I just finished "Our War" by Craig DiLouie, and I have to say it is one of the most realistic depictions of war in the United States I have ever read
The president is impeached and convicted, but refuses to leave, triggering a nationwide civil war as federal, state, and local forces fracture into pro-congress and pro-executive sides. That's the backdrop for the story of child soldiers in Indianapolis, a reporter struggling to break this news to the world amidst censorship, and a UNICEF aid worker helping those she can. The story focuses on the left-wing Free Women militia in their battle against the right-wing Liberty Tree militia. Both sides are fractured, each just one militia among many fighting for the same causes, with disagreements over how things should be done. The novel captures the factionalism I feel enveloping our country; the author's sympathies lie with the left, but he doesn't paint them as the be-all-end-all of truth and justice. He doesn't resort to false equivalencies either, he's not saying that both sides are morally equal, he just acknowledges that in war a good cause does not automatically make good people. The left wingers are split between the centrists in charge of the government and the leftist fringe, which is how it would be in real life. The right wingers are every man for himself, dozens of factions all claiming to be the one true conservatives, everyone else is doing it wrong. Liberty Tree are generic militiamen, the Proud Boys, the 3 Percenters, Patriots Prayer, you name it. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) is playing both sides, hedging their bets to see which will come out on top. The First Angels are religious extremists, America's Taliban, who commit war crimes in the name of establishing a theocracy. This last group is the deadliest and most terrifying, but are quickly wiped out due to their own hubris, uniting the left wing factions against them.
I do wish more attention were paid to the political aspects of the war. We know that Democrats control Congress and impeached and convicted the president, but there's no way there would be total unity in Congress. We've seen two impeachment's in as many years, and both times were bitterly partisan affairs with one half of Congress protecting the president from the other half. The president in this novel would hold sway over his half of Congress no matter what he did, he wouldn't be a lone wolf fighting a war without allies in the legislature. The Vice President is never mentioned, so we don't know their reaction to the president's impeachment, though we can assume they refused to be sworn in after he was convicted and removed from office. There's no talk of the Speaker of the House either, who would be next in line behind the pres and vp; at the end of the novel there are peace talks between the president and "the president of the senate," which is the official job of the Vice President, so is the VP on Congress's side? Or is it the president pro tempore, the longest serving member of the senate majority party and 3rd in line behind the VP and Speaker? It's never touched upon, and I think it's a missed opportunity, though that's not what this story was about. This was a story about individuals in a specific battle on a specific front on a specific city.
All in all, I recommend it for those of you interested in hard dystopia. It paints the right wing nutjobs as human, but not sympathetic; they are the bad guys, full stop, and are fighting a losing war based on an empty ideology founded on fear. Fear of the unknown, fear or change, fear of unfairness. If they win, they still lose because their fighting will never end; nothing will be enough for them, they can never fill in the hole they feel. The war wasn't a valve that could be opened and closed, it was a dam bursting, you can't stop the floodwaters from coming. They'll keep finding more ad more enemies, fighting a war of attrition to the last man. It's a terrifying story because it realistically shows that these people have no endgame, no concrete plans beyond he immediate future, just feelings of hatred and vindictiveness
