{"id":495863,"date":"2025-10-13T10:07:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/495863\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:07:15","slug":"is-america-on-the-brink-of-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/495863\/","title":{"rendered":"Is America on the brink of civil war?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political violence isn\u2019t new in America. But the reaction to it today feels different.<\/p>\n

After the killing of Charlie Kirk, the country didn\u2019t rally around a message of restraint. Instead, key leaders treated it as ammunition. That shift, combined with a rise in tit-for-tat attacks and a politicized security apparatus, points to a more dangerous phase in our politics.<\/p>\n

Barbara Walter is a political scientist at University of California San Diego and the author of How Civil Wars Start<\/a>. She studies how democracies slide into instability \u2014 and how they pull back. I invited Walter onto The Gray Area to talk about what makes this moment distinct, why lone-actor violence is rising, how leaders\u2019 rhetoric can normalize force, and what it would actually take to lower the temperature.<\/p>\n

As always, there\u2019s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow The Gray Area<\/a> on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen a lot of political violence over the history of this country, and certainly there have been more violent periods than this one. But you\u2019ve said this moment still feels different \u2014 and more dangerous \u2014 than earlier waves of violence. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are three big differences. The first is how our leaders are responding. Historically, when tragedy struck \u2014 whether it was an assassination, a terrorist attack, or a domestic bombing \u2014 the instinct among political leaders was to unify the country. That\u2019s especially important in a place as diverse and heterogeneous as the United States. After events like 9\/11, after the Oklahoma City bombing, after political assassinations in the 1960s, you saw Democrats and Republicans stand together, condemn the violence, and reassure people that we were one nation.<\/p>\n

This time, that didn\u2019t happen. Within hours of Charlie Kirk\u2019s killing<\/a>, key figures on the right used it as a political weapon. Instead of calls for peace or restraint, it became a rallying cry. We saw people like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon go straight to \u201ccivil war\u201d language. Even the president spoke about \u201cgoing after them,\u201d even though, as we later learned, this was a lone actor \u2014 a young man radicalized online. The immediate response wasn\u2019t unity. It was vengeance. That\u2019s new, and it\u2019s dangerous.<\/p>\n

You have a useful phrase \u2014 \u201cviolence entrepreneurs\u201d \u2014 to describe people who take chaotic or random events and weaponize them for political gain.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing. A single act of violence becomes propaganda. Instead of treating these as isolated crimes, political actors fold them into a broader narrative of existential threat: \u201cThey\u2019re out to get us.\u201d That language radicalizes faster than any ideology.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve also written that violence is no longer one-sided and that this shift makes the situation even more volatile. Tell me about the dynamic that emerges once we get caught in a spiral like that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It does make the situation more volatile. For a long time, political violence in the US came overwhelmingly from the far right. Now we\u2019re starting to see incidents from the other end of the spectrum. It\u2019s still fewer, but the rise is real and significant.<\/p>\n

A recent study<\/a> by Dan Byman at Georgetown found that attacks linked to far-left causes are at their highest levels in 30 years. That doesn\u2019t mean equivalence. The far right remains far more lethal, but it does mean the dynamic is changing. And when violence stops being one-sided, it becomes self-sustaining. Each side points to the other as proof of an imminent threat.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, after the Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI was able to identify and infiltrate militias, prosecute leaders, and dramatically reduce membership. That was possible because the threat was concentrated in one place. Once you have reciprocal violence \u2014 right and left, each using the other\u2019s attacks to justify its own \u2014 the logic becomes self-feeding.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the \u201cself-feeding\u201d logic? That violence is no longer seen as a choice but rather as an act of defense or self-preservation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. And that shift \u2014 from ideological violence to defensive violence \u2014 is when democracies tip into instability. Every country has a fringe that dreams of revolution. Most people want safety. But if you convince enough citizens that their safety and survival are under attack, they\u2019ll tolerate almost anything. They\u2019ll arm themselves. They\u2019ll look the other way when opponents are targeted.<\/p>\n

Your third reason for concern is about the state of law enforcement \u2014 that our institutions aren\u2019t what they once were. What do you mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd here\u2019s the key: Incoherent violence is still politically useful. Opportunistic leaders can project any narrative they want onto it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean the leadership. The FBI, Homeland Security, even the Defense Department \u2014 these are crucial guardians of internal stability. For most of modern history, they were led by professionals with deep expertise, people trusted to operate above partisanship. That\u2019s no longer the case.<\/p>\n

Today, we have leaders who are political appointees first, experts second. We\u2019re talking about people with little experience and strong partisan loyalties. Imagine if someone like Kash Patel had been FBI director after Oklahoma City. He wouldn\u2019t have known how to dismantle militias, and he might have been told not to. When the people at the top don\u2019t believe in the mission or don\u2019t understand it, even the best agents beneath them can\u2019t function.<\/p>\n

So the danger isn\u2019t the rank and file so much as the politicization of the top.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly. You can have brilliant, dedicated public servants throughout those agencies, but if leadership is partisan and cowardly, they won\u2019t act on the intelligence they have.<\/p>\n

You study civil wars. If there\u2019s a spectrum where one end is perfect social peace and harmony and the other pole is Mad Max: Fury Road, where is the United States right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d say that we\u2019re in the high-risk zone. That doesn\u2019t mean armies facing each other in the field \u2014 modern civil wars rarely look like that. They look more like insurgency or sustained domestic terror: sporadic attacks, targeted killings, the erosion of safety in daily life. Think of Israel\u2019s long struggle with Hamas. It\u2019s not a conventional war, but a constant, low-level threat that makes normal life feel precarious.<\/p>\n

Americans tend to treat events like Buffalo or El Paso or Pittsburgh as isolated tragedies. But seen together, they form a pattern: steady, ideologically charged violence that\u2019s been normalized. That\u2019s the danger \u2014 when a society stops recognizing violence as extraordinary.<\/p>\n

What are the underlying conditions that create that \u201chigh-risk\u201d environment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d focus on three things. The first is a weak democracy. Most political violence happens not in dictatorships or strong democracies but in partial democracies \u2014 regimes that are neither fully open nor fully closed. That\u2019s where the US sits today.<\/p>\n

The second condition is identity-based political parties. When parties are organized around race, religion, or ethnicity, competition becomes more existential. The Republican Party is still about 80 percent white in a multiethnic nation; that makes it an identity-based party by definition.<\/p>\n

The third condition is status loss. The group that once held dominance and feels it slipping \u2014 politically, culturally, demographically \u2014 is the one most likely to turn to violence.<\/p>\n

How much has public acceptance of political violence changed? What does the data tell us?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Surveys show it\u2019s growing. When asked if violence is justified \u201cunder some circumstances,\u201d more Americans now say yes. In some polls, as many as four in ten say violence can be justified in self-defense. Historically, that number was near zero. It\u2019s rising on both sides, though still higher on the right.<\/p>\n

Going from \u201cnear zero\u201d to four out of 10 is\u2026concerning.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is. The models political scientists use put the annual risk of significant instability at roughly 4 percent for countries like ours \u2014 partially democratic, identity-divided. Four percent sounds small, but if nothing changes, it compounds. Ten years later, you\u2019re in coin-flip territory. Twenty years later, near certainty. The key question is whether the fundamentals improve or degrade.<\/p>\n

What about from the top down? We talked about the reactions of leaders to violence earlier, but there\u2019s also a long history of leaders manufacturing acts of violence to cement their own power.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s another piece I\u2019m increasingly worried about, something I haven\u2019t written about yet but Americans should understand. Most civil wars begin from below, driven by factions or militias. But wars are also started by leaders. In these cases, war is deliberately manufactured to keep a ruler in power, to slam the door on democracy.<\/p>\n

Look at Putin. After his initial democratic election in the 1990s, he consolidated power by starting a war in Chechnya, then Syria, then Crimea, then Ukraine. Each conflict stirred nationalism, created a rally-around-the-flag effect, and allowed him to declare emergency rule \u2014 suspending normal democratic constraints as long as the fighting continued.<\/p>\n

When I wake up in the middle of the night and worry about America, this is what I think about: that before the 2028 election, when he\u2019s supposed to be term-limited out, Donald Trump could fabricate some kind of emergency \u2014 one that includes organized violence \u2014 and use it as a pretext to stay in the White House.<\/p>\n

The one big variable at play now that wasn\u2019t in the past is the internet and social media, which you\u2019ve described as an \u201caccelerant.\u201d How does that fit in?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine the same demagogue without social media. We grew up in that world \u2014 three TV networks, editors who filtered what aired, shared sources of truth. Today, leaders don\u2019t need traditional gatekeepers. They can communicate directly with millions, amplify division, normalize violence, and target enemies in real time.<\/p>\n

The technology isolates people in echo chambers, feeds them outrage, and makes them feel constantly under threat. That\u2019s not just a communication problem. It\u2019s a structural vulnerability and a force multiplier for polarization and radicalization.<\/p>\n

In the past, much of America\u2019s political violence felt more organized. The Weather Underground, the Klan, militias, even Oklahoma City \u2014 there were clear ideological projects behind all of this. A lot of recent attacks seem almost post-ideological \u2014 less coherent movements than chaotic individuals. Does that change how we should understand them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ideology now is often incoherent, but that doesn\u2019t make it harmless. Many of these attackers are steeped in online culture \u2014 memes, irony, trolling. It looks unserious, but it\u2019s a gateway to radicalization. The mix of \u201cjokes,\u201d conspiracy, and alienation becomes its own belief system.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the key: Incoherent violence is still politically useful. Opportunistic leaders can project any narrative they want onto it. Whether the killer\u2019s motives are fascist, leftist, or nihilist doesn\u2019t matter. It will be spun as evidence that the other side is evil and a reason for revenge, or for crackdowns.<\/p>\n

So the danger isn\u2019t just violence itself, but how it\u2019s <\/strong>interpreted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the motive is muddy, narrative fills the vacuum. And when the loudest megaphones belong to people eager to exploit chaos, the narrative almost always escalates fear.<\/p>\n

Are you surprised that we don\u2019t see more political violence than we do? Given how polarized we are, given how many guns we have, given how much we\u2019ve deranged ourselves online?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not really. Americans are, on the whole, remarkably kind and generous. If you travel this country \u2014 even to its reddest or bluest corners \u2014 most people are friendly. What\u2019s heartbreaking is how that basic decency coexists with political dysfunction and gun saturation.<\/p>\n

Other advanced democracies don\u2019t live like this. Our gun laws make every outburst more lethal. If we simply kept firearms out of the hands of people with domestic-violence histories or untreated mental illness, the number of tragedies would plummet. That\u2019s not partisan. It\u2019s just basic harm reduction.<\/p>\n

So solutions have to come from the bottom up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think so. Congress has ceded much of its checking power to the presidency. Neither party has delivered serious democratic reforms. Real change will come from civic action: massive voter turnout, broad-based peaceful protest, and local pressure for fair elections.<\/p>\n

If 75 or 80 percent of eligible Americans voted, even in midterms, the composition of Congress would look entirely different. We know from history that when just 3 or 4 percent of a population engages in sustained, nonviolent protest, regimes shift. The math is on the people\u2019s side \u2014 if they use it.<\/p>\n

Some people will hear this and think it\u2019s an overreaction, that bad things happen, they\u2019ve always happened, they\u2019ve been much worse than this in the past, and the system always self-corrects. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I wish that were true. But democracies rarely collapse overnight. It\u2019s a gradual slide \u2014 what Hungarians call \u201cdeath by a thousand cuts.\u201d Each violation of a norm feels small, forgivable, even reasonable. Over time, those cuts add up. By the time citizens realize what\u2019s been lost, it\u2019s too late to reverse.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Viktor Orb\u00e1n did in Hungary<\/a>. He was elected democratically, then slowly rewrote the rules: changed voting laws, captured the courts, silenced the press. Each step was survivable; together, they ended democracy.<\/p>\n

The American public. I don\u2019t believe most Americans will roll over for authoritarianism. They\u2019re used to freedom. They value it deeply, even when they disagree about everything else. If they realize what\u2019s at stake, they\u2019ll act. That\u2019s my hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Political violence isn\u2019t new in America. But the reaction to it today feels different. After the killing of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[110793,196,65706,46,7611,285,114163,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-495863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-criminal-justice","9":"tag-podcasts","10":"tag-police-violence","11":"tag-policy","12":"tag-political-violence","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-the-gray-area","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115366307202734027","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}