily guarded by soldiers of each side, like the border between the two Koreas or the border that existed in Germany where the Berlin wall once was?
If it’s open hostilities, then nobody is safe. A genuine second civil war in America could have a huge death toll. The use of nuclear weapons would be highly unlikely, as the effects of the radiation alone would be unpredictable and could backfire onto each new country’s own citizens. So we’re talking about a war of conventional weapons.
Don’t forget, the original civil war was a devastating one, but the weapons they used were trivial compared to the weapons we have these days. Who knows what the death toll of a new civil war would be?
How to Survive A Civil War in America
So, what do you do if you’re caught in the middle of all this. What if you’re just a regular family, living your life, and the country is getting torn apart around you? The truth is, the vast majority of us are somewhere in the middle – we might not agree with the far left nor the far right. We just want to be able to food on the table for our families and lead “normal” lives.
How do everyday people keep their families safe from war in our own backyards?
The very first thing to do is to be prepared. Preparation is absolutely key to any proper survival plan. What does prepping mean in this context?
Stockpiling Resources to Ride Out a Civil War
It’s always true that supplies can’t hurt. Food, water, and medical supplies. Start stockpiling now. If you’re starting from zero here, I highly recommend you look into this Stockpiling Challenge. It’ll get you up and going with a decent stockpile quickly – and save you a ton of money in the process.
If you decide to try the Stockpiling Challenge, you’ll learn the following:
- How to carefully spend every penny so you save at least 40% than what most uninformed people pay for survival food. You can start with a budget of $10 per person per week and never have to increase that budget for the entire duration of the challenge…
- How to harvest and store an unlimited amount of FREE (yes, I said “free”) water. Plus, I’ll show you how to hook up this “secret spring” to your pipes right now to cut your water bill in half starting today… I assure you this is something even a 12 year old can put together.
- How to fight the 5 food storage enemies: light, humidity, temperature, oxygen and pests. There are simple things you can do to keep each of them off your stash. If you don’t, you might wake up with algae and bacteria inside your water, moths inside your food or even with all of it eaten by mice and critters.
Click here if you want to fast-track your survival stockpile (while saving money)
If you want to stock up without any guidance, I’d recommend you at least read our article about the best survival food to stockpile. Also, if you want to jumpstart your supplies of food, getting a few freeze dried survival food kits is a good idea. We recommend the best survival food kits here.
As for other supplies – for water, unless you’re literally caught in the middle of the fighting, your tap will likely still work, so you’ll still have access to water – but the quality of the water might be compromised. This may be because your local water processing plant has stopped, or perhaps chemicals and toxins are leaking into the water supply from broken pipes and other damaged infrastructure.
For this reason, you’ll want to stock up on water filters or install a water filtration system (or learn to build emergency water distillers). It’s also not a bad idea to buy bottled water in bulk – store brand is fine. This is just your emergency water ration in case things really get bad.
Next is medicine and first aid. If you’re living in what is basically a warzone, you’ll definitely want a decent supply of first aid supplies on hand. See our article about the best first aid kits for survival as a starting point. You’ll also want a stockpile of medicine – whatever prescriptions you or your family members have, ideally you’ll find a way to get at least a months worth of supply of those in addition to your regular prescription. How you do that is up to you – but a civil war will definitely disrupt the supply chain, so any essential medications that you or your family rely on should definitely be stockpiled if it’s at all possible.
Fortify Your Home
A second civil war in America won’t be like any other war you can think of. It won’t be life as normal at home while the troops fight the enemy overseas. This isn’t going to be like Vietnam or Korea, or even WW2. A civil war means fighting all across the country as new factions vie for resources, territory, and leverage for future negotiations. This will have knock-on effects on every aspect of everyday life. Almost all goods, including food, will be scarcer and more expensive. Luxuries will disappear. People will go hungry and crime will be rampant as each faction in the civil war devotes resources towards winning and away from everything else, including law enforcement.
So – not only will resources be scarce (which is why you need to start stockpiling now) – you also need to figure out how you’ll keep your family safe from looters, criminals, deserters and so on… Which means you’ll need to figure out how to better safe guard your home.
Normally, we’d recommend things like security cameras, alarms, and so forth. (To see the kind of recommendations we usually make for home security, check out our article on what to do in a home invasion). However, in a civil war situation, we anticipate that law enforcement will be stretched to their limits, not to mention that some areas might be completely lawless if they’re in contested territories. So what to do?
You need to go a step beyond typical home security and make your home bulletproof.
What makes a home “bulletproof”?
These are ideas that work to defend your home in a situation where “normal life” has gone out the window. For example:
- Do you know why you should never put a tall fence around your house?
- Do you know why placing your stockpile in the basement is a bad idea?
- Do you know why loud security alarms are a bad idea?
Click here if you want to learn how to make your home bulletproof in a new American civil war
Gather Barter Commodities
If there is a second civil war in America, you can pretty much say good bye to the economy. The US dollar will likely lose almost all of its value (why would it have value if the USA as a country no longer existed?). That means your savings account, your retirement – none of that will mean very much.
What you want in situations of extreme economic change are barter-able commodities. Useful things that people need, or things that people have valued since the beginning of time.
Your food, water, and first aid supplies might come into play here – other people won’t have prepared as well as you have, and you might be able to trade favorably if you’ve done a good job with your stockpile.
Beyond that though, you should also be thinking about collecting long term commodity goods that are useful. Basic things like fuel – charcoal or gas would likely be extremely valuable in this civil war scenario (charcoal double so because activated charcoal is a super effective water filtration material). Ammunition and weapons will also be highly valued, although you’d have to be careful that they don’t get confiscated by the military to serve the “war effort”.
Basics like salt, pepper, and other spices would likely be highly sought after as well, as well as scrap metal which could be recycled into useful tools for a new kind of life. Luxuries, like alcohol and cigarettes would also be desired by many people (who wouldn’t want a good bottle of scotch or bourbon if the world was literally collapsing around them?)
Then there are precious metals and gold. These are good things to have if you can afford them. The thing about precious metals, gems, and so forth is that when times are at their worst, they won’t seem that valuable – gold is meaningless to you if you have a starving family or a sick child. On the other hand once things have calmed down a bit the economy will take many years to recover – that’s when things like “survival” gold and silver, precious gems and precious metals will be valued at their highest. If you have the patience (and the cleverness to know how to conceal your wealth), with some planning you could come out the other end of this “second civil war” a truly wealthy man if you played your cards right.
The 5 Worst Places To Be If / When America Splits Up
Big Cities
Cities are by their nature dependent on large institutions. One very clear example is food – there is no agriculture in New York City or Los Angeles. They inevitably get their food from other more rural areas. Their populations tend to be liberal-Progressive and will be hostile to the conservatives of all stripes, including Christians from the heartland. How will people react when there’s a food shortage and a couple of million people to feed? Suddenly, the progressive ideas of sharing with others and giving up everything you have will turn into “every man for himself” very quickly. Local gangs, anarchists or other groups may mark anyone who opposes them as enemies. Crime and outright violence between gangs and criminal groups may surge seemingly overnight. It wasn’t that long ago that many cities in the USA were considered pretty dangerous and unsafe – and without easy access to the infrastructure that currently supports them (including agriculture, transportation, energy, and so forth) they will inevitably collapse and likely fall into a state even more dangerous than the where they were between the 70s and the 90s.
Rural Areas With High Crime Rates And Drug Use
Country living is no guarantee of safety or security. The fact of isolation and minimal police protection can encourage these places as gathering points for drugs, gangs and persons with dubious morals. It’s well known that an opioid epidemic has torn up a huge swathe of the country, particularly poorer, rural areas – this would be exacerbated as logistics are disrupted, these opioids become less and less available, and gangs and addicts start fighting over them.
Also, don’t forget that folks in rural areas are much more likely to own firearms. Obviously on this site we believe in the right to bear arms, but the reality is in an environment where everybody has a gun and people are getting increasingly desperate, it’s easy to imagine violence breaking out and escalating quickly.
The West Coast
The West Coast is in the crosshairs of a longstanding social engineering process. Oregon has legal marijuana and assisted suicide. Recent rioting by anarchists has shown the depth of the unrest. Washington State mirrors these issues in most ways as well from social unrest to drug and high unemployment in several regions. California’s state government is in serious financial crisis; illegal immigration remains a huge issue and the state is governed by erratic and questionable officials. There is a small but growing movement within California to possibly secede from the nation. (dubbed “Calexit”, after Brexit). The west coast will likely become an area with a lot of unrest as there are still a lot of rural folk living out there away from major population centers who don’t agree with the liberal, progressive agendas of their state governments.
The East Coast
The East Coast and inland to the Midwest is the most densely populated, interconnected and socially liberal region of the current United States.Food production and even commercial fishing have declined due to population growth. Ivy League colleges and other public institutions have become hotbeds of social activism and elitist concepts that serve the liberal elite and nobody else. Public libraries offer programs aimed at social engineering at taxpayers expense.
With few exceptions, dependence on Federal funding keeps most afloat. If you work in a big city on the east coast, there’s a decent chance that saying you’re conservative at work would cause you to be shunned by your colleagues.
Southern Border Areas
Southern areas along the border are at risk of becoming extremely high crime areas. The border areas in Mexico are already virtually war zones, and this violence has already started spilling over to the US side of the border. Areas around the border between Mexico and the US will always be where a large amount of drug trafficking occurs, and where there are drugs there will be gangs fighting over who’s in control of those drugs. If tension and conflict increase in the country as a whole, there’ll be less law enforcement and less attention on any crimes happening along the border. This in turn means increased lawlessness and the potential for a very high level of violence as criminals take advantage of the general lawlessness.
Be Ready, Be Informed And Prepare And Plan Now
Tensions are rising in this country. It’s hard to think of a time in recent history where we’ve been more polarized than we are now. There’s virtually no political cooperation happening on the federal level, and many people on both the left and the right feel like there is an existential battle going on – both sides feel like they’re fighting for their way of life, and neither side is likely to give up easily. Each side demonizes the other completely – for liberals, President Trump is completely irredeemable, and for conservatives, President Obama was the same.
When you can’t see the humanity in the other side, then there’s no reasoning with them – only conflict can resolve the differences.
You need to be prepared. Remember the lesson from the breakup of the USSR – very few people predicted it would happen, but once it got going it happened extremely quickly. If you want you and your family to make it out the other end without losing everything, you need to take decisive action now before it’s too late. Follow the advice we’ve given in this post, start building a stockpile, fortify your home, and start gathering useful barter commodities.
A Note about Political Discourse
Here’s another thing to think about. A second civil war is good for nobody in America. It’s good for China. It’s good for Russia. It’s good for Iran and North Korea, and all the other countries that envy the USA’s power and influence on the world stage. America ripping itself into pieces from within would make every single one of our enemies extremely happy.
So why are we doing this to ourselves?
Surely if we can’t agree to anything else, we can at least agree that we don’t want China and Russia to be the “winners” of this century?
If you’re one of the people who feel like “the other side” is totally evil – you should take a breath. The likelihood is that the media is trying to turn your emotions up all the way. We’re talking about both “old media” and social media. News media nowadays, whether it’s cable news or the stuff you see on Facebook – it’s specifically designed to get a reaction out of you. That’s what keeps you watching, keeps you clicking, and keeps you angry.
Take a step back. In the USA, we have a long history of being able to disagree strongly with other Americans without resorting to violence. We need to go back to our roots and start using politics to resolve our differences again – and more importantly, we need to re-learn how to accept losing on the political battlefield. I don’t care if you’re liberal or conservative – if you can’t accept losing in a political battle, then eventually you’ll be helping turn America into a very real war zone.
We don’t want any kind of violence to break out on these shores, so we’re urging whoever’s reading this article to consider cutting down the “news” they get in all forms – get off Twitter, get off Facebook, stop watching cable news. Maybe stick to your local newspaper or watch a half an hour of news after work everyday at the most. Modern news is designed to make you angry or fearful.
Act Decisively
Finally, act decisively, today, to be able to survive should that day come. Across SecretsofSurvival.com we have multiple articles about prepping for and surviving anything from natural disasters, to martial law, and out right war and post apocalypse. In a best case scenario, these articles just serve as interesting reading today. In a worst case scenario, these articles help get families, individuals, and entire communities prepared to survive a dark future, perhaps a day without the power grid and food supplies, perhaps a day with a fractured and splintered U.S. military and government unable to defend it’s people … should that day come.
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