User:Jaydavidmartin/Second American Civil War

Culture war as Second American Civil War
A number of political commentators from both the political left and right have considered the "culture war" between modern American conservatives and liberals over opposing cultural, moral, and religious ideals as either an actual Second Civil War or a prelude to one. Political scientist and specialist in civil wars Barbara F. Walter has argued, for instance, that an increase in domestic terrorism (such as the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting) and a high rate of gun violence in the United States could be indicators of an impending second civil war. There is also considerable concern among the general public that a Second Civil War could erupt in the near future; a 2018 Rasmussen poll, for instance, found that 31 percent of American voters feared that the intense partisanship following the 2016 presidential election and the victory of Donald Trump would cause a Second Civil War within five years and a 2019 poll by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service revealed that "the average voter believes the U.S. is two-thirds of the way to the edge of a civil war". Actual efforts to spark a Civil War have been minimal, though not non-existent; 14 members of a group called Wolverine Watchmen, for instance, were arrested in late 2020 for plotting to kidnap the Governor of Michigan in an effort to start a second civil war that would "lead to societal collapse". Limited digital efforts to spark or show support for a civil war have also occurred; the hashtags #CivilWar2 and #CivilWarSignup, for instance, trended on Twitter in support of comments made by United States President Donald Trump following his impeachment by the House of Representatives in December 2019. Few politicians have called for or suggested a civil war, though there have been a small number of instances; the Republican House Representative Steve King, for instance, posted a much-criticized Internet meme on March 19, 2019 reading, "Folks keep talking about another civil war. One side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use".

Political commentators cite a plenitude of reasons to believe a cold Second Civil War is already underway or a violent civil war could erupt. Increasing political polarization, in particular, is frequently cited as cause for concern. Thomas E. Ricks, for instance, argued in a 2017 article for Foreign Policy that the current political tensions in the United States could escalate to asymmetric or irregular warfare with the help of increasing radicalization and digital propaganda, and speculated that "the likelihood of a second U.S. civil war in the next five years is between 20 and 40 percent but trending upward significantly". A proliferation of conspiracy theories involving domestic actors, like the "deep state", have also been argued as factors that could spark a civil war; former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, for instance, has argued that deep state theories could serve as an ideological justification for an insurgency supported by the U.S. Armed Forces. Writing for the National Review, Victor Davis Hanson blamed the policies of President Barack Obama, the Digital Revolution, "campus radicalism," and globalization for bringing the United States to "the brink of a veritable civil war."

The polarizing presidency of Donald Trump has also often been suggested as a potential spark for a civil war. In March 2019, investigative journalist Carl Bernstein said in an interview that the U.S. was in a "cold civil war" and that Trump was every day bringing it closer to ignition. Later that year conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh stated that the United States had entered a "Cold Civil War" after the start of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump during the 2019 Trump-Ukraine scandal. During the Special Counsel investigation by Robert Mueller, Sean Hannity claimed on his radio show that an attempt to remove President Trump from office would result in a civil war "fighting and dividing this country at a level we’ve never seen" between "those that stand for truth and those that literally buy into the corrupt deep state attacks against a duly elected president." After the opening of the impeachment inquiry, President Trump made a Twitter post paraphrasing an evangelical Christian pastor and Fox News contributor, Robert Jeffress: "If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal."

Trump's actions and rhetoric with regards to race, in particular, have been criticized for their capacity to spark greater civil conflict and perhaps even civil war. Worries of civil war peaked during the George Floyd protests, with several former CIA analysts openly expressing fear that President Donald Trump would commence a military crackdown against protesters, possibly risking a violent national collapse. Tensions were particularly high when Donald Trump ordered tear gas be used against nonviolent protesters in Lafayette Square for a photo op at St. John's Episcopal Church, accompanied with calls from Trump for the U.S. Armed Forces to be deployed against protesters across the country under the Insurrection Act. King University professor Gail Helt wrote "I've seen this kind of violence.... This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me." Marc Polymeropoulos compared President Trump to Bashar al-Assad, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi. Other analysts accused the Trump administration as describing American urban centers as foreign war zones, or criticized his intent to declare the antifa movement a terrorist organization as a pretext for a crackdown. Additionally, a U.S. intelligence report claimed that the Boogaloo movement, a far right extremist movement, was active in the protests. This included both radical anti-government activists, and white-supremacists who seek to cause a second Civil War by undermining race relations.

Other political and social commentators acknowledge that extreme partisan politics on Capitol Hill, accompanied by related commonplace verbal and occasional physical acts of aggression in the streets, are tearing apart the fabric of American society,     but point to the fact that "culture wars cycles" are imminent to the process of replenishing American values, and the first such cycle started after George Washington's retirement, and that Americans have to find "America's middle again and return to civility."

Secession
The conservative political commentator David French argued in his 2020 book Divided We Fall that escalating political polarization in 21st century America is creating the conditions for a fracturing of the United States, which could lead to civil war. He considers two fictionalized near-futures in which the United States splits into two or three separate countries:
 * 1) Calexit (split over gun rights): Following years of conservative control of the Supreme Court, which results in most of California's gun control measures being struck down, French considers how a mass shooting in California could result in the state government of California (a strongly liberal state) passing restrictive gun control measures in direct and knowing contradiction of Supreme Court precedent. He relays how the polarization of the country could harden significantly over the issue, as liberals defend California's moves to protect its citizens from gun violence while conservaties mount opposition to California's refusal to protect its citizens constitutional right to bear arms. National furor escalates as militias threaten to move into California, California seizes guns within the state and tightens its borders,
 * 2) Texit (split over abortion rights):