Civil War
The is the story of the collapse of the nation’s house. The house was built on the ocean shore, on stilts, for the views. It was meant to last forever. Yet now the walls were broken and splintered, the roof leaked, the water pipes spurted, the furnace on the fritz. No one could deny the nation had problems (yet they did.)
The country always had mainstream political parties and smaller political cults but the internet helped make cults far larger, with millions of believers. The cults focussed on blame. Blaming past and present politicians. Fostering conspiracy theories about politicians, the police, the health care industry—pretty much every group in society was the subject of some nasty conspiracy theory. These cults were ripping the nation’s house apart.
A new President rose to power based on the cults, ironically a reality TV star, who promised to reveal the truth, to clear the swamp. He never did reveal the truth, never did drain the swamp. The nation’s house was built on top of a beach now swampy. The Government shut down, the two main opposing sides breaking into individual groups who could not agree with each other. Civil war loomed.
It was an unusual civil war.
Such conflicts usually involve two opposing sides. This civil war involved hundreds of opposing sides. Armed groups roamed the streets, engaging in firefights. News was all over the map, facts were difficult to find when everyone claimed their facts were the only true ones. Productivity slowly to less than a crawl, few were at work, politics overtaking their lives. Families broke up, relationships fell apart. Civil war on the most fundamental level. Eventually the nation ripped itself apart, settling into small villages where vaccine refusal was common and many died from smallpox.
The nation’s house was hollowed out, no one living in it when the stilts finally broke and the house fell into the ocean, into the relentless sea.