NPR comes to the realization that Civil War is indeed a possibility

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"We already are seeing 'border war' with individual states passing major legislation that differs considerably from that in other places," says Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, and William Gale, a Brookings senior fellow in economic studies, who have written a pair of articles on the fraying of the American social and political fabric.

They note that conflicts between entire states are not the only way civil war may emerge in our time, or even the most likely. When and if the issue turns to violent confrontations between local citizens and federal officers, or between contentious groups of citizens, the clash might well take place far closer to home. As West and Gale write:

Today's toxic atmosphere makes it difficult to negotiate on important issues, which makes people angry with the federal government and has helped create a winner-take-all approach to politics. When the stakes are so high, people are willing to consider extraordinary means to achieve their objectives.

And what do these careful scholars mean by "extraordinary means"?

"America has an extraordinary number of guns and private militias," they write. How many? They cite the National Shooting Sports Foundation's estimate of 434 million firearms in civilian possession in the U.S. right now. That would be 1.3 guns per person.

"Semi-automatic weapons comprise around 19.8 million in total," they add ominously, "making for a highly armed population with potentially dangerous capabilities."

The New York Times recently reviewed How Civil Wars Start by political scientist Barbara F. Walter of the University of California at San Diego. In an interview with NPR member station KPBS in San Diego a year ago, Walter said the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was surprising but should not have been because we had been watching "American democracy decline since 2016."

A scholar of international law, Walter adds: "The U.S. used to be considered a full democracy like Norway, Switzerland or Iceland," she said, "and it's now considered a partial democracy like Ecuador, Somalia or Haiti."

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