Civil War” is a new movie that imagines a United States at war with itself. Not back in the 1800s but in a not-so-distant 21st century future.

The movie depicts Americans fighting one another. Some states have seceded from the nation.

In one scene, an unarmed man says he is an American when faced with a heavily armed man, who responds, “What kind of American are you?”

Sadly, given the actual divisions in our country, it’s not hard to imagine such an exchange off the movie screen.

But we should desperately try to imagine the implications of a 21st century civil war, before it’s too late.

The movie opened April 12, which is the anniversary date of the start of the Civil War, April 12, 1861, when Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter.

In the early days of the actual war, many people viewed the conflict as entertainment but soon received a hard and brutal message.

By July 21, a little more than a handful of months into secession, nearby residents were so intrigued by the war that they gathered with picnic baskets to watch the First Battle of Bull Run also known as the Battle of First Manassas in Virginia, where 28,000 Union soldiers clashed with 32,000 Confederate soldiers.

Civilians brought food to eat and opera glasses for a better look. Like Americans at a modern sports event. They expected to watch a quick, bloodless rout.

They came to be entertained.

Soon, they would flee for safety, in horror, with a terrible inkling of the bloody nightmare to come.

Spectators witnessed the start of a violent battle that left 2,800-plus Union soldiers dead, injured, missing and captured, and 1,900-plus Confederate casualties.

They expected the war to be brief and mostly bloodless. And if they expected more then many spectators and other Americans got far more than they wanted.

The war lasted four long years and led to tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. Tens of thousands of American deaths that included combatants and civilians.

They had likely talked about “civil war” as we talk about the Georgia-Florida football game. As an event with a political winner or loser but a festival-style event where one side gets bragging rights and the other side is the loser. Probably not expecting to lose sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, grandsons, mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, granddaughters.

Even with such a stark history lesson as our Civil War and the disturbing parable of the movie “Civil War,” some Americans throw around words like secession and a new civil war as if talking about another game.

As if Americans with whom we disagree will simply disappear or be marked as losers and put in their place. As if half of the people with whom they disagree don’t live on the same streets, in the same cities. As if there would be no displacement, injury or death of loved ones.

Everyone would lose in a civil war. Everyone would lose something, even the “winners” would suffer loss.

Growing up, many Americans learned the American Civil War in the 1860s pitted “brother against brother.” What we need to remember in the 2020s is that brother against brother means brother killing brother.

Dean Poling is a former editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and The Tifton Gazette.