Our Creeping Civil War
written by
jaron summers (c) 2025
The Creeping Civil War (Now with Wi-Fi and Gluten-Free Rations).
By a timeworn rascal who remembers when phones stayed on the wall, shame stuck to scoundrels, and public office wasn’t a retirement plan for sociopaths.
There’s something strange happening in America. I don’t mean “people putting pineapple on pizza” strange—I mean republic-at-the-brink-of-nervous-breakdown strange.
And I should know. I’ve been around long enough to remember when Democrats and Republicans didn’t just talk to each other—they got drunk together.
Sure, they disagreed on policy, but they didn’t call each other Satan on Facebook while selling vitamin supplements and prepper buckets.
Today? Oh, we’re at war all right. Not the kind with bayonets and bugles—this one’s fought with hashtags, yard signs, and suspicious glances at Whole Foods.
Signs of a Civil War (But Like, the Ikea Version)
It’s a civil war, but passive-aggressive. Like the Thanksgiving dinner where Aunt Linda “accidentally” poisons the gravy and Grandpa mutters about the Constitution between bites of stuffing and bourbon.
Everyone’s armed—with opinions. And phones. God help us, the phones.
You used to read a newspaper and that was it. Now, your phone tells you.
Who’s lying?
Who’s really lying
What reptile species is secretly running the Senate?
And if you disagree with someone? You don’t just argue. You unfriend them. That’s the digital guillotine. “Off with their head and Instagram feed!”
Battlefields: Starbucks and School Boards
The front lines are confusing. One side says the world is ending because of gender-neutral bathrooms. The other says it’s ending because a third grader read Charlotte’s Web and now identifies as a spider.
Meanwhile, books are being banned, but assault rifles are on sale next to fireworks and Slim Jims.
Oh—and let’s not forget the militias in tactical gear who train for “the big collapse” by shooting watermelons behind a Dollar General.
They have podcasts now. Because nothing says “Second American Revolution” like a guy named Randy with a GoPro and a Ring light.
A House Divided… Still Has Wi-Fi
The weird part? We’re still mostly polite in person. At the DMV, nobody screams, “You voted wrong!” They just sigh in the universal language of shared bureaucratic misery.
The trick is: don’t ask people what they think. Just talk about dogs. Or weather. Or how none of us understand what TikTok is but it probably signals the end of civilization.
We all want the same basic things:
Affordable health care.
Decent roads.
Someone to explain cryptocurrency to us.
A good sandwich.
But say the wrong thing online, and half your family disappears faster than a government surplus check.
Hope? Maybe. Probably. Kind of.
Here’s the thing: we’ve always been like this. Loud. Contradictory. A little insane.
We were born from a tax protest and a bar brawl. Our national anthem is mostly about bombs. And somehow… we keep limping forward.
Because deep down, we don’t want to kill each other. We just want the other guy to shut up long enough for us to finish our sentence.
And that, my friends, is what makes this country great.
In the middle of a slow-motion civil war. With Wi-Fi.
