Civil War?

Grab an adult beverage, or whatever, then read and think for a moment about the following:

“Is America getting ready to engage in another civil war? The question must be taken seriously. Roughly half of all Americans (as of 2023) think a civil war is likely. And a growing number of social scientists agree that the U.S. now fits the checklist profile of a country at risk. Trust in the national government is in steep decline. Check. Respect for democratic institutions is weakening. Check. A heavily armed population has polarized into two evenly divided partisan factions. Check. Each faction embodies a distinctive ethnic, cultural, and urban-vs-rural identity. Each wants its country to become something the other detests. And each fears the prospect of the other taking power. Check, check, and check.

“Most Americans, as we have seen, agree their country is becoming “less democratic” over time. Nearly all scholars agree with that assessment….Global research centers that track and analyze political indicators by country now categorize the U.S. as something less than a full democracy and anocracy [somewhere between democracy and autocracy].

“Less democracy, it turns out, could be an indicator that civil war is on the way….High trus democracies don’t often experience civil wars. Nor do low-trus tyrannies. It’s the middle ground that worries analysts….[According to Barbara F. Walter, a political scientist at UC San Diego:] ‘We are a factionalized anocracy that is quickly approaching the open insurgency stage, which means we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.’…Yet, until it happens, few people ever think it would be possible in their own country. After interviewing people who lived through civil wars, Walter reports that none saw it coming. ‘They’re all surprised.’”

Excerpt from Neil Howe, “The Fourth Turning is Here: What the seasons of history tell us about how and when the crisis will end.” Simon & Schuster, 2023

The photo above was created by OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4o at my request. It illustrates the divided nation, the polarization, and the decline of democratic institutions as described in the excerpt.