This is how civil war actually starts. Shipments of critical medical supplies are being given armed escort throughout the country to protect them from being stolen by the federal government as directed by the president. Our state and federal governments are in OPEN. ARMED. CONFLICT.
Civil war starts when entrenched, homogeneous populations wish to plunder the resources or alter the ideology of other entrenched, homogeneous populations. We had an American civil war because a resident of Nashville might, at some point in their life, venture as far as Louisville but never as far as Baltimore. Syria has a civil war because farmers in Daraa could walk for three days and beg for alms in Damascus. Yugoslavia had a civil war because Christians living down the street from Muslims were reminded that everything went to shit when the Muslims down the street sided with the Nazis 40 years earlier. It helped that they'd been slaughtering each other for about 500 years. Civil war does not start when a bureaucrat working for one agency this week takes resources from a bureaucrat working for another agency this week. OPEN. ARMED. CONFLICT. I would like you to point to the spot on the map where an agent of any state government exchanged fire with an agent of the federal government. And then I would like you to breathe deeply, close your eyes, and slowly exhale while counting to ten.Our state and federal governments are in
All comes down to a complete and total failure of leadership. I think that most states and health systems would be fine with the Feds seizing all medical supplies if they had any confidence in the Feds' plan to then distribute the supplies. I work for a very large health system, and we get basically everything we want and need all the time. That's great for us, but it's not so great for the community hospitals who don't have the purchasing clout of a multi-billion dollar teaching hospital. If Trump could get out of his own way (literally impossible, I know), I think it's a good idea for a coordinated federal response. As is, I don't think anyone would be surprised if we found out that FEMA was just giving the shit to Don Jr. to put on his eBay page.