Poking the Deplorable Bear

Three recent left-wing tracts demonstrate how the Woke Occupation Army, and its pagan gods, are at war with traditional America and how they are determined to pin the blame on us.

Those are the opening lines of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future, by Canadian journalist Stephen Marche. It is one of several new books examining the possibility of our current political differences escalating into open conflict.

Marche’s book purports to be a fair-minded analysis of our partisan divide, but isn’t. His effort is interesting mainly as a sociological exhibit of the incurious leftist mind. The author launches his investigation by claiming that he has no stake in American politics, considering himself neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Yet on virtually the same page where he makes this statement he writes ominously about “the rise of the hard-right anti-government patriot militias” without so much as hinting at the existence of any leftist extremists. In fact, Marche claims “Left-wing radicalism matters mostly because it creates the conditions for right-wing radicalization.” (Keep that bizarre claim in mind; it turns up elsewhere.)

Almost unbelievably, in a book devoted to the growing political divisions in the United States, the deadly and ideologically charged riots of 2020 are not even mentioned. In his single reference to the black-clad anarcho-Marxists who sacked the downtowns of major cities, Marche states, “Antifa does exist, but it lacks any power or the means to establish power. Left-wing defiance of federal authority, when it comes, tends to be legalistic and political.”

The Next Civil War is shallow and tendentious, and Marche tells at least one flat-out lie, alleging that the January 6 “rioters beat a policeman to death on the steps of the Capitol.”

From Amazon reviews:

“It reads like a collection of cheesy Hollywood movie plots based off the most sensationalist news articles of the past several years, presented without footnotes and devoid of any nuance. The writer, while decrying polarization, is himself bafflingly partisan. For instance, after claiming the Right are a danger to democracy, he uses their chant of “Not my president!” after Biden’s election as an example of them not accepting democracy. But that rallying cry came from the LEFT after Trump’s election. Furthermore, he uses the Capitol riots as an example of escalating violence, but doesn’t acknowledge any of the violence and damage caused by BLM rioting. He claims the right sees America’s institutions as illegitimate, while he himself is parroting the far-left cliche that America’s system of government is irredeemable and archaic.

(I’m not saying right wing extremism isn’t worrisome. It definitely is. But they’re exaggerated and caricatured in this book to the point one can’t help but laugh. And the fact he completely ignores extremism on the left makes it resemble Rachel Maddow’s daydream.)

I’ve been very interested in our increasing polarization for over a decade, and have read almost every book on the subject. This is the worst one I’ve EVER read. Usually authors who study polarization tend to look at things from a neutral lens, which typically leads them to show the nuances of our fraught culture with a cool head. This author is almost gleefully throwing matches on the kindling while pretending to warn of an impending fire. It’s alarmist to a cartoonish degree, using clickbait rhetoric that is more likely to create a self-fulfilling prophecy than reduce tensions.

If I can’t return this book then I’d rather throw it in the trash rather than deal with it wasting space.”

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