In the film, Civil War (2024), Texas
and California have “tecaexited” the U.S., to use the European recondite ideological
parlance for secession that began with “Brexit” in order to evade “seceding
from the Union.” The U.S. president in the film repeatedly lies to the public
that the secessionists are on the run; in actuality, as the film progresses,
the three journalists, Lee, Joel, and Sammy, along with their young protégé, Jessie,
eventually witness up-close the rebel military conquering the White House in
order to shoot the president in the Oval Office. The film provides only scant
clues as to the reason for the secession; the rebel who shots Tony, a friend of
the three journalists, obviously detests foreigners and delights in “real Americans,”
such as are from Colorado and Missouri. This could be a reference to Trump’s “MAGA”
movement, so the film is possibly playing out Trump’s followers revolting;
historically, on January 6, 2021, some of them rioted, though admittedly did
not as a revolt so to topple the U.S. Government, but rather to make a
statement by temporarily stopping Congress from counting the States’ respective
electoral ballots for president. Even so, it is too great an inferential leap
to conclude that the two States seeking to exit the U.S. in the film are MAGA,
even though MAGA ideology and the “woke” ideology clashed in early (and mid) 2020s
when the film was being put together. Rather than being about contending,
violently clashing ideologies, the film is about how violent our species is
when not suppressed by an overarching police presence that can act as a deterrent.
The full essay is at "Civil War."
