Who Benefits From 'Civil War' Rhetoric?

Joe Conason
Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:53:03 -0700
Opinion

Just as sickening as the terrible murder of Charlie Kirk is the stampede to weaponize his death, an ominous online scramble that swept across the far right in recent days — from tiny online accounts to Republican members of Congress to the White House, where the president himself mocked any effort to unify Americans and instead declared war on half the nation.

We know why Donald Trump seeks confrontation and division, always in hope of distracting attention from his poor approval ratings, his worsening economic data, his embarrassing, scandalous and increasingly obvious connections with the dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Long before Kirk's killing, Trump vowed "retribution" against his political opponents, and that tragic event now provides a fresh rationale for vengeance.

But Trump and his bloody-minded MAGA cult are not the only political force that seeks to exploit "civil war." Both he and his movement remain what they became during the past decade" — that is, useful idiots for the geopolitical machinations of a hostile foreign power.
Updated: Mon Sep 15, 2025

Just as sickening as the terrible murder of Charlie Kirk is the stampede to weaponize his death, an ominous online scramble that swept across the far right in recent days — from tiny online accounts to Republican members of Congress to the White House, where the president himself mocked any effort to unify Americans and instead declared war on half the nation.

We know why Donald Trump seeks confrontation and division, always in hope of distracting attention from his poor approval ratings, his worsening economic data, his embarrassing, scandalous and increasingly obvious connections with the dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Long before Kirk's killing, Trump vowed "retribution" against his political opponents, and that tragic event now provides a fresh rationale for vengeance.

But Trump and his bloody-minded MAGA cult are not the only political force that seeks to exploit "civil war." Both he and his movement remain what they became during the past decade" — that is, useful idiots for the geopolitical machinations of a hostile foreign power.

The shrillest noises now promoting violence and division in American society echo from the same figures who have long served up Russian propaganda in our media and politics — and they are easily identified, from Trump down.

Last year saw the exposure of a gang of "influencers," under the patronage of an outfit called Tenet Media, with a stable that included such reliable MAGA mouthpieces as Benny Johnson and Tim Pool — and a multimillion-dollar payroll subsidized by Russia Today, the Kremlin's central media apparatus. Their posts and podcasts routinely echoed Kremlin political themes, from sycophantic support of Trump to pushing Vladimir Putin's line on Ukraine. Naturally they all claimed to be innocent and unknowing "victims" of this Russian operation, an alibi that may be assessed in light of their generally poor credibility.

But today, Johnson and Pool are among the loudest voices promoting the "civil war" theme online, inciting fury against Democrats and demanding vengeance. Despite hundreds of condolence messages from Democratic elected officials, party leaders and ordinary voters, Johnson declared on various podcasts and his X stream that "the Democratic Party is not 'sorry when political violence happens. They want it to happen. They create the conditions for it."

Johnson concocted a conspiracy theory claiming that "Left-Wing dark money groups fund, arm, and radicalize people to target you. ... They hype violence, glorify killers, and manipulate minds with drugs and social media." A favorite in Trump's White House, Johnson is also a notorious fabricator and plagiarist. He didn't even pretend to cite a fragment of proof to support those wild accusations, because why bother?

Pool, also formerly subsidized lavishly by Russia, has spread a disingenuous propaganda line, "regretfully" proclaiming that the civil war has already begun — because the Left and Democrats are gloating online over Kirk's murder. He and Johnson are far from alone in promoting such dangerous, inflammatory reactions on the right. Even some Republican members of Congress, such as Wisconsin's Derrick van Orden, are posting hysterical proclamations that "the gloves are off. ... The left and their policies are leading America into a civil war. And they want it. Just like the democrat party wanted our 1st civil war."

Blaming the "democrat party" for Kirk's death and announcing the inevitability of civil war may serve the short-term interests of Trump, but exacerbating social tensions and violence in America remains the long-term goal of this country's international adversaries — most notably in Putin's Russia. And the principal exponent of the Russian dictatorship's brand of imperial fascism, Aleksandr Dugin, has explicitly welcomed what he predicts will be the shattering impact of Kirk's death in the United States.

The Putin adviser joined in with his own outrageously dishonest framing of the Democrats, suggesting on an internet platform that "half of the Democratic Party — at the level of senators, at the level of congressmen, and at the level of their social network said: 'Correct, we killed, we are killing, and we will continue to kill. They are all Nazis.'"

Not a word of Dugin's outburst was true, but his desire to intensify and inflame divisions in this country is utterly sincere. His comrades in the Russian intelligence services undoubtedly are employing artificial intelligence to supercharge the bots that they have long used to pursue such ends. Only a year ago, the Justice Department uncovered and disrupted a Kremlin operation that had sprouted thousands of fake social media profiles posing as Americans.

Who benefits from the civil war meme? Who is promoting it? Everyone who trumpets that potentially deadly trope — whether clothed as "right" or "left," whether consciously or just stupidly — is doing the work of our country's enemies.