(Note to SBCurrent subscribers: We intend to make this and future Saturday features “longform” columns of indeterminate length depending upon the subject. So, be prepared to set your coffeemaker to more than one cup as you sit down for your Saturday morning read. We thank you for paying attention to this matter! – J.B.)
When you hear civil war, what do you picture?
Cannons?
Soldiers in uniforms?
Smoke over battlefields?
Most people would.
I used to.
We imagine April 12, 1861; the first shots, the official beginning.
But was that really the beginning?
Or was that simply the moment no one could pretend the fracture wasn’t already there?
Seven states had already seceded.
They had already rejected federal authority.
They had already formed a separate government.
Politically, the War Had Already Begun
Cannons did not create the division.
They revealed it.
So here is the real question:
What if civil wars do not begin with gunfire?
What if they begin when people stop believing they belong to the same country?
What Holds a Republic Together?
What keeps a republic alive?
Elections?
Flags?
Speeches?
Or something simpler?
Shared rules.
Shared submission to those rules. Even when we do not like them. Especially when we do not like them.
If you oppose a law, you challenge it in court, elect new representatives, and work to change it.
That is civilization.
But what happens when laws only apply when convenient?
When courts are replaced by media outrage?
When due process is replaced by emotional pressure?
When crowds decide guilt before evidence?
Can a country survive that?
Or does authority become optional?
And if authority becomes optional, what exactly is left?
State Power Versus Federal Power
The founders expected this tension. That is why they wrote the Supremacy Clause: Federal law is the supreme law of the land.
The first Civil War was not only about slavery.
It was also about legal defiance, states deciding federal authority no longer applied to them.
Now ask yourself:
What happens when states today openly refuse cooperation with federal immigration enforcement?
California. Oregon. Washington. Minnesota. New York. Colorado. Massachusetts.
Seven states again, coincidentally.
Is that policy disagreement?
Or the same old question?
Who decides what law matters?
The state?
Or the Union?
And if the answer changes by geography, is that still one nation?
The Fulcrum: Stochastic Terrorism
This is the fulcrum of the story.
Stochastic terrorism.
It explains how republics fracture without cannons.
It explains how crowds are manipulated.
It explains how violence starts to feel moral.
And most importantly, it shows how easily people surrender independent thought.
It is not someone saying:
“Go attack them.”
It is far more sophisticated.
Fake stories. Selective editing. Out-of-context soundbites. Headlines built for outrage. Corrupt media. Controlled social media.
People are not told what to do.
They are trained how to feel.
“Those people are evil.”
“Those people are Nazis.”
“Those people are fascists.”
“Those people are a threat to democracy.”
Repeat that enough and something changes.
People stop questioning.
They stop verifying.
They stop thinking.
They start reacting.
Violence stops feeling like aggression.
It starts feeling like duty.
No direct order.
No fingerprints.
Just moral permission.
Then when violence happens, everyone says:
“I never told anyone to do that.”
Exactly.
The May Day “Protests”
A student was interviewed holding a sign supporting socialism.
His teacher encouraged him to leave school and protest.
The reporter asked:
Do you support socialism? Do you even know what socialism is?
He had no idea. He could not explain the ideology written on his own sign.
Why?
Because he did not write the sign. Someone paid for it. He was not there because of conviction. He was there because he was told to be there.
Teachers pushed him.
Crowds pulled him.
Signs told him what to say.
That opens another ugly topic: indoctrination.
He was following emotion, not understanding.
That is stochastic terrorism.
Cult Behavior
A cult is a group that uses excessive control, manipulation, and enforced loyalty to a leader, ideology, or system, often discouraging questioning, independent thought, and outside relationships.
The issue is not strange beliefs.
It is control.
Pressure against questioning.
Punishment for dissent.
Emotional dependency.
Loyalty over truth.
People miss cult behavior in politics, media, activist movements, and institutions, because they expect robes and compounds instead of social pressure, public shaming, and narrative enforcement.
When disagreement becomes betrayal, when repeating slogans matters more than understanding, when loyalty matters more than truth, you are no longer dealing with healthy disagreement.
You are dealing with cult behavior.
And that connects directly to stochastic terrorism.
Because once people are conditioned to obey emotion over facts, manipulation becomes easy. Crowds stop thinking. They start reacting.
That is how dangerous systems maintain power.
Grassroots?
Are these really grassroots protests?
Or organized operations pretending to be spontaneous outrage?
Because protests do not magically appear.
Someone pays for the signs, the banners, the props, the speakers, the security, the routes, the messaging.
That is not random.
That is infrastructure.
Planning.
Money.
Coordination.
When the same slogans, the same tents, the same tactics appear in every city, that is not organic. That is manufactured consensus. It is political theater disguised as public uprising.
That too is stochastic terrorism.
When Facts Disappear
When that woman purposefully placed her car in the middle of a law enforcement caravan, why was she there?
Was she lost?
Or intentionally interfering with federal law enforcement?
The videos showed it.
She positioned herself there.
She taunted officers.
She reversed.
Then drove her car forward into a federal officer.
That was not confusion.
That was a choice.
And she was not random.
She was tied to an “ICE Watch” activist network created to monitor, track, and interfere with federal immigration enforcement.
Some even called her an “ICE warrior.”
That matters.
It reveals intent.
She was not a harmless mother accidentally in the wrong place.
She was an activist inside a federal operation.
Yet much of the media framed her as the victim.
Law enforcement became the villain.
Why?
Because outrage sells.
Victimhood sells.
And if people see the full video, the script collapses.
That is stochastic terrorism.
Selective truth.
Emotional framing.
Outrage built on omission instead of the full story.
When Rhetoric Becomes Permission
When President Joe Biden says: “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” What was the public supposed to hear?
When a president calls voters who support a political rival “terrorists,” is this an ordinary disagreement, or is it more, a moral emergency?
When a San Diego councilman calls ICE agents “Gestapo,” is that policy criticism? Or dehumanization?
Once officers are “Nazis” and no longer law enforcement, violence begins to feel righteous.
This too is stochastic terrorism.
False Equivalence and Accountability
There is a real difference between one Republican posting a violent video and repeated mainstream Democrat rhetoric normalizing Hitler comparisons, Gestapo language, and moral permission for violence.
Take Representative Paul Gosar.
He posted an anime video depicting himself killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.
That was not ignored.
The House formally censured him.
He was stripped of committee assignments.
Democrats moved to remove him.
He publicly stated:
“I do not espouse violence toward anyone,” and argued the video was symbolic criticism, not literal incitement.
Whether people accepted that or not, the institutional response was immediate.
Compare that to repeated Democrat rhetoric:
ICE agents called Gestapo.
Trump compared to Hitler.
Federal officers reframed as kidnappers that people would be justified in shooting.
And most importantly, President Biden attaching extremism to millions of ordinary voters.
Not politicians.
Citizens.
People who voted.
People who disagreed with his party.
That crosses from attacking politicians to attacking the public itself.
Where was the equivalent censure?
Where was the same institutional outrage?
It is not there.
That distinction matters.
Criticizing policy is not the issue.
Turning opponents into Nazis, terrorists, or enemies of the Republic is.
That is where stochastic terrorism becomes a permission structure for real-world violence.
When Politicians Encourage Violence
Representative Jerry Nadler discussing ICE said if you saw “a masked man kidnapping your neighbor,” people would feel justified shooting him.
What was that?
Leadership?
Or moral permission for violence against law enforcement?
Once ICE agents are reframed as kidnappers instead of officers, violence feels righteous.
No one has to say:
“Go shoot law enforcement.”
They redefine reality first.
That is stochastic terrorism.
Then ask yourself:
When our local district attorney – the chief law enforcement officer – denounced federal officers serving judge-issued arrest warrants, officers who ultimately rescued 14 foreign children found illegally on a cannabis farm without their families, what was the goal?
Protecting children?
Because notably, the DA never mentioned the rescued children.
Not once.
Or protecting the political narrative?
If law enforcement rescues exploited minors, but the public is taught to hate those officers anyway, truth is no longer the objective.
Narrative is.
When Comedy Becomes Permission
Jimmy Kimmel “joked” that Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow” after two assassination attempts on Trump and shortly after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attack where an armed man shot a Secret Service agent trying to reach Trump.
Later he said it was “just comedy.”
But that is the point.
No one has to say, “Kill him.”
You normalize death first.
You make widowhood a punchline.
Then when violence comes, everyone says:
“It was just a joke.”
No.
It was moral conditioning.
Elon Musk and the Same Pattern
When Elon Musk began exposing wasteful and fraudulent government spending, the response was not debate.
It was demonization.
He became dangerous.
Corrupt.
A threat.
Someone to be hated, not debated.
Joy Behar and other media-aligned Democrat figures framed Musk as dangerous and extremist instead of addressing fraud.
Chuck Schumer stood at anti-DOGE protests where crowds openly chanted against Musk.
Elizabeth Warren framed Musk as a systemic danger.
When Tesla owners and dealerships were attacked, Democrats would not strongly condemn it.
Representative Summer Lee even said:
“Violence is against human beings,” when asked about vandalism and arson against Tesla property.
Molotov cocktails.
Gunfire.
Charging stations burned.
Dealerships vandalized.
Tesla owners doxxed.
And instead of universal condemnation, nothing; no apologies no removal procedures.
Once you dehumanize a person, attacks against them start feeling justified.
No one had to say:
“Go attack Tesla.”
They only had to repeat:
“This man is the enemy.”
Then politicians proudly sold Teslas and bought gas-guzzling SUVs.
The same people preaching climate apocalypse abandoned electric vehicles—not because science changed, but because the political tribe changed.
The principle did not matter.
The enemy did.
Lo and Behold, the Fraud Was Real
Minnesota was not paranoia.
It was not conspiracy.
It was billions of taxpayer dollars disappearing.
The Feeding Our Future scandal alone involved roughly $250 million meant to feed children stolen through fake meal sites and fraudulent claims.
Broader fraud across childcare, autism services, Medicaid, and state programs is estimated between $9 billion and $19 billion.
Federal agents executed 22 search warrants.
Treasury said:
“Complex fraud rings in Minnesota have stolen billions of dollars.”
And now California.
The same pattern.
Massive fraud investigations.
Health fraud strike forces.
Billions in intended losses.
Since 2024 alone, federal prosecutors tied 28 defendants across California, Nevada, and Arizona to $1.9 billion in intended healthcare fraud losses.
Separate unemployment and benefits fraud estimates run far higher.
Billions gone.
Taxpayer money vanished.
And somehow the people asking questions were treated like the problem.
First, deny.
Then, deflect.
Then demonize the people exposing it.
That is not accountability.
That is protection of power.
So, What Comes Next?
Are we in 1861?
No.
Are we under structural stress?
Absolutely.
The danger is not cannons.
It is normalization.
Normalization of defiance.
Normalization of obstruction.
Normalization of political enemies being treated as “existential” threats.
First comes dehumanization.
Then justification.
Then permission.
Then blood.
So maybe the better question is not:
“Is civil war coming?”
Maybe the real question is:
“How much of it has already begun?”
“Be not overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:21 (KJV)
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