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An Unconventional Path to Saving a Divided America
How to prevent civil war.
| America may be barreling toward civil war and national collapse, but fear, static traditionalism, and a general lack of creativity have blinded our countrymen to a much-needed off-ramp. Most Americans sense that something is deeply and disturbingly broken about the country. Although we have always had our disagreements, this moment feels uniquely tense; partisanship, polarization, and petty political parleys have formed a three-cord whip with which to flog the people, and we have well-nigh given up on making peace. If it is not an outright civil war in which we are engaged, it certainly is marked by the same bad faith, zero-sum conniving, and vilification that you would expect of one. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies,” Abraham Lincoln, the only president to lead America through an actual Civil War, pleaded on the eve of four years of bloodshed. “Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” Today, Lincoln’s stirring words may sound appealing — pure sentimental escapism — but anyone who actually tried to live by them would likely face ridicule as a political “weakling.” Today, we’re supposed to treat our opponents like enemies; we’re supposed to wish ill upon them, wish to see them locked up, or perhaps even joke about their demise. That some of us feel this way more strongly about our fellow countrymen than we do about foreign dictators, terrorists, or enemy armies is a disconcerting indictment, indeed. In 2018, Rasmussen Reports found that almost a third of voters believed it was “likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years.” “In America, talk turns to something not spoken of for 150 years: Civil war,” The Washington Post brooded in a headline. Last year, in advance of a heated presidential election, film studio A24 dropped a provocative movie titled Civil War, offering a chilling take on what 21st-century domestic warfare might look like. Are these harbingers of an all-too-near future? Should they be taken as omens of an impending violent severance? Of course, it’s impossible to say. This much is clear, though: the American people fear whatever it is that may be looming on the horizon. Reasonable or not, civil war certainly feels close. The important question is: what are we going to do about it? Polemicists want merely to scream about the problem, glumly heralding the end of America, liberty, and Western Civilization as we know it. Or — perhaps even more maddeningly — they propose we should simply keep doing the same things we’ve been doing. The warning signs clearly attest we’ve taken the wrong path, but they would have us persist recklessly down the same road, hoping against reason it all sorts itself out in the end. A wise man once said, “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” What good does it do to endlessly forecast catastrophe, but stammer in protest whenever someone offers an original solution? That is exactly what many of our opponents do when they propagate doomsday manifestos about Marxism, fascism, and a perceived loss of freedom, but drag their feet to change anything. The United States Constitution has been amended 27 times. Each time, Congress proposed an amendment, which then went to the states for ratification. It’s always been done that way, and Americans tend to believe that’s the only way it can be done. Article V, however, outlines a second method, allowing for amendments to originate with the states, rather than Congress, at an amending convention. This, of course, is an unconventional approach. After more than 230 years, we have never amended the Constitution using this second method. That doesn’t make it any less valid. Unconventional times may, in fact, call for unconventional methods. Convention of States has developed a sweeping, constitutionally-grounded solution to call an Article V convention to restore federalism — the Founders’ ingenious mode of government that stitches together dissimilar states. Sure, this method has never been tried before, but that which has been tried isn’t working. Even if outright war is nothing more than a hallucination (and let’s pray it is), the conventional political wisdom of the day has resulted in an out-of-touch class of career politicians, $37 trillion in national debt, and a uniquely volatile mess. Isn’t it time to shake things up? Civil war is a terrible thing. If there’s even a remote possibility our differences may be irreconcilable, we should reject the conventional wisdom of the do-nothing doomsayers and call an Article V convention instead. Sign the petition below to show your support. # | PETITION_WIDGET{petition_tag:comms_blog_NA_07/28/2025_anunconventionalpathtosavingadividedamerica07282025;coalition_id:;anedot_url:} | # |
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| Created: | 2025-07-28 23:44 GMT |
| Updated: | 2025-08-03 07:00 GMT |
| Published: | 2025-07-28 21:45 GMT |
| Converted: | 2025-11-11 12:06 GMT |
| Change Author: | Jakob Fay |
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