The second American civil war is underway. Only this time, it's not North versus South

A coronavirus-fueled Rural vs. Urban conflict is raging, and the death toll already surpasses five of the country's most recent armed conflicts.

The body count in what might be called the Second Civil War is now above 62,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. Unless world-renowned medical experts like Anthony Fauci — the darling of the mainstream media and American political left, who too often is drawn into and diminished by Donald Trump's outrageous reality show presidency — this increasingly un-civil conflict won't come close to the circa 600,000 American soldiers who died in the first one.

But the Covid-19 pandemic that is fueling America's Rural-Urban war already has felled more Americans than the Vietnam War (58,200), the First World War (53,402), the Korean War (36,574), the 2003 Iraq conflict (4,431) and the Afghanistan misadventure, the longest armed conflict in American history (2,445).

And the body count, the dangerous and misleading metric too many US commanders-in-chief have used to make wartime decisions, is rising on this Rural-Urban battlefield one should probably begin calling the "United" States of America.

The death toll of the first US Civil War is astonishing considering soldiers had rather crude weapons like muskets, which had to be refilled frequently, and bayonets. The Second Civil War is being waged with weapons that are anything but crude: indifference, bitterness, grievance and old-fashioned hate.

Rural America is ready to lock and load. Urban America is cowering in a lockdown.

A heavily armed group of Rural citizens stormed Michigan's State Capitol on Thursday, powerful assault rifles at the ready. But this Second Civil War won't be a shooting war, likely to the chagrin of some on the far right — and, let's be honest, the not-so-far right.

Rather, this war will be — no, already is being — waged with microscopic Covid-19 cells as Republican-leaning Rural America throws open its businesses, schools and sporting venues, ensuring they keep the deadly virus in circulation — at the expense of more densely populated Democratic-leaning Urban areas.

Red vs. Blue.

Rural vs. Urban.

Us vs. Them.

Enter Donald Trump, the Manhattanite who, still almost unbelievably, has become an almost Christ-like figure in three areas of the "United" States: the Sun Belt (South and Southwest), the Midwest and the Mountain West. All are predominantly rural. If one compares a map of the final 2016 presidential election results to one showing which states are reopening amid the still-spreading coronavirus, they'll see an almost mirror image.

The penthouse-dwelling, luxury resort-owning president has the legal authority to run the entire federal government and conduct US foreign policy on behalf of all 50 states. But, let's be clear, he is the true leader of roughly half.

"The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal," Trump tweeted Friday morning.

Liberals have mused for five years that Trump wants to trigger an second armed conflict with Americans shooting at their countrymen. This correspondent has never bought in to such fears, but the president clearly is willing — eager, even as he seems ready to do anything to stay in power — to fan the flames of the growing Rural-Urban divide.

The "very good people" tweet is eerily reminiscent of his August 2017 remark that there was "hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" of the Charlottesville, Virginia violence spawned by white supremacist protests there that summer that killed one counter-protester.

But, in the president's mind, keeping his mostly Rural base energized heading into November's (scheduled) election is paramount, as this correspondent writes daily. One way, amid stay-at-home orders and a shuttered economy, is by siding with them on what seems their core argument: Government-ordered boredom and a temporary economic downturn is unconstitutional; but citizens have a constitutional right to the option to undertake activities — including commerce — to contract the coronavirus or any other transmittable disease.

To be sure, some Washington conservatives are rightly worried about the economic hit the country is taking over all this. But more often, their argument for this Covid Civil War is that, in the "United" States, no government — local, state or federal — possesses the legal authority to create mass boredom by fiat. Not even during a public health emergency.

Trump, the populist hero of Rural America, doesn't have to make this argument each day. All he has to do is allude to it in his unique style a few days per week and his allies, fearful of his tight grip on conservative and even "establishment" Republican voters, will beat that drum like a Confederate drum major.

"Boy, I'll tell you, people want to get back and they want to get out of their houses, they want to get back to their jobs, they want to open up their businesses," Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott, a former Sunshine State governor, told Fox News. Two Fox & Friends co-anchors quickly said "yes" in unison, reflecting that network's willingness to also fan the Rural-Urban divide. (In some ways, the network is its epicenter.)

"I mean it's, you could, you could see the pent-up interest in, I mean people are tired of being home," the senator added.

One of those Fox personalities, Brian Kilmeade, even used the w-word during the same interview, saying to Scott: "Let's talk about the war you're having now with New York, which really represents the high tax states against the minimal tax states, maybe red and blue."

Like Trump, folks in red (Rural) states feel the victim of larger (Urban) ones. It's been that way since the States became "United." But now, this Second Civil War is creating regional alliances among states, as Playboy magazine White House correspondent Brian Karem has noted, highlighting regional pacts among states to purchase medical equipment Trump initially refused to help them obtain and coordinate economic plans about which the president basically shrugged when asked if he would craft.

"Years from now, if the republic dissolves into many countries where there once was one, historians will take a long look at the regional state pacts created to deal with the coronavirus as the seeds for that outcome," Karem wrote last month.

The Covid Civil War also is, once again, highlighting America's so-far unresolved tensions among white people and people of color.

Senator Kamala Harris, an African-American California Democrat, and other Democrats have introduced legislation intended to address the coronavirus's higher death toll among minorities in the "United" States.

Among other things, it would "require federal agencies to make, again, targeted data-driven investments in these communities to ensure that the allocation of resources such as masks and gowns and test kits, that they are proportionate to the need of those various communities," Harris told reporters this week on a conference call. "Also, again, based on the data, the task force [the bill would create] will make recommendations about how released funds should be distributed."

But Trump's top officers in this Second Civil War appear in no mood to help African-American communities, many of which are in Urban (read: blue) states.

When asked during his own Fox interview about Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's demand for $1 trillion more in federal aid to help cash-strapped states, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise, of hard-hit Louisiana, made clear the Covid Civil War will include many a battle over taxpayer funds,.

"Well, did she forget that Congress literally just sent out $150 billion to states just last week? Most of these states just got the money, haven't even started spending it yet and she's talking about giving them more money? For goodness’ sake, I mean, there are trillions of dollars out the door," an exasperated Mr Scalise said. "We're trying to help families and small businesses hang on right now. And it seems like the only state she's interested in helping are those states that had multi-billion-dollar deficits before Covid-19.”

Again, that's code for Urban states like California, Illinois and others with pricey state pension programs.

The battlelines have been drawn. Rural America — always aggrieved — is armed and ready to end its perpetual boredom, AR-15s around their shoulders and "Make America Great Again" t-shirts on their backs. Urban America — always smug — has designer masks to create Instagram selfies and meaty scientific studies to keep it occupied.

Can non-woven fabric defeat the steel core of a .223 Remington rifle bullet? Neither can kill the coronavirus. But with Rural America hellbent on ending its boredom, the now-plateaued number of US coronavirus cases could remain flat — yet high — for some time, as noted by Jeremy Konyndyk, a former director of the US Agency for International Development's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

That means the Urban side of the war will continue to see higher death tolls. Trump let us know early on he viewed this as a "war" and was focused on the body count. This Second Civil War is in its early battles. Advantage: Rural America.