New York Times opinion columnist Charles Blow is joining the ranks of those who believe that the Supreme Court ruling on the S.B.8 abortion law in Texas is a sign of the end times. Despite the fact that the way the courts are handling the question leaves the future of the law in doubt, Blow clearly sees this as a threat to freedom and a sign that “a key component of women’s rights and body autonomy is being snatched away as we watch.”

The author doesn’t stop there. Quoting Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Blow summons up visions of John C. Calhoun, a 17th-century proponent of the right of states to nullify federal law when they disagreed with it. That comparison drags slavery and racism into the mix, along with the perception of an assault on the rights of women. The reference to Calhoun is a useful one for Mr. Blow, because Calhoun has frequently been cited as one of the chief drivers of the American Civil War, despite having died more than a decade before the shooting actually began. And Blow’s premise this week is that the cultural divide in America between left and right over issues such as abortion and critical race theory may be driving us once again toward a war between the states. Fortunately, at least for now, he doesn’t see it evolving into a case of physical armies meeting on battlefields.

I see too many uneasy parallels between what was happening nearly 200 years ago and what is happening now. I see this country on the verge of another civil war, as the Calhounian impulse is reborn.

There are enormous, obvious differences, of course. The civil war I see is not the kind that would leave hundreds of thousands of young men dead in combat. That is not to say that we aren’t seeing spates of violence but rather that this new war will be fought in courts, statehouses and ballot boxes, rather than in the fields.

And this war won’t be only about the subjugation of Black people but also about the subjugation of all who challenge the white racist patriarchy.

It will seek to push back against all the “others”: Black people, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, L.G.B.T.Q. people and, yes, women, particularly liberal ones.

Before sounding off in an entirely negative fashion about Blow’s dire warnings and interpretations, I will admit that I too only recently penned a column where I asked if we might be heading to a new era of secession. Of course, I was referring to the ongoing battles over vaccine mandates and related authoritarian power grabs by American elected officials. And rather than worrying about armies in red and blue uniforms bloodying the fields of purple states, I envisioned people migrating and clustering in the red and blue states to the point where the two groups simply no longer wanted anything to do with each other.

But with all of that said, I will at least request credit for not going down the all-too-familiar liberal rabbit hole that Charles Blow leaps into with both feet. No partisan disagreement on any topic of hot debate in America today can ever simply be evaluated on its own merits without some liberal coming along and immediately pumping it up from a firecracker to a tactical nuclear weapon. We’re supposedly debating one bill in one state that is placing certain restrictions (not a total ban) on abortions and using unconventional legislative language in their attempt to do so.

Yes, abortion is one of the most contentious subjects in American politics and has been for ages. But rather than going after the legal questions surrounding abortion, Blow takes us to DEFCON 1, starting with a desire by the “white racist patriarchy” to “control women’s bodies.” The pile-on continues, proclaiming that anyone who may be in support of S.B.8 hungers to see the “subjugation of Black people” and will strike out in vengeance against… (checks notes) immigrants, Muslims, Jews, gays, lesbians, transgenders and – again – women. Not just women, mind you. Liberal women in particular.

How someone seriously summons up that much progressive angst covering the entire spectrum in response to an abortion law in Texas that may not live out the year is remarkable indeed. But we should probably have come to expect this sort of response by now.

As to the type of civil war that Blow envisions, he is careful to specify (as I did) that we’re not talking about armies marching on other state capitals. But he instead claims that the war will be fought “in courts, statehouses, and ballot boxes.” Maybe it’s just me, but a “war” taking place in those locations is what we used to refer to as the political process by which laws are passed and governance is maintained.

Different states pass different types of laws, as we all should know very well by now. There is no clearer example currently than the debates taking place over face mask mandates and immunity passports. Various states have markedly different and sometimes diametrically opposite rules in place. But that doesn’t mean that the governors and legislators of states imposing rules you don’t agree with are trying to “control the bodies” of this or that demographic group or uphold or throw down the “white racist patriarchy.” We’re talking about policy differences and how well or poorly various executives are addressing a public health issue or employing excessive authoritarian power during a state of emergency.

This isn’t a civil war. At least not yet. And if it ever does reach that point I would hope that it would be resolved through a new constitutional convention. Trust me, you don’t want an actual civil war with battlefields, particularly not against the states where all of the conservatives tend to wind up clustering. We’re the ones with almost all of the guns.