America, You’re In Danger, Girl: A Silent Civil War Is Here

Wake up, America—especially Black America, because we are at war. 

What many of us thought was just another bout with Jim Crow has revealed itself to be something even more sinister—the rebirth of the Confederacy, rebranded and repackaged under the red hat of MAGA. This is not metaphorical or hypothetical; a silent civil war has begun, and Donald J. Trump is at the helm, leading the charge.

Let’s look at the facts: an elected official, Nicole Collier, has been illegally detained for over 24 hours for failing to sign a paper allowing surveillance by her employer. 

Let that sink in. 

A Black woman is being held against her will by her employer all because she won’t agree to be illegally surveilled, and being treated as if she’s a criminal for fighting against an illegal practice that limits Black and Brown Americans’ voting power as Trump pushes GOP state officials to tilt the map for the 2026 midterms to be more in his favor to preserve the GOP’s slim House majority as MAGA continues to usher in Authoritarianism and bring back the Confederacy. 

But it’s not just in Texas. In New York, Attorney General Letitia James is also being harassed by law enforcement after her office brought civil fraud charges against Trump, his adult sons, and the Trump organization, resulting in a half-billion-dollar judgment last year. Whistleblowers sounded the alarm after the chief of the Department of Justice, Ed Martin, posed for photos outside of James’ Brooklyn home last week – following his call for her resignation, as he is conducting investigations into her conduct.

His investigation of James is one of several the Justice Department has launched into the president’s perceived enemies—many of whom are African American, including former President Barack Obama and the first Black woman to sit on the central bank’s board, Lisa Cook, whom Trump’s administration is accusing of mortgage fraud. 

A close Trump ally accused Lisa Cook, an appointee of Joe Biden, of “potentially committing mortgage fraud” and urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate it as a criminal matter, renewing his extraordinary attack on the central bank’s independence as officials mull next steps on interest rates.

Then there’s his blatant and direct attacks against Black cities in Democrat-led states like Baltimore and Washington D.C., labeling them as “crime-infested”—despite data showing otherwise—and calling for a federal takeover, in his attempt to continue to undermine progress. The calls for federal takeover arrive just as his administration continues its attack on Black History, calling for the revision of specific exhibits —namely, those telling the true history of slavery. 

On Tuesday, a White House official told NBC News that Trump plans to extend his review of museums beyond the Washington-based institution, saying the president will hold the Smithsonian “accountable” and “then go from there.”

Taking to his platform of lies, Truth Social, Trump wrote: 

“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.

“We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made,” he added.

The future of slavery?! And let’s not forget his executive orders and his attacks on diversity and equal opportunity have represented a direct assault on the Black middle class and its ability to maintain economic stability—intentionally, after his fight against DEI left more than 300,000 Black women unemployed, because if you’re broke, you can’t fight back. The influx of overt policing in Black and Brown communities is nothing but a way to weaken the ability of the people to fight against tyranny. 

In the federal sector, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and executive orders banning diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts (DEIA), as well as cuts earlier this year, sent shockwaves through the workforce. In areas with heavy concentrations of Black federal workers, the economic fallout that impacted two of the wealthiest Black counties in America—Prince George’s and Charles County in Maryland, which are just outside of the District of Columbia, is being felt. As Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) stated:

“The attacks from the Trump administration are not glancing blows. They’re direct strikes, and they’re direct strikes against the people of this state, and they’re direct strikes against the people of Prince George’s County.”

And poor whites—don’t think you’re safe. Stephen Miller is already painting white protestors in D.C. as “stupid hippies” and “communists,” dismissing their calls for freedom and protests as un-American.

“We are not going to let the communists destroy a great American city, let alone the nation’s capital,” Miller told reporters as chants of “Free D.C.” could be heard. “Most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C., are Black. This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens for generations, and President Trump is the one who is fixing that.”

MAGA doesn’t care about your struggle either; you’re just next on the chopping block once Black and Brown America is suppressed.

And make no mistake, Trump is following the Project 2025 playbook. Their vision of “ordered liberty” is nothing more than Confederate nationalism dressed in 21st-century clothes. Law and order, in their hands, means policing Black bodies, criminalizing dissent, and protecting white wealth at all costs.

A Confederacy by Another Name

Why does this matter? Because the first Civil War was sparked over slavery, and Trump’s MAGA movement is carrying the torch of that same ideology. The Confederacy was built on states’ rights and the protection of white wealth through slavery. Today, MAGA is built on authoritarianism, racial subjugation, and rewriting the law to secure permanent power— with the goal for those who hold that ideology for America to return to its former and horrific glory—a time period that Trump himself reminisced about on the campaign trail during his first term, when he faced protests against his nomination when he called for protesters to be “knocked down” like “in the good ol’ days”. 

Despite his denial, it’s no secret that Trump is following the Project 2025 playbook, which is a revamped version of the Confederacy agenda, for “ordered liberty,” a phrase referring to the protection of public safety and defense of traditional rule of law. In the slaveocratic South, public safety and rule of law meant the forced and policed enslavement of Black persons to protect the physical safety and financial interests of whites.

An angle that Trump has already rolled out with the recruitment of ICE, promising a $50,000 signing bonus and student loan forgiveness, while simultaneously reversing Biden-era student loan forgiveness programs, which benefited low-income Americans. 

Whether we want to admit it or not, a civil war has already begun, only this time it’s not being fought with muskets and cannons, but instead with legislation, intimidation, propaganda, and targeted economic warfare; and if we don’t fight back—loudly, consistently, and unapologetically, we will lose our democracy.

The only way out is through resistance at every turn, in the courts, in the streets, at the ballot box, and in our communities. The Confederacy 2.0 is here, and if we don’t stop it now, the America we know will not survive.

SEE ALSO:

Thanks To Donald Trump, The American Dream Is Dead

Donald Trump, Executive Overreach, And Project 2025’s Blueprint