So apparently today begins the Civil War 2.0. Or not.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

If you are inside the “alt-right” information bubble, you might be preparing yourself for a civil war to commence this Saturday. 

Since late September, the idea has been circulating on Facebook groups, subreddit message boards, Twitter, and leading conspiracy media outlets that on 4 November, anti-fascist groups will begin a violent insurrection. 

Some websites are telling their readers that antifa groups are “planning to kill every single Trump voter, Conservative and gun owner” this weekend. Hundreds of Facebook posts show how seriously consumers of such media are taking the news, and comments like “One more threat against white people and I swear to God I’m going to take a goddamn car and run over every fucking one of them” are not unrepresentative of the response. 

But antifa groups have no plans to protest that day, and the small leftist groups who are planning protests have only dubious connections to the antifa movement. So what gives? 

Beginning in late September, three things kicked it a into higher gear. First, Refuse Fascism, a small group linked to the Revolutionary Communist party, staged a visually spectacular protest in Los Angeles. They blocked the 101 freeway and held up signs that enigmatically spelled out “Nov 4 it begins”. This is the same group that is organizing a series of protests around the country against the “Trump-Pence regime” this weekend. 

Second, a video posted on a Facebook page called Vets Before Illegals went viral. The video, entitled “Antifa sets a date for civil war”, claimed that “on their website, they are calling for an open civil war that will start in November”, and set out alleged plans for attacking police officers, then citizens and the government. 

Last, but by no means least, the rumor was picked up and amplified by Alex Jones, the radio star with an audience of millions. As Sunshine explains, Jones “is a kind of meta-conspiracy theorist now” who “harvests other people’s theories” and repackages them to fit his narratives and his audience.

Good old Alex"I never met a conspiracy theory I didn't like" Jones.

So helpful isn't he? 

There was also a report from Gateway Pundit based on a bad joke written on a Twitter account, with no actual connection to the antifa movement, which claimed that on November 4th  a leader of that movement promised to "behead white parents."

Now my first thought is that this is much ado about nothing , and that there will likely be NO actual armed conflicts or violence today. Especially since there do not seem to be many protests actually available for these wingnuts to flip out over. 

However this could also be a dry run just to see now many people can be agitated in anticipation for a REAL call for violence against a larger antifa, or progressive protest.

That could easily result in a number of fatalities, which I would assume is the whole goal here.

I would also like to know if the Russians are involved in promoting this thing, since it sounds like it is right up their alley.

The major message to take away from all of this, is that people are incredibly high strung right now, and in all honesty it would only take a small spark to ignite a very real, and very dangerous civil war in this country.

It behooves all of us to watch our rhetoric and to make sure that while we are expressing our very reasonable anger and outrage, that we are not also giving others an excuse to turn to violence.