These liberals who “can’t tell socialists apart from conservatives” are clearly crypto-fascists. The solution to fascism is obvious to them because it just means assimilation into what they see as a neutral apolitical project: the American Empire.

I see this split as an echo of the conflict between Yankee capitalists and Confederate slavers. They both dream of empire, but one is much better at diffusing their use of force so it seems like an inevitably instead of a specific policy choice.