The parallel with Northern Ireland may jar but recent polling suggests it is not unwarranted. That would allow institutions to weaken and an insurgency like the Troubles in Northern Ireland could break out.” “What most worries me right now is polling that suggests somewhere between 20% and 40% of Americans would like a strongman leader who doesn’t have to follow the democratic rules. But if our institutions weaken, the story could be different,” she said. “Countries with democracies and governments as strong as America’s do not fall into civil war. The threat of violent conflict in the US also looks very different from the wars once fought by guerrillas in Latin America and Africa, or during the breakup of Yugoslavia.īut Rachel Kleinfeld, a specialist in civil conflict at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that does not mean it cannot happen. Many Americans flinch at talk of civil war because it recalls the bloodiest conflict in their history. ‘Willing to harm other Americans for their political beliefs’ “What happens when you take a society that is increasingly fearful for its future, increasingly polarised, increasingly angry at itself, and throw a bunch of guns into the mix?” he said. Wintemute said that the surge in violent threats is made more potent by rising weapons sales. That comes on top of a wave of threats against election workers since Trump alleged he was robbed of victory by fraud in 2020, and a sharp increase in intimidation of others in public service from school board members to librarians as well as elected politicians. The FBI headquarters, seen behind security fencing, in Washington DC. The FBI said these included calls for “civil war” and “ armed rebellion”.
In the days after the search of Mar-a-Lago, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned of a surge in threats of violence against federal agents, their families and the judge who issued the search warrant. In Pennsylvania, a man with a history of vaccine denial was charged with threatening to “slaughter” federal agents he described as “police state scum”, and compared to the Nazi SS and the Soviet secret police. In Ohio, the police killed an armed US navy veteran who attacked an FBI office. The Florida senator Rick Scott likened the FBI to the Gestapo. The FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month for classified documents removed from the White House unleashed the latest barrage of threats of violence, this time directed at an institution widely regarded as a bastion of establishment conservatism. But half of the population even considering such a possibility reflects the failing confidence of large numbers of Americans in a system of government under assault by Donald Trump and a good part of the Republican party. The doctor is quick to note that large numbers of those people expecting a civil war say it is only “somewhat likely”. Suddenly Wintemute didn’t think talk of a violent civil conflict was so crazy any more.
Substantial minorities of the population endorse violence, including lethal violence, to obtain political objectives,” the report concluded. “Coupled with prior research, these findings suggest a continuing alienation from and mistrust of American democratic society and its institutions. In addition, while almost everyone said it was important for the US to remain a democracy, about 40% said that having a strong leader was more important. One in five thought political violence was justified in some circumstances. A survey for his California Firearm Violence Research Center released last month showed that half of Americans expect a civil war in the United States in the next few years. Wintemute wanted answers and they stunned him. Many were buying a weapon for the first time. People are still buying guns like crazy.” “We were aware that, contrary to prior surges, this one wasn’t ending. Just an unprecedented surge in purchasing and that surge continued,” he said. “Then in January of 2020 gun sales took off.
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