Political divisions are steadily increasing across the nation and fueling the idea of a looming civil war. To paraphrase Colin Quinn from his Netflix special Unconstitutional, America is riddled with irreconcilable differences is about to get a divorce. If you put your ear to the ground, you can already hear people whispering about the potential for conflict- especially after the events of January 6th.
Since I'm an optimist, I'm going to focus on what happens after the inevitable civil war. And if you think I'm torpedoing my claims of being an optimist by viewing a second civil war as an inevitability, I'm sorry, I guess. I may be optimistic, but I'm still a realist.
Anyway, when I try to predict how the nation will heal itself after the war, I have to turn my attention to the past. We don't talk about the Reconstruction nearly enough for my taste. The Reconstruction is responsible for creating a slew of the social inequities that we're actively attempting to change today. If you look at the number of disparities that still exist between Black and white Americans, the Reconstruction is arguably more important than the war that preceded it.
In the video linked above, the YouTube channel The Cynical Historian gives a lecture on the Reconstruction and how it was never truly completed.
