What If We Had a Civil War Lite?

Wes O'Donnell
6 min readJun 13, 2024

Half the calories, all the flavor…

Photo by Lee Lawson on Unsplash

The moment I realized that the United States was in real trouble started with a routine trip to my local gas station last week.

We had just taken our Siberian Huskies to a dog park to play with some furry friends, and on our way home, I stopped by our neighborhood Wesco to top off the family truckster.

I’m going to be honest with you — I don’t look at gas prices.

I simply don’t care. It’s one of those products that has “inelastic demand,” as I used to tell my marketing students when I taught college.

Essentially, inelastic demand means that (unlike a normal supply and demand scenario), with gasoline, there are few substitute goods–a good that, if consumed, can reduce the consumption of another good.

In other words, people still buy gas no matter what the price fluctuates to (within reason).

So, there I am pumping gas and on the other side of the pump a fifty-something man pulls in and gets out of his truck.

He peeked around the pump to look at me and then approached me saying, “Can you believe these gas prices have gone down — all to make one man in the White House look good for reelection?!”

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Wes O'Donnell
Wes O'Donnell

Written by Wes O'Donnell

US Army & US Air Force Veteran | Global Security Writer | Intel Forecaster | Law Student | TEDx Speaker | Pro Democracy | Pro Human | Hates Authoritarians