It appears that at least among some at The Economist, a similar self-delusion is prevalent. In reviewing Barbara Walter's book "How Civil Wars Start", it praises the book's theoretical analysis which sets out a series of conditions that have lead to civil wars around the world: when they are somewhere between dictatorship and liberal democracy; when politics revolves around identity; grievance-mongers who are are creative creative liars; complacent cosmopolitans; when a large group fears it is losing status; when disgruntled members of an aggrieved group take up arms and social media accelerates the descent into bloodshed. This, the Economist says, is well argued.
Then it concludes that "This far-fetched conclusion [that America is at risk of civil war] spoils an otherwise interesting book". That's pretty odd given that not just some but each and every one of Walter's six conditions are met.
1. When they are somewhere between dictatorship and liberal democracy
Efforts to put the oversight of elections in the hands of partisans in Republican battleground stats moves the country away from liberal democracy; and fealty to an individual rather than a party or a set of principles is characteristic of dictatorships. The GOP is no longer a party of principles but a party in the thrall of one man.
2. When politics revolves around identity
Over the last 20 years, politics has evolved into struggles over identity, wither it be any number of white supremacists groups on the right, from the KKK to the Oath Keeps and the Proud Boys, or on the left, Black Lives Matter. Almost all loud political rhetoric in the US is rooted in a struggle for identity.
3. Grievance-mongers who are are creative creative liars
Here Donald Trump and his acolytes excel. Trump spent his four years in office lying incessantly and he taught us that almost nothing is to absurd to be believed, at least by some. When those lies are believed by a critical mass, you have a powerful movement. What was once the "alt-right" but is now the GOP generates lies, testes them on small social media platforms for their virulence, and those that work are launched into the right-wing mainstream through Fox and other right wing media platforms. .
4. Complacent cosmopolitans
Like The Economist, the metropolitan, relatively cosmopolitans parts of the country are in denial; "that kind of thing happens in third-world countries but couldn't happen here". Yet that's precisely the kind of denial circulating on January 5th last year, until Trump and his supporters put that comforting myth to rest.
5. When a large group fears it is losing status
Whites in America, particularity those with little education, are seeing their prospects deteriorate. Having enjoyed positions of relative privilege for so long, the conflate their declining prospects with immigration. Understandably, they want to preserve not just their economic well-being but their way of life more broadly. They see their decline not only economically but also a decline in status. And since they see themselves not though the lens of class (which would give them common cause with many of groups on the left) but through the lens of race, they are drawn into increasingly radical white supremacist groups. Indeed the wealthy are probably quite happy to encourage the use of identity as a conceptual frame since it divides the economically underprivileged into groups and sets them against each other, reducing their bargaining power to the befit of the wealthy.
6. When disgruntled members of an aggrieved group take up arms and social media accelerates the descent into bloodshed
This is exactly what we have seen; when heavily armed protesters turned up at the Michigan State House in January last year, there could be no clearer threat of the potential for armed conflict. While some argue this was just "cos-play", that complacency is dangerous. All it takes is one small miscalculation, for someone to pull their trigger (literally) and things escalate dangerously quickly. The Waco Siege and the Bundy standoff in 2014 both show how confrontation develops from a legal dispute into an armed conflict. It is also concerning that in many places, extremist groups are tacitly supported by local law enforcement who will often to turn a blind to the increasing threat of the use of arms to resolve disputes with state or federal authorities.
All of the conditions Water argues lead to civil conflict are present in the US, and The Economist agrees with her analysis; so it is remarkable that it falls in the trap of "that could never happen in America". At least one writer for the newspaper it seems is a "complacent cosmopolitan".
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