This is a trick question.
Donald Trump was indicted not only to “get Trump” — and end in itself for the left — but also to ensure his nomination as the GOP candidate for president in 2024. With a riled-up “base”, Trump is sure to be nominated, even if he is in prison — especially if he is in prison.
Trump will then lose the election because almost no one will vote for him other than his hard-core supporters, who probably comprise one-third of the electorate. I voted for Trump twice because he was the lesser of two evils — by a long shot — but he is now unelectable. Worse than that, his nomination will secure a Democrat victory.
A lot of otherwise GOP-leaning voters will stay home out of disgust with Trump’s crudity and resignation to a Democrat victory. That will leave a solid majority of voters — including NeverTrumpers, independents, and other pearl-clutching types — to join Yellow-Dog Democrats (there ain’t no other kind no more) to deliver a landslide victory to Joe Biden or to his successor after his influence-peddling while VP becomes undeniable or he is declared mentally incompetent, whichever comes first. It is even possible that the Dems will forgo electoral fraud, which the GOP will be better-equipped to detect in 2024, thus “legitimizing” the victory of the Dems’ nominee.
With the election of 2024 out of the way and a Democrat still in the White House, all hell will break loose. By “all hell”, I mean the full-scale construction of a fascistic state, which will be accomplished by executive fiat and friendly judges even if the GOP somehow controls at least one chamber of Congress despite Trump’s resounding defeat. It’s more likely, however, that Democrats will securely hold both chambers of Congress and will enact whatever fascistic and economically destructive legislation comes out of the White House, thus coating it with a veneer of legality that would not accrue to executive orders. The only possible bulwark of liberty — a conservative-controlled Supreme Court — will be breached by a successful court-packing plan that FDR would have envied. (This will be supplemented by packing district and appellate courts.)
All hell having broken loose, (solid) Red State governors and legislatures will engage in acts of resistance of the legalistic variety. These will fail because (a) their success would require judicial support, which will be lacking, and (b) the Democrat administration will simply ignore rulings that are unfavorable to its agenda. (The Biden administration’s flouting of immigration law, work-arounds to blunt the effect of Dobbs, and refusal to protect conservative Supreme Court justices’ homes are harbingers of the lawlessness to come.)
Red State hot-heads will then be unable to resist the urge to engage in futile acts of violence against the regime. The effect will be to justify harsh “anti-terroristic” measures that will result in unbridled censorship and jailing of conservatives for the mere “crime” of pointing out the regime’s lawlessness. But that would just be the start of full-scale suppression of dissent.
Red State governments that try to resist the regime will be found to be unconstitutional according to some kind of legalistic argumentation. The central government will then declare them null and void, invoking the Constitution: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government….” (Article IV, Section 4). Armed resistance, where it is attempted, will be squashed by superior force and rewarded with draconian punishments.
So … the answer to the question posed by the title of this post is that Civil War II won’t start. It will be aborted by the pro-abortion party.
The moral of this depressing look into the future? The GOP must find a way to deny Trump the nomination and keep him off the ballot as a third-party candidate. If those things can be done, and if the GOP is able to thwart excessive electoral chicanery, the dire picture I have drawn may not come to pass.
But … it is also quite possible that the Dems will simply refuse to concede the election and find a way (backed by force) to nullify it.
Politics and Prosperity 