Professor Barbara Walter, a political science professor from University of San Diego, indicates that the U.S carries some risk of Civil War. See Insurgency Risk. She states there are risk factors and the U.S. went down low to a 5 and then bounced back to a healthier 8. While each civil war is unique there are some shared characteristics often based on the strength of our institutions and our support of things like rule of law (In my opinion which looks like it aligns with hers.)
Some of the risks we face are that the far right is pushing politics to be defined by racial and religious demographics (See article). When we begin to do that we also run the risk of mixing our politics with very deeply rooted self preservation issues and that can lead to a false perception of justification for violent bad behavior (i.e. replacement theory, popularity of conspiracy theories, stolen elections, etc...).
While I would like to go play golf with Trump (I'm just making a point) and could learn much from him about his big business deals I'm not sure I would want him to be our president. He seems to use the same tools for different problems and we need more cognitive flexibility in a complex global world. A win at all costs is sometimes not the best approach for long term national health.
What I do believe is that I respect Liz Cheney for her ability to stand up for certain principles and Mike Pence for his capacity to block an obviously dangerous move (If we find she was right she might become a very important person with a shot at future presidency. Not this election cycle but perhaps a few down the road.). You can see many of the other candidates blindly following without thinking about what they are saying, doing or the long term health of the nation (Because it is personality based you will find that once distorted values take hold its not party specific. Its cause specific. Yet in this case the far right has moved really far right so they are self-confirming false information . World Inside-Outside Groups.). Our big GOP donors should probably be supporting these two candidates (Whole Nation Affair).
Do I believe that civil war is coming? No....we aren't there yet. I would suspect about 20% of our society is willing to engage in violence to get "their" way (right and left) but it is enough to create chaos. Such extremist far right groups would engage political hits, try to silence opposition, and coordinate general chaos building (i.e. eating ourselves from the inside). The would be in essence true domestic terrorists (Notice how its not race or religion specific. Dugh!!)
I would suspect that some of these groups have been working with foreign intelligence (I said this the moment we found documents uploading and within a few hours of the non organic sacking of our capital. See January 17th, 2021 Uploading Documents, Russian Election Interference, Capitol Riots FBI, Weapons of Media, US Summit, Cyber Attack, Biggest Threats, Hagel in History ). Its just an opinion with some support. Investigation and time will determine truth (I could be wrong and be ok with that....its a probability and not a fact. Right and wrong means little. I hope I'm wrong.)
No matter who wins in the next elections I would encourage our leaders to focus on solutions, support rational centers, and our current institutions (judicial, DOJ, FBI, and intelligence communities) to work toward discovering and thwarting any groups (whether right or left) that believe in violence as a political, racial, religious, or legal solution. If Trump does get prosecuted it could mean short term chaos but it is unlikely to be able to last long (Its not a fact just a 15% possibility. 99% someone will do something but 15% that it will have any level of sustained coordination. We should protect our national assets.).
Let us wait and see what happens.....
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