LONDON: Imagine that in 5 months’ time Joe Biden wins the US presidential election by a narrow margin, the most likely outcome according to current polling. It’s not hard to predict what would happen. After all, in the 2020 election, Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden 232 to 306 in the Electoral College and by 74.2 million to 81.2 million in the national popular vote, yet still insists he won and the election was ‘‘stolen’’ from him. In Trump’s warped mind he can never lose. If the facts are against him, the facts must be wrong.
The world remembers what happened on 6 January 2021, two months after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s supporters, encouraged by his ‘‘fight like hell’’ speech, sought to keep him in power by storming and occupying the Capitol and preventing a joint session of Congress counting the Electoral College votes to formalise the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Although the attack was unsuccessful, five people died within 36 hours and many were injured, including 174 police officers. In March this year, Trump promised that if he wins November’s election, one of his first acts would be to ‘‘free’’ those charged of crimes relating to the Capitol siege, a group numbering more than 1,400, whom he has described as ‘‘patriots’’ and ‘‘hostages’’. These include violent offenders caught on video brandishing stun guns, flagpoles, firearms and other weapons in the attack.
It was at this time that the words ‘‘civil war’’ crept into the consciousness of the nation.
A convicted felon, the first American president to be so in the country’s 234-year history, Trump is a deeply divisive character. He’s facing 54 more felony charges which his lawyers have successfully deferred until after November’s election in the hope that, should he win, he will be able to dismiss or perhaps pardon himself. Seventy-seven-year-old Trump is already setting up a contingency scenario of unrest should he lose the election.
In January he announced that there would be ‘‘bedlam in the country’’ should the criminal charges against him lead to a 2024 election loss. The authorities are taking this warning seriously. In its threat assessment for 2024, America’s Department of Homeland Security forecast that the 2024 election cycle would be a ‘‘key event for possible violence.’’ The DofHS is not alone in this prediction. Promises of violence are commonplace among the country’s extreme fringes.
In her recent book, ‘‘How Civil Wars Start’’, the distinguished US political scientist, Barbara Walter, argues that “we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe’’ because of the toxic mix of political extremism and polarisation, the popular embrace of conspiracy theories, social and cultural tribalism, proliferation of guns and well-armed militias, and the erosion of faith in government and the liberal western democratic state. Among the key factors she cites is the ‘‘apocalyptic belief that modern society is irredeemable and that its end must be hastened, so that a new society can be created, together with a new way of governance.’’
Make no mistake, in the US there are large numbers of white supremacists, white nationalists, racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes and anti-government militants who fervently believe that the United States is corrupt and beyond redemption. These are the people who are attracted by Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) clarion call. These are also the people who once again will give rise to insurrection to promote a White-dominated society led by their hero, Donald Trump, a man who is fomenting divisiveness and polarisation in order to get elected for the second time.
Many Trump supporters are showing an alarming alienation from and mistrust of American democratic society and its institutions. According to a nationwide survey carried out two years ago, two thirds of respondents perceived ‘‘a serious threat to our democracy’’, while 40 percent agreed that ‘‘having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy’’. A substantial number of those interviewed endorsed violence, including lethal violence, to obtain their political objectives. This was echoed by a survey carried out by the University of Maryland in 2021 which found that almost 40 percent of Republicans believe the use of violence against the government is justified. According to a 2024 survey carried out by the same university, ‘‘Republicans are now more sympathetic to those who stormed the Capitol and more likely to absolve Donald Trump of responsibility for the attack, than they were in 2021. Alarmingly, more than half (54 percent) of self-described Republicans now think that it is very or somewhat likely there will be a US civil war within the next decade.
Forecast of Armageddon is taken up by the Canadian journalist Stephen Marche in his 2022 book ‘‘The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future.’’ In it he contends that a new American civil war is inevitable. ‘‘The United States is coming to an end’’, he claims, ‘‘the question is how’’. In his view, ‘‘the United States is descending into the kind of sectarian conflict usually found in poor countries with histories of violence, not the world’s most enduring democracy and largest economy’’.
Today’s America bears an uncanny resemblance to an earlier decade, the 1850s, which led to the four-year Civil War in 1861. Everyone is mad about something and everyone has a gun. Although the US comprises only 4 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s firearms, according to Small Arms Survey, an independent research project based in Switzerland. There are some 393 million privately held firearms in the US, more than one gun per person. In 2020, more guns were purchased in the US, nearly 23 million, than in any other year on record. Among the most fervent defenders of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects the right to keep and bear arms, are those Trump supporters expressing their desire for a new civil war.
While 19 of the 21 US states with the most permissive gun laws voted for Donald Trump in 2020, a number of social issues also divide America. Of the 15 US states with the most restrictive abortion laws in 2022, all voted for Donald Trump. Of the 19 states that enacted laws making it harder to vote, 14 voted for Trump. Finally, of the 23 states that enacted legislation imposing restrictions on gender-affirming care, transgender participation in schools sports, school instruction on LBGTQ issues and related matters, 22 voted for Trump.
America is also divided about the two current wars. Seventy percent of Republicans who support Trump believe that Ukraine aid has not been worth the cost, compared with 69 percent of Democrats who say it has been worth it. On the war in Gaza, 61 percent of Democrats believe Israel is going too far in its military operation against Hamas, but only 6 percent of Republicans agree.
Although a deeply polarised country, with the polariser-in-chief Donald Trump continuously making threats if he loses, the prospect of a full-scale civil war in America, which seemed a real possibility after the insurrection in 2020, is unlikely. The clear division between North and South over slavery, which led to the Civil War 163 years ago doesn’t exist today. Nowadays, Republicans and Democrats are increasingly sorted into rural and urban strongholds which, if violence breaks out on a national scale, will lead to a situation resembling that of Northern Ireland and the ‘‘Troubles’’, a three decade struggle starting in the late 1960s that involved multiple paramilitary groups, police and soldiers. Leading white supremacists in America, who have long been among the foremost advocates of civil war and sedition, have cited Northern Ireland as their exemplar and the province’s pre-eminent terrorist organisation, the Irish Republican Army as worthy of emulation. Robert Miles, one of the early leaders of America’s violent far-right underground predicted back in the 1980’s that ‘‘soon our version of the Troubles will be widespread in America. Soon America becomes Ireland recreated’’.
This is a dark prospect, but If Donald Trump fails again in November or even narrowly wins, Miles’ prognostication could become a reality.
John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth.