The echoes of the Civil War in 1861 can be heard in the small border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, with the forces that seek to reinforce a modern-day fascist Confederacy unleashed and mobilized. 

Eagle Pass is the scene of an intensifying political standoff that concentrates the sharp divisions today that are tearing this society apart from top to bottom. On one side stands the state of Texas, which is deploying the Texas National Guard to militarize the border, lining it with over 70,000 rolls of razor wire and carrying out mass arrests of migrants. 

On the other side are Biden and the federal government, which deploys the Border Patrol as its armed force. They too have engaged in mass militarization and large-scale deportations, but they do it with less open demonization and bloodlust.

The fascist governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has refused to comply with federal orders to allow the Border Patrol to carry out their duties—despite the fact that it's the federal government that is supposed to have jurisdiction over immigration and the borders. Abbott has also doubled down on the seizure of Shelby Park, which covers a 2.5-mile stretch of the Texas/Mexico border in Eagle Pass. The Texas National Guard is preventing the Customs and Border Patrol from accessing that area.

Resulting from a series of lawsuits between the federal government and the state of Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week by a bare majority that the Border Patrol could remove the razor wire that Texas has placed all over the border. Abbott says this razor wire acts as a “deterrent” to migrants but what that means in practice is the brutalization, maiming and even death of migrants who cross the border in a desperate attempt to survive. Abbott said in response to the Court's order that Texas will “defend and protect itself” against any moves by the federal authorities.¹

How It Echoes the First Civil War

First of all, what is Shelby Park?

Shelby Park is nicknamed “The Graveyard of the Confederacy” because it's the site where—at the end of the Civil War—the Confederate general Joseph O. Shelby is said to have thrown his Confederate battle flag into the Rio Grande rather than risk having the flag be taken by the federal Union troops. Shelby refused to “surrender,” and fled to Mexico for a few years. A painting of Shelby hangs in the Eagle Pass City Hall, and the park was named in his honor in the 1980s.

Second, and more significantly, Abbott's argument that “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States” is very similar to the language and legal argument that the slave-owning Confederate states used in seceding from the union before the Civil War.² 

How It Raises the Specter of a New Civil War

In response to the Supreme Court ruling, the MAGA fascist Trump said, “We encourage all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of Illegals, and to remove them back across the Border.” 

At the same time, 25 other Republi-fascist governors made a joint public statement “Supporting Texas’ Constitutional Right to Self-Defense”—using the very same language as Abbott did in accusing Biden and the federal government of breaking the “compact” with the states. 

Meanwhile, the stormtroopers of the fascist neo-Confederacy are calling for what amounts to a holy crusade to “protect American borders.” A “Take Our Border Back” convoy is calling for a multi-day cross state protest culminating in three border towns next Saturday, February 3: Eagle Pass; Yuma, Arizona; and San Ysidro, California. They have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the “globalists” who they claim are conspiring to keep U.S. borders open and destroy the country. 

Vice News quoted organizers as saying, “This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God.” Another said, “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil.”

By “dark forces of evil,” they are including human beings crossing the border, including children, as well as the federal government and other alleged advocates of "open borders." The organizers of the convoy itself keep arguing that they intend to have a peaceful gathering, but thousands of fascists have openly called for violence to enforce America's borders with talk of civil war. 

We Need a Different Polarization

As Bob Avakian (BA) has argued, left to itself, this current polarization, “would amount to a one-sided civil war, these fascists could carry out a slaughter of those they hate, including Black people and other people of color, 'illegal immigrants,' 'uppity women' and those who don’t conform to 'traditional' sexual and gender relations and 'norms.'”

But the point is precisely not to leave this polarization to itself. There is time—but not much time—to radically turn this around.

In opposition to a one-sided civil war, the chance exists through this sharpening divide for a real and emancipating revolution to break through. There is the possibility of a whole new way to live and a fundamentally different system—a system that would not treat migrants as enemies to be brutalized or exploited, but as fellow human beings in building a whole new society in which all of humanity could flourish. The concrete vision and blueprint for this is spelled out in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by BA. There is a strategy that BA has developed to make this revolution. There is the ongoing leadership provided by BA. And there is a political force, the revcoms, that follow BA working urgently to organize forces for this revolution.  

Think what it would change now if in this situation, a revolutionary force of thousands entered into this divide—defending immigrants from the attacks by fascists in and out of uniform, standing for a fundamentally different system, and determined to bring that system into being. This could challenge and inspire millions. This force is urgently needed and it depends on you.