One year after Jan. 6, is America headed for a civil war?

Jordan One year ago today, a lot of the hyperbole around Donald Trump and his supporters being a threat to American democracy stopped being hyperbole.

Donald Trump Clips Now it is up to Congress to confront this agreed assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down.

Jordan In the years since Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building, there have been arrests and inquiries and millions of column inches written about the dark days coming for America. But has anything been done to stop it from happening again, or to stop something even worse from happening? Polls say both Democrats and Republicans approval for violence against political opponents is increasing. And really, you don’t even need a poll to see that. Just talk to an American from either party. Most of them might not really want to kill one another, but there’s no shortage of contempt and talk of secession on either side. But as the Republican assault on democracy continues, it’s fair to ask where this all leads. What is the end game? As the populace becomes ever more divided, how bad could it really get? Today’s guest will try to help us imagine it.

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, this is The Big Story. Stephen Marche is a reporter and the author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future. Hey, Stephen.

Stephen Hey. How are you?

Jordan I’m doing well, I want you to take me back to one year ago today, January 6, as you were watching what was happening at the capital, what was going through your mind?

Stephen Well, I’ve been sort of around these people for quite a while by that point, like reporting from gun shows in Tulsa and going and talking to oath keepers in various places in Ohio and sort of talking to far right figures of various kinds. And so it didn’t really come as a surprise to me. Neither the event nor the lack of organization of the event. So, yeah, it was sort of like, well, yeah, this is kind of what I expected.

Jordan And at this point, you are, I guess, putting the finishing touches on this book that’s just out now?

Stephen Most of it was written. I mean, I did have to throw in a lot of chapters because they kept happening. But, yeah, I mean, I was definitely well into the book, like, three years into the book by that point. There were a lot of finishing touches because things kept accelerating so much. And in fact, this past year, it’s accelerated much faster than I thought it would from the previous three years. So, yeah, I was getting to the end of it. And then all of a sudden, everything changed.

Jordan Yeah. Typical. We’re going to talk about exactly how fast it’s accelerating in just a few minutes. But first, we discussed this in late 2018, when you wrote the original essay for the Walrus. I want to figure out what set you on that path originally. Was it Trump? Was it something before that? Where did the sentiment begin?

Stephen It was when I attended the Trump inauguration, that event had a very fall of Rome vibe, like it was violence on the streets and the police barely able to keep order. And then, on the other hand, people giving out free joints and then going and visiting high level bureaucrats who had left, their institutions basically had shut down during the Trump turnover. And so clearly something was very wrong with America right then. I sort of said to myself, okay, well, this is what I need to look at. This is what is the most important for me to observe and to record. And then so I basically just started crisscrossing America and talking to all the experts I could about the immediate future of the United States and what it looked like.

Jordan What’s the consensus if there is one about the immediate future of the United States? And here I know your book takes a longer view, but I’m now talking about this year, I guess maybe up to 2024.

Stephen I don’t think there’s a consensus. What I’ve really done in this book is I’ve synthesized a lot of things. So I’ve synthesized, like, agricultural information and the best agricultural information, along with the dangers to cities from climate change and the political stuff, like what trends lead to civil wars historically and what the inequality situation means and put them all together. But the truth is that the way these systems work, it’s a complex cascading system, so they all feed into each other and sort of when one bad thing happens, it can become a loop that feeds into other bad things.

And so that’s what makes it so unpredictable. That’s why the totally unexpected and unimaginable keep happening. I’m presenting models here, and I’m presenting slight projections, but they’re just very minor leaps in the future, because I don’t think you really need to predict too much when it comes to an American Civil war. But the truth is that this system is so destabilized and so chaotic that it could turn out in a whole bunch of different ways.

Jordan Before we get into the ways that it could turn out. Maybe for listeners who haven’t read the original essay and haven’t heard much about the book because it’s a really interesting approach. Rather than diagnosing the problem now, as you mentioned, you’re synthesizing scenarios here. How did you approach this essay and this book? It’s a work of reported speculative fiction, a thought exercise? How did you define that? And what was the process?

Stephen Well, it’s speculative nonfiction is what we’re calling it. I mean, essentially, I based it on the essay that was turned into the day after, which was written for Congress about what a nuclear attack would look like on Lawrence, Kansas. Somebody just wrote a piece of fiction to sort of describe what a nuclear attack on Lawrence, Kansas would look like. And I was just like, well, let’s do that. Let’s take that approach where we’ll say, okay, what happens when a Sheriff decides to not follow the mandates of the federal government anymore? What actually happens? What happens when a Hurricane hits New York? They have incredibly accurate models of this. They know to the street what parts of New York will become uninhabitable. And then also, what would an assassination look like today? What do the people who know what they’re talking about think would happen in that case? As well as, like the military people about what the nature of an American occupation would look like.

So it was sort of taking these projections, but then there’s not a line in the book that isn’t backed up by a lot of research. I mean, 200 interviews, traveled across America, talked to everyone from either side. Nazis, the extreme left, everyone, to try and get what’s happening. So that was basically the technique of the book.

Jordan I’m not going to ask you to give away the entire book, and we don’t have the time for that. But as you look at this book now, of the several scenarios that you’ve kind of explored with research, which of them can you walk us through? Which of them most worry you, I guess, given events of the past year?

Stephen Well, I think they’re genuinely all quite likely. I think at some point there is going to be a scenario where the militias decide to rally and decide to find a focal point. January 6 was one of those points. But there could be a lot of things. I chose a bridge as an example. I mean, there were actually some violence over the build back better Bill, and about infrastructure. But the point really is that America is very dry tinder, and all it’s going to take is a spark to set it on fire. I mean, that’s really the point here.

Jordan When you talk about those militias, and you mentioned even in your initial answer, that they were so unorganized at the Capitol. And there’s that famous photo of one of them sitting in one of the representatives desk with his feet up kind of having no idea what to do that they’d actually gotten that far. And I guess what I wonder is we should take this seriously, obviously, it’s a very real threat. On the other hand, it’s really hard to picture these guys getting it together to create a serious threat that could start a civil war.

Stephen Did you think when Donald Trump took an elevator through a crowd of actors they’d hired to applaud him, that it was a serious threat to American democracy? I didn’t. I thought it was a joke. I thought it was hilarious. Things that begin as jokes turn out to be real, and the consequences of them certainly are real. These people are very serious. I would also say that one of the blind spots that the Liberals have around the far right is that they tend to think of them as like jailhouse Nazis with born to lose tattooed on. I mean, I’ve spoken to a lot of really far right people who are highly educated, have law degrees, are on school boards, run for office. They are organized, they are not unintelligent. They are preparing. So yeah, I think it absolutely needs to be taken with maximum seriousness. I mean, these people want to overthrow democracy and they might well do it.

Jordan I’m glad you mentioned running for office, too, because I was going to ask you, on the one hand, you do have these militia members that yeah, we probably do on the left stereotype as losers. But if there’s one thing that I think we’ve seen over the past year, it’s the melding of that group with the traditional Republican power structure and offices as low as local school boards. And what happens when they do get that critical mass? Where is the tipping point, I guess, as you imagine it?

Stephen Well, tipping point to what? I guess is the question. The Oath keepers list was already released, and they had, like, 50 people in very serious positions. I talked to Michael German, who was an undercover FBI agent with white power movements during the 90s for over a decade. And the first thing that they noticed about him was that he didn’t have any tattoos, and they loved that. They loved that he didn’t have tattoos because then they could put him in for school boards, and they will run on every level, like they’ll run for dog catcher, they’ll run for coroner. They will run for every office that you can be elected for in America, and they’re very successful. I think you especially see this in state legislatures, but Josh Hawley raised his fist to the people rioting in the Senate. I don’t think you really need to look into the dark corners. It’s right there in the Senate. It’s the presidency. It’s not just dog catcher of a small Pensacola County in Missouri or whatever. It’s right up at the top as well.

Jordan Let’s go back again just to one year ago in the aftermath of the assault on the capital, what did you think might happen? I think a lot of people have realized, kind of, in retrospect, that maybe that was one last real chance to really confront this problem. And it was missed. I certainly expected much more than what we’ve seen, I guess, a year later.

Stephen No, I knew that that would not happen. Once you’ve gone down the road of blaming the parents for the shooting at Newton School, where all those kids, you can overcome reality very easily. No jolt of reality. No short, sharp shock is going to lead to sanity being resumed here. That’s not in the cards. They are totally capable of believing things that are just not true and have no basis in fact. That’s just not a problem for them. So I knew immediately that this story would be reconstituted, and it happened right away. It happened like within 24 hours, that they were false flag operations, or it wasn’t as bad as we thought. I honestly didn’t expect the Republican elite to cave quite as hard as they did, because I thought that their sense of threat would kind of [say] well, they were attacking me. We need to solve these people. But I think they actually feel so physically threatened for their safety that they’re just on the run. The Republicans are on the run as much as the Democrats, from the violent thugs.

Jordan Given the threat to safety of politicians, basically, at every level, you mentioned state legislatures, they’re showing up outside the homes of medical officers of health and that kind of thing.

Stephen And election officials.

Jordan And election officials. And what is the end game there? Is it simply to intimidate anybody who doesn’t align with them out of holding public office? And I guess what I’m trying to figure out and you could take this wherever you want, because you’re the one who would know, what is the end game in terms of seizing power? We’ve seen a lot of essays in advance of the anniversary of the capital attack about how America could become an authoritarian state. How does that happen?

Stephen I’m not sure it’s so strategic. In my experience anyway, it’s not like they have a plan to impose a dictator, like some far right coups in other countries. That’s not what is at play here. What’s at play here is they feel under threat and they’re reacting to that threat with violence, and they want power, and they’re willing to get it by any means, whether Democratic or not. And they feel that the country is being taken away from them and they need to take it back by any means necessary.

It’s done out of fear and despair. I would not say that it’s done out of a conscious plan. There’s no idea here, like, well, if we do this, then we’re going to establish a new kind of government. That’s not what this is about. I mean, largely, I think what this is about is as minority groups rise to prominence, rise to economic equality and African American and Latino rates of poverty are at all time lows, and that’s feeding the crisis. I mean, it’s horrible to say, but that’s the reality. As these groups become more equal, and as America approaches a majority minority country in 2040, the overclass, the people who thought that they were the whole country are in resistance and are rebelling against it and are filled with loathing and violence.

What’s fascinating is that’s not an American phenomenon that happens all over the world. Like it happens in India with Hindu Muslim violence. It happens in Africa. It certainly happens in the middle east. So, you know, this is a process that is underway and it’s being fed not by conscious political programs but by more inchoate rage. Do you see what I mean?

Jordan I do. And the question I always have and I’ve asked this to international affairs, international security people, is there any way back from the brink? Is there any way for calmer heads to prevail? I guess.

Stephen One thing that I’m quite certain of is that it’s not going to work itself out. We’ll just stumble into better times or like the 60s are over, and then everyone will get sick of it and the 70s will happen. What it’s going to require is a really conscious attempt to rethink American government, which, of course, as the violence increases and as the window of legitimacy closes, becomes more and more difficult every day. But that’s what’s required. It’s actually pretty radical thinking, not necessarily blind hope. But of course, there are solutions. I mean, America is the country of reinvention, and if there’s any country that could do it, it would be them. But it’s not going to happen on the basis of the current Constitution say, which they worship as a divine revelation. And of course, it’s just another document.

Jordan How far are we from some of the scenarios that you describe in the book? I know they can happen at any time, but you mentioned at the beginning of this talk that a year ago you would have thought we had a lot more time. How much time have we lost over the past twelve months?

Stephen I don’t know. One of the things about the book is because I’m making predictions and I’m using models, it sounds funny to say, but I tried not to speculate at all or to keep the speculation to the absolute minimum. So I don’t give any dates for any of this stuff. I don’t think anyone knows the time and the place, especially since it’s a complex cascading system and things feed into each other. I mean, a Hurricane could hit next summer and devastate New York, creating millions of climate refugees. And that might be it. Or it could just be an election that just no one believes in, which could easily happen this year. Or it could be the abortion decision which is going to really divide the United States no matter which way it falls. I don’t know how much time we have. I do know which way the trends are pointing, though, and they’re not pointing in the right direction.

Jordan Last question then, since your Walrus piece, I know the book is not technically about this, but your wall risk piece was also about how Canada needs to prepare for a fractured, unstable potential civil war in America. Have we done anything on that front since you wrote the essay?

Stephen No. Well, the truth is, I can’t tell because it’s the kind of thing that would happen in government without them necessarily bringing it up. Right? They may well be preparing. I certainly have heard nothing from my contacts, but that doesn’t mean much. I hope they’re preparing. It’s also very difficult to know what they should do. It’s not like I could say, well, they’ve done this to prepare. How do you prepare for a calamity? Very hard to know. So I think in a way, we’re preparing by being quiet. I think the last election, which was so boring, even by Canadian standards, like just epically bland.

Jordan That was us rebelling against what’s going on in the States.

Stephen In a sense, it was us saying, like, you know what the world is crazy enough. Let’s just not do anything. Let’s just stay calm and let’s not let our arguments get out of control. And let’s not play the rage card. And let’s just be stable. So that, I guess, would be a preparation, but very hard to know.

Jordan Very optimistic, on this anniversary of a potential coup. Thank you. As always, Stephen. It’s a pleasure.

Stephen Always a pleasure to talk to you.

Jordan Stephen Marche, author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future. You can find it now at your favourite bookseller.

That was the big story. For more from us, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. Talk to us anytime at thebigstorypodcast@rci.rogers.com [click here!].

This podcast is available in every podcast player. When you find it, rate it and review it. And always, if you like it, tell your friends.

Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Back to top of page