Fergus Finlay: The US is on the road from culture war to civil war

Donald Trump wants to push America into a bleak future where he gets to finally crush all dissent, writes Fergus Finlay

Protesters leave signs in front of the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, California, during a protest against ABC removing Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air. Photo: Benjamin Hanson / Middle East Images via AFP

I have to tell you the truth. David Quinn nearly always drives me nuts. I’ve almost never read anything he writes that I agree with. He’s a deeply conservative, I’d say right wing, commentator. 

He’s a great man for building “what about” arguments and he employs all sort of straw men to bolster whatever case he’s making. And when he’s losing the argument he whinges about being silenced, despite the many platforms he enjoys.

But he’s direct and makes his case clearly. He’s true to his own lights, and even though he and I will never be part of the same gang, I believe with every bone in my body that he’s entitled to express his opinions (misguided though they are!).

So I genuinely found it horrifying to read in this paper the other day that someone had sent him an envelope containing powder described as anthrax. It wasn’t, but if it had been it could have killed him and anyone in his vicinity.

I hope David Quinn is made of sterner stuff, and that he has suffered no damage from an obvious effort to traumatise him. I hope he keeps driving me nuts for years to come.

I can’t imagine anything more vicious. Even though it was fake, it was intended as an act of terror, literally. 

Years and years ago, during one of our more bitter referendum campaigns, I got a parcel full of disgusting material at my home. It wasn’t dangerous or explosive, just nauseatingly disgusting, and sent because I was on the wrong side of an argument. 

The effects lingered with me for days. So I hope David Quinn is made of sterner stuff, and that he has suffered no damage from an obvious effort to traumatise him. I hope he keeps driving me nuts for years to come.

The thing is it’s okay to disagree strongly with someone. If you’re someone with strong opinions it sort of goes with the territory if you’re a commentator or a columnist. It seems different nowadays though – if we disagree with someone we find a way to cancel them.

This seems particularly true right now in the culture wars surrounding trans people. I believe that trans rights are human rights, and I find it hard to understand why so many people are so opposed to a movement that exists to enable people to express their own identities. 

I find it even harder to understand why so many writers and artists, and even comedians, people for whom self-expression matters so much, have taken such a hostile and ungrounded stand against trans people. 

Right now, people working through their own sexual identity are marginalised and often vulnerable. Maybe (I hope) in the future we’ll all wonder what the fuss was about, but as things stand they are being made the victims of a pretty vicious culture war.

It's not just culture war that is distorting the United States. That country is actually being driven closer, little by little, to a civil war.

It’s fanciful perhaps to see the forcible silencing of Jimmy Kimmel as the first shot in a war. But don’t kid yourself. Donald Trump is determined to eliminate all dissent, and to punish anyone and everyone who has ever offended him. 

He’s using all the means at his disposal, and they are considerable, to do it. He is well capable – he’s done it before – of inciting violence, and the members of his cult are equally capable of following him there.

It is unlawful, illegal and wrong. The United States' so-called Bill of Rights consists of 10 amendments to the original Constitution, all enacted within a couple of years of the Constitution itself. Some of them are almost entirely forgotten, some have entered the language all of us use. 

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Whenever we say “I’m going to have to plead the fifth on that one” we’re referring to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects anyone charged with a crime from having to give evidence against themselves.

The best known of the 10 Amendments, and the ones most often quoted, are the Second, which refers to the right of the people “to keep and bear arms”, and the First Amendment, the so-called free speech amendment. 

It’s worth quoting in full: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

It's direct and simple and has been strengthened over the years by court rulings – to such an extent that if an American flag is burned as a political protest, it must be regarded as an example of free speech. 

But somehow or other Trump and the entire cabal around him have decided that political satire will not be protected. Jimmy Kimmel has effectively been declared an enemy of the people.

Jimmy Kimmel has effectively been declared by Trump an enemy of the people. File photo: AP/Chris Pizzello

Jimmy Kimmel is a comedian and a satirist, that’s all. I’m a fan of his because I find his monologues really funny. You can’t watch them live over here so I tend to watch it on YouTube, along with millions of other people. 

He and Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, along with the team that make the Daily Show, poke endless fun at the current regime – just like they did with the last regime and the one before it. They’ve all been doing it for years – since long before Trump was president even the first time.

But now Jimmy Kimmel is an enemy of the people, and more of them will follow. It comes from a play, that phrase, about a man of conviction who insisted on telling people things they didn’t want to hear. And lost everything as a result.

Given the individual rights that have been in the US Constitution for more than two centuries, no president could succeed in what Trump is doing without massive and wholesale corruption of the parliamentary system and especially the courts. Trump appears to be well on the way – at least until the midterm elections – to owning both of those levers of power.

But there is a third lever, and its absence is perhaps the most frightening of all. There are times in politics – and you’re going to have to believe I’ve been there, and I know what I’m talking about – when a strong, determined and effective opposition is vital. 

When united leaders stand up to autocrats. When people put aside selfish interests for the sake of something higher. There’s no-one in America doing that. 

Given the individual rights that have been in the US Constitution for more than two centuries, no president could succeed in what Trump is doing without massive and wholesale corruption of the parliamentary system and especially the courts. Photo: AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

There’s all sorts of Democrats sort of shouting from the rooftop, but there’s no leadership, no co-ordination, no strategy, no focus. They’ve given Trump the keys to the citadel and they’re sitting outside the gate complaining.

You know what will happen? It will end up on the street. There will be protests, then angrier protests, then violence. Someone will overreact to something. 

And that’s exactly what Trump wants – another excuse to escalate further, and ultimately to start cancelling the elections that are the only thing he needs to be afraid of. 

He made clear, at the memorial for Charlie Kirk on Sunday, that he hates his enemies. He wants to drive his country into violence because he believes that’s how he gets to finally crush all dissent. It’s a bleak future and right now it’s America’s future.