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Is the U.S. Heading for a Civil War?

Scenarios for 2024-25

Stuart J. Kaufman
Department of Political Science and International Relations
University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA

Contact
Stuart J. Kaufman, [email protected]
Department of Political Science and International Relations,
University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Abstract

This article applies symbolic politics theory to assess the risk of a new

civil war in the U.S., finding that all of the factors making civil war likely are

currently present. Narratives promoting hostility toward the other party are

prominent among Republicans and Democrats alike, as are hostile

predispositions and hostile feelings toward the other party. The Republican

Party’s rejection of Trump’s 2020 election loss and its links to the January 6

coup attempt and to militia groups position it to organize a more violent

insurrection in a scenario in which Trump is again the unsuccessful

presidential nominee in 2024.

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Serious intellectual attention to the possibility of a new civil war in the

United States is increasing. Writing in Foreign Policy magazine in February 2021,

Monica Toft observed, “the United States now displays all three core elements that

can lead to civil breakdown”.1 A year later two books on the same theme were released.

Stephen Marche’s entry begins with the flat assertion, “The United States is coming

to an end.”2 He takes The Next Civil War of his title as an inevitability. Barbara

Walter’s How Civil Wars Start is more nuanced, but still offers a gut punch on the

issue: “Most Americans cannot imagine another civil war in their country… But

this is because they don’t know how civil wars start.”3

Each of these works contains serious analysis, identifying a somewhat

different smorgasbord of factors that have been shown to increase the probability of

civil war, all of which are present in the contemporary United States. None of them,

however, offers a coherent theory to tie its arguments together. Walter comes the

closest, developing a sophisticated model with roots in the opportunity school of

theorizing. This article offers the alternative perspective of symbolic politics

theory. The results are similar, not only in conclusion but also in content: to a

large extent, the variables identified by the different approaches are simply

different ways of thinking about, measuring or categorizing the same underlying

causal factors. In short, no matter how one approaches the question, the conclusion is

the same: the U.S. is indeed at serious risk of a new civil war.

The difference between Walter’s approach and symbolic politics theory is

in their slightly different understanding of what constitutes a cause. Walter pays

attention successively to opportunity (state breakdown), means (political

organization), and motive (racial resentment), with some recognition also of

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Donald Trump’s role as a political entrepreneur. She thereby addresses all four

definitions of “cause” identified by Milja Kurki. Symbolic politics theory offers a

different but compatible account of means, motive and Trump’s leadership, but

with greater attention both to social dis- course and social psychology. What Marche

adds is a vivid picture of several concrete scenarios that might provide the

triggering incident that starts a war.

The main scenario this article considers is a contested 2024 Presidential

election result. It argues that if Trump runs and loses again in 2024, he will

certainly attempt again to overturn the election result. If his attempted coup again

fails, deadly political violence is highly likely to follow, as it did in January 2021.

In that scenario, there is a very serious risk that the result will be violent clashes

and subsequent terrorist attacks—encouraged by Trump and the Republican Party,

promoted on Fox News and social media, and spearheaded by the militia

movement—that rises to civil war-level intensity. Means, motive, opportunity and

leadership for starting it will all be present. The scenario is unlikely only because it

assumes three prior events: Trump runs, he loses, and his coup attempt fails. The

cumulative probability is that one of the other outcomes will occur—either Trump

does not run or he wins (honestly or otherwise).

This article focuses on the danger from the right for several reasons. First,

the means for an insurrection are mostly on the right: gun-owners and especially

militia groups overwhelmingly lean right. Second, the motive is primarily on the

right, as their opponents control the presidency and, as of this writing, both houses of

Congress. Third, the track record of the last decade is that three quarters of the

extremist violence has been carried out by right-wingers.4 Finally, the most
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prominent insurgent leadership is on the right: Donald Trump orchestrated one

violent coup attempt after the 2020 election, and he remains the most probable

leader of any future insurrectionary effort.

The analysis in this article proceeds as follows. After a brief discussion of

Kurki’s account of what constitutes a cause, the next main section traces the

evolution of opportunity theory into Walter’s broader account of the causes of civil

war. It juxtaposes that account with the symbolic politics theory’s explanation. The

following section considers the evidence that opportunity-related factors conducive

to the outbreak of civil war are present in the United States. Attention then turns to

the symbolic politics account with an examination of the role of popular discourse in

generating narratives justifying hostility between political groups. The succeeding

sections consider the other factors emphasized by symbolic politics theory—hostile

predispositions, feelings of threat, organizational structures, and leadership. The last

section considers scenarios that might lead to the outbreak of civil war.

Theories of Civil War

Any theory of political outcomes presupposes an understanding of what constitutes a

cause. Drawing on her interpretation of Aristotle, Milja Kurki identifies four

different kinds of causes that may be the focus of analysis.5 The first type is a

material factor or cause: for example, the presence of a weapon. Using a

criminological metaphor, we might categorize this as referring to “means”. The

second type is a formal cause, which refers to structural factors—what we might call

the opportunity structure. Third is the efficient course, referring to the “prime

mover” or actor. Fourth is the final cause, referring to “purpose” or motive. In sum,
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doing only slight violence to Kurki’s typology, we can think of different types of

causal explanations as focusing variously on means, motive, opportunity and the

actor.

In the current century, the most prominent theories of civil war are those

of the “opportunity school,” which argue that the most important causes of civil war

are the factors that make it relatively easy for dissident groups to launch a

rebellion. One oft-cited paper by James Fearon and David Laitin emphasizes the

impact of population size, national wealth, mountainous terrain, and political

instability in causing civil war.6 In this account, a poor and politically unstable

country is one with a weak state that is easy to rebel against; while a large

population means a greater likelihood of collecting the few thousand hot-headed

young men necessary to launch a rebellion, and mountainous terrain provides

ample places for insurgents to hide.

Building on the Fearon/Laitin argument, Jack Goldstone and colleagues

suggest a more focused yet also broader understanding of opportunity structure.

They focus in particular on the combination of partial democracy and

factionalization. Factionalization is described as “a pattern of sharply polarized and

uncompromising competition between blocs pursuing parochial interests at the

national level.”7 I would argue—and here is where I modify Kurki’s typology—that

by including reference to political blocs, Goldstone and colleagues have expanded

beyond consideration of opportunity to look also at a kind of means, what Lenin

referred to as an “organizational weapon.”

In their findings, Goldstone et al. report that the combination of partial

democracy with factionalization causes the probability of political instability to

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increase thirty times, with a similar effect on the probability of civil war. Other

factors in their model that also increase the probability of civil war include state-led

group discrimination. They report that their model is about one-third more effective

than the Fearon/Laitin model in predicting both occurrence and nonoccurrence of

civil war.8

Walter’s model starts with Goldstone et al.’s two key variables, which she

modifies into anocracy (rather than partial democracy) plus factionalization. Having

accounted for means and opportunity, her theoretical exposition then moves on to a

three-part account of motive. First, drawing on the work of Roger Petersen and

Myron Weiner, she highlights the importance of loss of status: “sons of the soil”

movements who “think of themselves as the rightful heirs to their place of birth

and deserving of special benefits and privileges.”9 In other words, “sons of the soil”

movements believe that their ethnic group has the right to political dominance over

a claimed territory. Their attitude is that “this land is ours” and members of any

other groups have distinctly inferior status and rights.

Walter further argues for the importance of a loss of hope among those

losing status: sons of the soil resort to violence when they see themselves

inexorably losing the power to reclaim the status they feel they rightfully deserve.

She mentions Yugoslavia’s Serbs as an example. Serbian nationalist narratives of the

late 1980s claimed a right to Serbian leadership of Yugoslavia on the basis of

historical Serbian resistance to enemies such as the Turks and the Austrians, even

though Serbs were never a majority of the population in Yugoslavia. When Serbian

nationalists saw their control slipping away due to the reforms of the 1970s and

1980s, violence seemed increasingly justified as a way to reestablish their grip.

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Another key factor Walter mentions is the importance of “ethnic

entrepreneurs,” politicians who play on popular grievances in pursuit of power for

themselves. The point is that political movements like “sons of the soil” only have

political power if they have political leadership—politicians who will champion their

cause. In the Serbian case, the leading ethnic entrepreneur was Slobodan Milosevic,

who came to power as a Communist bureaucrat but switched to championing

Serbian nationalism as a way of cementing and increasing his own power.10 In

Walter’s account, ethnic entrepreneurs typically also need triggering incidents to

motivate the transition to violence. In the Yugoslav case, this was a set of violent

clashes involving the Serbian minority in Croatia.

Walter’s final point of theoretical emphasis is the importance of social media

as an “accelerant” through the propagation of hate speech. “It’s not likely to be a

coincidence,” she observes, “that the global shift away from democracy has tracked

so closely with the advent of the internet, the introduction of smart phones, and the

widespread use of social media.”11

This last point illustrates the value of supplementing Walter’s argument

with a symbolic politics analysis of the contemporary U.S. scene. Walter

emphasizes social media as a propagator of hate narratives, but offers no sustained

analysis of the content of those narratives. She also offers little in the way of

explaining the processes that link leaders and followers and generate violent

mobilization. Symbolic politics theory finds these primarily in popular discourse

(as spread by broadcast media as well as social media), leaders’ framing of these

relevant issues, popular predispositions that these narratives appeal to, and the

popular emotions that they are able to stir.

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Symbolic politics theory thus draws from psychology, sociology and political

science to identify the processes that generate civil war. It has been successfully

applied to explain multiple cases of ethnic civil wars and non-wars in Europe, Asia

and Africa.12 The causal logic begins with group narratives or myths justifying hostility

toward some contending group. The narratives have the status of “myth” in the sense

that, though they may be based on real history, their primary function is

normative—to identify heroes, villains, group values and group symbols which

become invested with great emotional power. “Sons of the soil” narratives are one

kind of group mythology. As a result of endless repetition, these myths become

encoded in personal attitudes in the shape of predispositions, which may include

prejudice against the outgroup defined by the mythology as the villain. These myths

and prejudices together will sometimes contribute to groups’ feeling threatened by

or resentful of the behavior of competing groups. For example, if people are told

often enough that immigrants are taking away their jobs and opportunities, they are

likely to come to believe it, and to resent the immigrants’ presence.

These myths, attitudes and emotions provide the raw material political

entrepreneurs use to engage in politicking, which is always a process of symbolic

politics. Conflict intensifies to the extent that political leaders frame events as

threats to the group, increasing their followers’ feelings of threat. If these

chauvinist leaders organize and mobilize their followers for conflict, the result is

either a contentious politics pitting social movements against each other and/or the

state (the current U.S. situation); or else a politics of “protection” leading to

military escalation and war. The outcome in any situation is contingent: even if

there are hostile myths and narratives, fears can be allayed and conflict minimized
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if leaders frame issues in ways that allow for compromise. Much depends on which

leaders have the greater skill at rhetorical framing and political or military

organizing, in addition to the background of narratives and predispositions that

shape the popular response.

In sum, symbolic politics theory says that civil war is likely to the extent that

all of the following are true about a potential rebel in-group:

• Popular narratives justify hostility, portraying some out-group as an enemy

to the in-group.

• Widespread predispositions accord with the narratives, so that members of

the in-group have hostile feelings toward members of the group identified

as an enemy.

• In-group members feel threatened by the out-group, and feel motivated to

defend the in-group against the perceived threat.

• Ethnic political entrepreneurs frame issues in terms of the perceived out-

group threat to the in-group as a way of seeking or increasing their power.

• The aggressive political entrepreneurs are backed by a network of social

organizations capable of mobilizing both political and military support for

violent rebellion.

The symbolic politics theory is useful for current purposes because it not only

identifies a set of measurable variables that make civil war more likely; it also

identifies specific processes that can lead from peace to war—or prevent war from

breaking out. Furthermore, this perspective does not rule out the role of factors

identified by other schools of thought: while it downplays economic factors, for

example, there is no reason their effects cannot also be considered. We start,

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therefore, with consideration of opportunity factors, which identify background

conditions that may influence the processes identified by symbolic politics theory.

Opportunity and Background Factors for Civil War in the U.S

Fearon and Laitin emphasize the impact of population size, national wealth,

mountainous terrain, and political instability in causing civil war. At first glance,

the U.S. status as one of the richest countries in the world13 and its track record for

political stability suggest an extremely low risk of civil war. The risk factors of a

very large population (ranked third in the world) and vast expanses of

mountainous territory need not change this expectation.

However, contested election outcomes and election violence are important

markers of political instability, so their appearance in the U.S. in 2020-21 raises

questions about continued U.S. political stability. Indeed, as Walter notes, the

January 6, 2021 insurrection prompted experts to downgrade the U.S. from a

democratic rating to a rating of anocracy. Other indicators that contributed to this

downgrading in recent years are unfair voting rules and then-President Trump’s

flouting of Congressional efforts to constrain the executive branch.14

Furthermore, while U.S. overall wealth is undeniable, the Fearon/Laitin logic—

wealth means a strong state which means low opportunity to rebel—may not apply

to the

U.S. case. One key reason is the availability of guns: an estimated 393 million

civilian-owned firearms in the United States as of 2017.15 Some gun owners,

further- more, are organized in militias, as will be detailed below. The U.S. is rare

among “strong” states in permitting such armed groups on its territory; it is, by this
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measure, a “weak” state.

National wealth has another effect, however: it gives more people more to

lose, thus increasing the opportunity cost of rebellion. Combined with the state-

strengthening effect of national wealth, the effect globally is to make civil war

extremely rare in rich countries. But there are important exceptions, most

prominently Great Britain, which suffered the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland; and

Spain, which experienced a low-level insurgency in the Basque country. Both were

conflicts over ethnic or national identity. National wealth does not, therefore,

necessarily eliminate motives for rebellion or always prevent identity-based civil

wars.

Walter’s key contribution here, following Goldstone et al., is to expand the

analysis of opportunity structure to include social organization: Lenin’s “organizational

weapon.” Her argument is that the Republican Party has become a “faction” in

Goldstone’s sense. Though she does not state it explicitly, her characterization is

that the GOP is now the party of white racial resentment, a vehicle for a

reactionary and insurrectionist “sons of the soil” movement. She notes that 90% of

Republicans are white, and that even before Trump’s rise, many Republicans

believed false claims that President Obama was Muslim and a foreign citizen. Trump

himself took this further, retweeting white power videos and focusing his rhetoric on

claimed conservative whites’ losses: of gun rights, religious rights, jobs, and so on.

It is important to note that these perceptions are not wrong. Whites have lost

status as culturally dominant due to the rise of prominent nonwhites in popular

culture and politics, and due to the increased population of nonwhite immigrants.

Christian conservatives lost status as culturally dominant when prayer was removed
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from public schools and when popular greetings shifted from “Merry Christmas”

to “Happy Holidays”. Citing Justin Gest, Walter notes that the strongest predictor of

support for the GOP is precisely perceptions of whites’ loss of power and status.16

This is strong evidence for the argument that the Republican Party has become a

vehicle for a “sons of the soil” movement.

Marche’s book, though not a work of scholarship, adds additional evidence

supporting the idea that opportunity structural factors in the U.S. are permissive of

civil war. As an indicator of state weakness, he points to government institutions’

lack of legitimacy: Congress, he notes, has an approval rating of about 10%. More

pointedly, he asserts that because of “hard right” infiltration, “no police department or

federal agency can be relied upon in a struggle against white supremacy,” listing 14

states in which law enforcement groups have been linked to militia groups.

Marche also sharpens Walter’s characterization of the Republican Party as an

organizational weapon by asserting that, given its association with the militia

movement, the GOP now has “an armed militant wing.”17 Trump’s message to the

Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” illustrates the point.

These arguments are plausible, though in most cases the support for them is

more anecdotal than systematic. Also, as noted, very little has yet been said about

motive. For consideration of motive forces, we turn now to a symbolic politics

analysis of the situation.

Narratives Justifying Hostility

From the symbolic politics perspective, the starting point for analyzing

U.S. politics is its political discourse, which is rife with mythologized narratives
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justifying hostility, which tend to exacerbate hostile feelings and justify escalated

political conflict. In the U.S., partisan polarization was accelerated in the late

1980s when conservative talk radio exploded in ubiquity and popularity, led by

right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh’s show.18 The Fox News television

channel followed a decade later, from the start featuring right-wing commentator

Sean Hannity in an hourlong primetime show. Fox surpassed rival CNN in

television news viewership after September 11, 2001.19 By the time of Donald

Trump’s presidency, Fox could boast that “In a typical month, at least … 63

million watch Fox for a few minutes or more”, with news commentary more

popular than “straight news” broadcasts.20 Indeed in 2020, the top four cable news

shows were all Fox News commentary shows: “Tucker Carlson Tonight,”

“Hannity,” “The Five” and “The Ingraham Angle”.21 According to a Pew survey

that year, “Around two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents

(65%) say they trust Fox News for political and election news. No more than a

third of Republicans say they trust any of the other news organizations asked about

in the survey.”22

This powerful conservative media establishment, overlooked in Walter’s

account, is the main incubator of right-wing narratives justifying hostility against

liberals and Democrats. Even during the George W. Bush presidency, its pundits

were beginning to demonize their political enemies. A 2007 quotation from

Limbaugh captures the flavor of these attacks: “There is a culture of death with

liberalism … from abortion on, … maybe the instant effort to bar God and faith from

the public sphere is a problem here. Maybe the coddling of criminals by liberals,

including judges, has created this environment”.23

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As of 2021, with the death of Limbaugh and with his fellow radio star

Hannity also on Fox News, Fox can be considered the epicenter of this right-wing

media establishment, and it is more right-wing than ever. According to Brian

Stelter, “Fox’s biggest right turn of all [was] triggered by the 2008 election of

Barack Obama”.24 It was further radicalized with the rise of Donald Trump to the

Presidency, when its tone turned even more belligerent. It began pushing a wide

range of narratives justifying hostility against liberals and Democrats.

Demonization

Perhaps the most consequential Fox News theme is demonization:

commentators in recent years repeatedly portrayed Democrats and liberals as evil

enemies, devoid of positive qualities and intentionally working to destroy everything

good about America. Here are some examples:

• Sean Hannity, 2018: “Sadly there is not one Democrat in this country

tonight, not one, speaking out and supporting law, order, American

sovereignty, borders, our constitution.”25

• Laura Ingraham, 2020: “[Democrats] despise you, your patriotism, your

churchgoing, your Judeo-Christian values, your belief in personal responsibility

and a work ethic, your big families, your SUVs, your guns, all of it.

Because you represent the old America that they want to destroy, root and

branch.”26

• Dan Bongino, 2021: “We need to call the Democrats out for what they

are… they are deliberately destroying America’s cities.”27

• Tucker Carlson, 2020: “Joe Biden’s voters really are a threat to you and
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your family.”28

In some cases, Fox commentators promote such messages by promoting the

views of the like-minded—most prominently Donald Trump—as in this 2019

Trump clip aired on Hannity’s show: “Democrats are trying to rip our nation apart

… the radical Democrats are trying to overturn the last election because they know

they can’t win the next election.”29

Within the general “Democrats are evil” theme are numerous more specific

claims. For Tucker Carlson, a favorite charge is the “great replacement” theory:

“Democrats know if they keep up the flood of illegals into the country, they can

eventually turn it into a flood of voters for them. They don’t have to foster

economic growth, or be capable administrators, or provide good government. They

just have to keep the pump flowing, and power will be theirs.”30 In 2021, he was

still repeating the charge: the “Democratic Party was ‘trying to replace the current

electorate’ in the U.S. with ‘new people, more obedient voters from the Third

World’.”31

While each Fox host has their own style, a common tactic is to relentlessly pile

on unrelated charges to form a multicolored mosaic of rhetorical bullets. Hannity

is a master of the form, as in this 2021 barrage: “Democrats’ … vindictive radical

extreme agenda is now taking center stage in that swamp. As we speak, the Biden

Administration now is quickly implementing AOC’s insane Green New Deal agenda

destroying tens of thousands of high paying jobs in the process, all with the stroke

of a pen … Meanwhile, next week the U.S. Senate is set to hold another pointless

vicious unconstitutional impeachment Schiff show.”32

Another tactic is to promote Trump’s charges of criminal insanity against

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Democrats. During the 2019 impeachment controversy, for example, Laura

Ingraham referred to Democrats as “left wing crazies,” following it with a clip of

Trump asserting referring to “Pelosi and [her] whacked out caucus”.33 Hannity has

also echoed such charges, for example calling Sarah Sanders’s hecklers “angry,

psychotic Trump-hating lunatics.”34

A final Fox tactic worth mentioning is vitriolic demonization of Democratic

politicians.According to Tucker Carlson, for example, Representative Ilhan Omar is

“loathsome,” “a parody of her repulsiveness” who “passionately hates the country.”35

Hannity called House impeachment report leader Adam Schiff a “compromised,

corrupt, coward, congenital liar.”36 Lou Dobbs paints with a broader brush: Elected

Democrats in general, he asserted, are “quite simply, the enemies of the people.”37 And

according to Jesse Watters, who also has his own show on Fox News, Democrats are

“bloodthirsty political killers.”38

Valorization

A mythology by definition needs heroes as well as villains, and Fox News

commentators are explicit in identifying the Republican Party and conservatives—

including their viewers—in that role. Steve Hilton, for example, opens his show

with the declaration, “this is the home of the resistance, pro-worker, profamily, pro-

America, and positive populism, anti-elitism.”39 Hannity is fond of formulations

such as, “the good conservative Republican patriots, freedom lovers and Trump

supporters,” a description he is not shy about repeating.40

They Are Threatening Us

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While Fox narratives usually frame the struggle they see as a political and

cultural one, the Black Lives Matter movement provided an opportunity for Fox

commentators to portray a threat of physical violence from the left. In June of 2020,

Hannity repeatedly asserted that the movement was “planning to train armed

militia for war on police.” Carlson sharpened the alleged threat, asserting the

movement “is definitely not about Black lives. And remember that when they come

for you.” The highly-rated show “The Five” went a step further that same month,

asserting that the U.S. was engaged in a “race war.”41 In all, an analysis by Media

Matters found more than 400 Fox News attacks on the Black Lives Matter

movement in the six months from November 2020 to April 2021.42

While the theme of physical threat is most potent, themes of social threat—

threats to values, status and identity—are also very prominent. Carlson’s harping

on immigration as representing a “replacement” is one example: “they” are

replacing “you”. Another is the notion “political correctness” as a personal threat.

Ingraham asserted in 2020, for example, “If you aren’t on for the moral dictates of

liberalism, the left will demonize you as a Nazi, plant false stories against you, try

to destroy your life. Of course, they’ll try to get you fired.”43

Calls for Armed Resistance or Revolutionary Change

If one lives in a mythological universe in which the good is threatened by

violence-wielding evil, it follows that one needs to join in the struggle. Fox

commenators encourage this kind of thinking. Commentator Greg Gutfeld, for example,

asserted in 2020: “If the government doesn’t step up and deal with this violence, it’s

going to be up to the public… If you’re not being protected but you’re paying your
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taxes, that Second Amendment starts looking miraculous.”44 In a similar vein, Tomi

Lahren darkly warned in January of that year that “a major uprising” and “a civil war”

would happen if Democrats continued trying to pass gun safety laws.45

In this context, armed vigilantes taking the law into their own hands are sympathetic

figures, and Fox commentators portray them as such. For example, after Kyle Rittenhouse,

a 17-year-old militia member and Trump supporter, was accused of killing two people

and injuring a third in August of 2020, Tucker Carlson expressed understanding: “How

shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when

no one else would?” A few days later, another Fox talking head asserted that such

vigilantes were “filling a vacuum” to “stop this violence from happening.”46

The Big Lie about the Election

All of these themes—the demonization of “them,” the valorization of “us”

defined as Steve Hilton’s “resistance,” Tomi Lahren’s need for “a major uprising”—

crystallized in the context of Fox’s embrace of Donald Trump’s false claim that the

2020 Presidential election had been stolen from him. Different Fox figures

contributed different voice parts to this chorus. A prominent early theme was simply

to cast doubt on the election results: one tally found 148 such statements on news

broadcasts and 259 on opinion broadcasts just in the ten days from November 7 to 16.

Hannity wondered in December: “How does anybody trust the election results?”

Other pundits added bolder color commentary. In Newt Gingrich’s view, Trump’s

election defeat was “a left-wing power grab financed by people like George

Soros.”47

This was a pivotal moment in American history. Not only did a losing
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Presidential candidate try, for the first time ever, to overturn the legally certified

results of an election, but large swaths of his political party and of the media

establishment supported his claims. The status of the United States as a stable

democracy was ended. Some Fox commentators went even further, urging

extraconstitutional action to prevent Trump’s loss of power. Lou Dobbs called on

Trump to take “drastic action”, following up two nights later with a warning that there

“will not be a quiet surrender” if election results were not overturned. And when a

group of protestors stormed the Oregon state capitol, one Fox News contributor

sympathized: “Who can blame them?”48

Theoretical Significance

According to symbolic politics theory, hostile narratives play a central role in

causing violent conflict because they shape predispositions. Fox News watchers are

repeatedly told that Democrats and liberals are evil enemies of the “real America,”

and that Republicans and Trump represent the side of good, God, and patriotism.49

They are told that they are being replaced by immigrants and that Black Lives

Matter activists are armed and coming for them. They are told that an election

victory has been stolen from them and that violence and revolutionary change are

justified in response. The theoretical expectation is that the repetition of these

narratives will cause people who are already predisposed in favor of the values

being promoted to internalize the narratives, leading to increasingly hostile

predispositions.

Hostile Predispositions
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According to symbolic politics theory, the result of these narratives should

be polarization: people who accept the mythical worldview follow its implications

ever-further, while those who reject it are further alienated. Evidence supports the

theory: as we would expect, what has followed this polarizing discourse has been

polarized attitudes and hostile predispositions. Analysts suggest different labels for

this growth of hostile feelings—“partisan prejudice;” “political sectarianism;” “affective

polarization;” “negative partisanship”—but these labels all refer to roughly the same

phenomenon.50 The feelings these labels refer to are powerful: as one study puts it,

“Our evidence demonstrates that hostile feelings for the opposing party are ingrained

or automatic in voters’ minds, and that affective polarization based on party is just

as strong as polarization based on race.”51

The most widely-used measure of negative partisanship is from the

American National Election Survey (ANES), which is carried out every election

year. One question asked since 1980 asks participants to rate the political parties on

a “feeling thermometer,” with scores ranging from zero to 100. What the ANES

data show is that partisans’ feelings about the other party dropped slowly through the

1980s and 1990s, starting just below the neutral point of 50. The biggest drop in

Democrats’ views of Republicans came during the George W. Bush presidency,

sinking from 42 in 2000 to 33 in 2008. The biggest decline in Republicans’ views

of Democrats came during the Obama presidency, going from 37 in 2008 to 25

in 2016.52

The ANES data are supported by Pew Foundation surveys which generate

similar findings about partisan feelings.53 A striking Pew study conducted in 2019

summarized its conclusion in its title: “Partisan Antipathy: More Intense, More
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Personal”. Asking participants about the personal qualities of partisans, they found that

among Republicans, 55% assessed Democrats as “more immoral” than other Americans,

64% saw Democrats as “more closed-minded,” and 63% rated Democrats as “more

unpatriotic” than other Americans. Democrats were even more likely to rate

Republicans as closed-minded (75%), and almost as likely to rate them as immoral

(47%).54 Thus Americans’ negative ratings of the other party also apply to the other

side’s partisans.

Another measure of negative partisanship shows Americans’ increasing

hostility to the idea of their children marrying members of the opposing political

party. As early as 2010, “49 percent of Republicans, and 33 percent of Democrats,

professed concern at interparty marriage.”55 This statistic is particularly telling

since this “I wouldn’t want my child to marry one” question is an often-used

indicator of racial or ethnic prejudice.

Other studies fill in more details for this picture of negative partisanship.

According to a 2020 Pew survey, “roughly eight-in-ten registered voters in both

camps said their differences with the other side were about core American values”.56

Erin Cassese found that partisans tended to see opposing partisans as more

“animalistic” and more “mechanistic” than members of their own party.57 Supporting

this finding, Kalmoe and Mason found about 20 percent of respondents agreeing

with the statement, “Many [in the opposing party] lack the traits to be considered

fully human—they behave like ani- mals.”58 Finkel and colleagues found that

Republicans estimated 32 percent of Democrats to be LGBT, a large overestimate.59

Delving into the realm of conspiracy theories, a 2013 poll that found 22 percent of

Romney voters endorsing the view that Barack Obama was the Antichrist,60 while
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in 2020, “Nearly three in 10 Republicans [said] the claim that Trump was fighting a

global child sex trafficking ring is mostly (17 percent) or completely (12 percent)

accurate,” endorsing the main claim of the Q-Anon conspiracy theory.61

In sum, Republicans’ feeling about Democrats is “very unfavorable,”

because Democrats are seen as immoral, closed-minded, and unpatriotic, either

machine-like or animal-like, supporters of the Antichrist who are probably gay.

Democrats’ view of Republicans is comparably negative.

Why do people believe these ideas? The symbolic politics answer is that the

ideas accord with their predispositions. The more an individual dislikes any of the

groups identified as enemies—minority groups, immigrants, LGBT individuals,

liberals, Democrats—the more credible the narratives become. The credibility of the

narratives then encourages slow attitude change to accord with other narrative elements.

The result is the creation of a world view that is internally consistent from an

emotional point of view: essentially, “these people are bad and they are out to get

us.” The process is a positive feedback loop: hostile predispositions lead to

acceptance of hostile narratives; hostile narratives intensify existing hostile

predispositions while also adding new ones.

An example of this process is the role of racial resentment. According to

Abramowitz and Webster, “The proportion of White Republicans scoring at the

high end of the racial-resentment scale rose from 44% during the Reagan-Bush

years to 64% during the Obama years.”62 Trump supporters—especially his early

primary voters—also tend to be high on measures associated with racial resentment.63

As racial resentment rose, resentment against “woke” liberals followed. Thus if liberals

sympathize with the Black Lives Matter movement, and some BLM activists
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engaged in violence, then liberals “are deliberately destroying America’s cities.”

Feelings of Threat

According to symbolic politics theory, hostile attitudes and narratives alone

are not sufficient to motivate violent conflict; the populations must see the

opposing side as an active threat before they are motivated to take up arms.

Unfortunately, Republicans do see Democrats as just such a threat. Democrats

reciprocate the feeling, but as above the focus here is on Republicans’ feelings.

These feelings include a mix of perceived physical threats and social

threats. One perceived social threat is government intrusion on individual rights.

According to the Pew Research Center, 53% of all respondents viewed the

government as a threat to personal freedoms in a January of 2013 poll.64 Two

years later, an IPSOS poll found that fully 72% of Republicans and 70% of

Independents agreed with the statement, “More and more, I don’t identify with

what America has become.” Similarly, 58% of Republicans and 53% of

Independents agreed that “These days I feel like a stranger in my own country.”

The IPSOS pollsters connected these feelings to resentment of immigration, finding

that 64% of Republicans agreed that “Immigrants take jobs away from real

Americans” and 75% of Republicans agreed that “Immigrants take important social

services away from real Americans.”65

While different surveys have asked different questions over time, the data

suggest feelings of threat have continued to increase. A 2017 survey found around

60% of Democrats and Republicans agreeing that the opposing party posed a

serious threat to the United States and its people.66 By 2020, similar study by Pew
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found, “roughly nine-in-ten [respondents] – again in both camps [89% among

Republicans] – worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm” to

the United States.67

Another reason for these feelings of threat is the belief on the right that the

American electoral system has already been hijacked. These feelings long predate

the 2020 election: Donald Trump was already claiming in 2016 that the Democrats

were trying to “rig” the election. The accusations took hold: An August 2016 Public

Policy Polling survey found that 69 percent of Trump voters believed that if Hillary

Clinton won the election, it would be because it was “rigged”.68 Republican

perceptions after the 2020 election were the same: a Quinnipiac University poll

reported in February 2021 found 76% of Republicans believing there was

“widespread fraud in the 2020 election.”69 From a symbolic politics perspective, the

reason for these beliefs is in large part motivated bias: people often believe what they

want to believe, especially if they are told repeatedly that it is true.

Behavioral Consequences of Hostile Feelings

According to symbolic politics theory, these hostile narratives, hostile

feelings, and threat perceptions should make people more inclined to act in hostile

ways. Again, the data supports this expectation. Substantial proportions of

Americans are telling survey researchers that they support taking violent action in

reaction these hostile feelings. According to a 2019 study by Kalmoe and Mason,

“Nine percent of Republicans and Democrats say that, in general, violence is at least

occasionally acceptable. However, when imagining an electoral loss in 2020, larger

percentages of both parties approve of the use of violence – though this increase is
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greater for Democrats (18 percent approve) than Republicans (13 percent

approve).”70 Notably, they find that the strongest correlate of reported willingness to

use force is trait aggressiveness.

Follow-up studies found even more expressed support for political

violence. In a January 2020 survey of Republicans and Republican-leaning

Independents, Bartels found that a majority (50.7%) agreed with the statement,

“The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to

use force to save it.” Nearly as many (41.3%) agreed that ‘A time will come when

patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands’”.71 Bartels’s analysis

found that the biggest factor driving this perception was ethnic antagonism—

agreeing, for example, with the claim that “discrimination against whites is as big

a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.”

Organizational Structures

While symbolic politics theory emphasizes the importance cultural and

psychological factors—narratives, predispositions, and feelings of threat—it also

asserts that any kind of social movement requires organization to get off the ground.

The typical pattern is the emergence of an umbrella organization or coalition

which unites numerous grass-roots groups. For example, the civil rights

movement of the 1950s and 1960s was spearheaded by Martin Luther King’s

Southern Christian Leadership Conference— itself a loose network of Black church

organizations—together with allied groups such as the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee. Thus if civil war does come in the U.S., it will be in large

part due to the growth of relevant organizations, including groups both that are
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explicitly violent and groups that provide political and ideological

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support to the extremist cause. As noted, most of the violent groups and activists are

on the far right: between 2014 and early 2021, right-wing extremists were

“involved in 267 attacks or planned attacks, leading to 91 deaths,” as compared to

66 incidents attributed to left-wing extremists, leading to 19 deaths.72 A civil war

would involve both a massive escalation of the activities of violent groups and some

sort of national organizational structure.

The key barrier to the emergence of a serious armed rebel group in the

United States is not the absence of violent dissent, but the absence of agreement

among the violent dissenters. Arie Perliger, for example, suggests a four-fold typology

of right-wing extremists: white supremacy groups, antigovernment groups, the

Christian identity movement, and anti-abortion terrorists.73 The first two are the

largest categories, but there is little unity within them. The Southern Poverty Law

Center identified 327 active white supremacy groups in 2020, but these were a

disparate and often rival collection of white nationalists, Ku Klux Klan groups, neo-

Nazis, racist skinheads and neo-Confederate groups, among others.74 The focus of

these groups’ ideologies varies, with some motivated by opposition to immigration

and embrace of the Great Replacement theory, and others more concerned with

perceived anti-white discrimination, among other issues.75

Anti-government activists include militias such as the Oath Keepers, Three

Percenters, and the light foot militia movement. Just one of these groups, the Oath

Keepers, compiled a list of almost 25,000 ostensible members; it had more than

half a million followers on its main Facebook page in 2020.76 The anti-

government category also includes non-militia groups such as the Proud Boys;
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sovereign citizens who refuse (sometimes violently) to accept U.S. law; and members

of currents such as the Boogaloo movement, which lacks organization but explicitly

seeks to start a civil war. The Q-Anon conspiracy-theory movement might also be

categorized as anti-government. Different portions of the anti-government movement

rarely act together, however, and they often express strong disagreement with white

supremacy groups.

Another important element in this constellation of groups is exemplified

by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). The

CSPOA, founded by a former Arizona sheriff, promotes the views that a

“constitutional” sheriff will resist enforcement of federal gun laws but act to

oppose immigration—in short, to pick and choose which laws to enforce. As of

2022, 136 serving sheriffs were members of the group.77 Organizations like this one

illustrate why Marche argues, as cited above, that “no police department or federal

agency can be relied upon in a struggle against white supremacy.”78 In question,

that is, is not only the cohesion of any rebel group; it is also the cohesion of

government authorities.

To illustrate both the potential and the obstacles to coherent action among

these groups, the next section will consider three efforts in recent years to bring

them together.

Nevada and Charlottesville

The most important effort to unite the anti-government militia movement in

a common cause involved scofflaw Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy. In this 2014

confrontation, an estimated one thousand people turned out to support Bundy’s

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claims to the right to graze his cattle on federal land without paying grazing fees.

About 400 of those supporters were armed members of a collection of militia groups

including Oath Keepers and Three Percenters.79 While the militants succeeded in

blocking federal authorities from collecting Bundy’s fees, they soon began

bickering and dispersed, trading accusations of cowardice and insanity. The

Bundys’ later efforts to revive the coalition fizzled.80

The most prominent effort to organize the white supremacist movement

was the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was

similarly a one-off event. The main organizer was an individual named Jason

Kessler with no organizational backing beyond limited connections to Richard

Spencer’s “National Policy Institute” organization. Support for the event was thinly

scattered: the 500-600 white supremacists who assembled came from 35 different

states and dozens of different groups, including KKK, neo-Nazi and racist skinhead

groups.81 Again, they quarreled, with the leader of the attending light foot militia

groups labeling the protestors as “jackasses.”82 Leaders of the Three Percenters

announced shortly after the rally their refusal to be associated with white

supremacists.83 The white supremacist movement itself splintered again: when

Kessler tried to organize a subsequent rally, he was dis- avowed even by the neo-

Nazi “Daily Stormer” website.84

This splintering may not, however, prevent such groups from participating in a

civil war. A popular notion on the right is the idea of “leaderless resistance,” first

proposed by Texas Klan leader Louis Beam. Beam’s idea, which was picked up by

other far-right activists, was to avoid suppression by law enforcement by organizing

small terror cells without central coordination.85 Marche, for one, thinks this might
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work. His data show that from 2015 to 2019, an average of 55 people were killed

every year by “domestic anti-government extremists.” His main scenario for civil war

simply involves a massive expansion of the scale and frequency of such attacks—no

central leadership required. This is the scenario of mass terrorism as civil war.86

The alternative scenario, suggested by Walter, is that the Republican Party

could become the organizing force for an insurrection. The abortive January 6

uprising was, from this perspective, merely the party’s first attempt.

The Case of the January 6 Uprising

Walter does not examine the Republican Party’s role in the January 6

uprising, but the links are strong. The rallies and subsequent attack on the U.S.

Capitol building were organized by a network of radical operatives within the

Republican Party cam- paign ecosystem, the culmination of months of organizing.

They were initiated and incited by then-President Donald Trump, coordinated and

produced by Trump campaign officials, and funded by prominent Republican Party

donors.

At the center of the organizing efforts were two longtime Republican

political operatives, Amy Kremer and Ali Alexander. Kremer was among the original

founders of the Tea Party, later founding the pro-Trump organization Women for

America First. Alexander, born Ali Abdul-Razaq Akbar, had floated among

numerous Republican-affiliated organizations over the course of over a decade.87

Both had ties to the Trump White House as well as to a wide range of other

Republican operatives and leaders.

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Alexander began setting the groundwork for his efforts in September 2020

in a Periscope broadcast; the same day his associate Jack Posobiec (who had

previously promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory) tweeted, “#StopTheSteal 2020

is coming”.88 The first “Stop the Steal” rally, organized by Alexander, took place

on November 4, 2020—the evening after Election Day—in Phoenix. A follow-up

rally the next day featured Alex Jones, the extremist “Infowars” broadcaster, who

bellowed, “They will be in their goddamn bunkers when we come for them! They

will be hiding. They will pay. They will be destroyed.”89 Meanwhile, Amy Kremer

and her daughter set up a Stop the Steal Facebook page, which attracted hundreds

of thousands before it was taken down (within 24 hours) by Facebook for

spreading disinformation.

By now wide swaths of the conservative internet were lit up by election

protests. The “Tea Party Patriots” website became a clearinghouse for ‘protect the

vote’ protests over ballot counting in Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania,

which the group also promoted on social media.”90 Kremer’s Women for America First

website similarly promoted these and other events nationwide. Alexander activated

his network for the same end. The immediate results of these efforts were pro-Trump

election protests in all fifty states on Saturday, November 7. In the capitals of swing

states Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, turnout was estimated at over 1,000,

though many of the rallies were much smaller.91

A week later came the first “Million MAGA March” in Washington on

November 14. Kremer’s Women for American First organization secured the

permit.92 Alex Jones brought a caravan of attendees that had started in Texas.93 The
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white supremacist Nick Fuentes promoted the march among his “Groyper Army”

following.94 At Ali Alexander’s prompting, Enrique Tarrio mobilized some of his

Proud Boy supporters to attend as well. In total an estimated 13,000 people

attended this rally.

Kremer’s Women for America First organization followed up this

achievement with a two-week, 18-state “March for Trump” bus tour, starting in

Florida on November 29.95 The expedition was largely funded by pillow magnate

Mike Lindell, who spoke at several of the stops.96 It culminated in a second

“Million MAGA March” in Washington on December 12, an event also heavily

promoted by the Oath Keepers militia and the neo-Nazi “Daily Stormer”

Website.97 Among the speakers were ex-National Security adviser Michael Flynn,

Alex Jones, and Lindell. Thousands attended, though reports estimated the crowd

smaller than the one a month earlier.98

The initiative for the final act—the protests of January 5 and 6—seems to

have come from Ali Alexander, who reportedly tweeted about a January 6 rally on

December 17. Two days later, Donald Trump himself promoted the event with his

infamous tweet, “Be There. Will be Wild”.99 Alexander had already set his militia

allies in motion: Florida Oath Keeper leader Kelly Meggs wrote to a colleague on

December 19—the same day as Trump’s tweet—reporting, “This week I organized

an alliance between Oath Keepers, Florida 3%ers, and Proud Boys”.100 Alexander also

had allies in Congress, staying in close contact with Rep. Paul Gosar’s office and

claiming links as well with Reps. Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks.101 Kremer quickly

fell in line, changing the date on a previous rally permit application to January

6.102
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As the date drew near, the White House assigned former Trump campaign

worker Katrina Pierson to coordinate rally plans. The plans—established after

consultation with Trump himself—would come to include three separate rallies: A

January 5 evening rally featuring Alex Jones and Ali Alexander; the rally on the

Ellipse behind the White House formally sponsored by Women for America First

and featuring the Trump family; and the planned assault on the Capitol organized by

Alexander.103 Key managers of the main rally on the Ellipse were former Trump

campaign staffers, and the firm that provided logistics was also closely tied to the

Trump campaign.104 Trump acted to merge the Ellipse and Capitol groups by

calling in his speech for the former group to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to

join the latter, despite the fact that his rally permit specifically prohibited such

action.

An indication of the way radicalism had by now infiltrated into the

Republican establishment was the involvement of the Republican Attorney Generals

Association (RAGA). On January 5, RAGA’s fundraising arm, the Rule of Law

Defense Fund (RLDF), paid for a robocall urging people to attend the rally on the

Ellipse and then to march on the Capitol.105 The apparent reasons for RAGA’s

involvement was Ali Alexander’s longstanding personal ties to then-RAGA

chairman Jeff Landry, as well as pressure from one of RLDF’s key funders.106

In terms of organization, this is the story of the January 6 insurrection. The

shock troops were provided by groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers,

mobilized through the ties of operatives like Alexander and Republican politicians

such as Gosar.107 The organizational backbone was provided by Trumpist activist

groups like Women for America First reinforced by Trump campaign staff and
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overseen by the White House. The publicity lead was taken by provocateurs such

as Alex Jones and by the Republican netroots, with support from more established

figures like Hannity and amplification by Trump’s twitter megaphone. Funding

from Republican donors was not only easily available but, in the case of RAGA’s

involvement and Mike Lindell’s activism, a driving force for the action. Given the

White House involvement, the insurrection was, as the Congressional committee

investigating these events concluded, the culminating part of a coup attempt.108

The Republican Party after January 6

Republican office-holders and candidates are increasingly committed to

refusing to accept election losses. A Washington Post analysis in June 2022 found

that the majority of GOP primary winners for statewide office or for U.S.

Congress either denied or directly questioned the 2020 election result. Some

boasted of their own efforts to challenge or overturn past elections.109 Most

Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump have retired or lost

primary elections. In Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona, Republican nominees for

Governor and/or Secretary of State assert that they would not have certified

Trump’s election losses in their states in 2020.110 The chairwoman of the

Republican National Committee is someone “known chiefly for her loyalty to”

Trump.111 In Texas, the Republican Party convention voted in June 2022 to endorse

the view that the 2020 election was stolen.112

Insurrectionists are also gaining control of Republican Party organizations.

In Michigan, a cochair of the state party is Meshawn Maddock, who was chief

organizer of a protest aimed at disrupting ballot counting in Detroit, and who helped
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organize a convoy of 19 buses to the January 6 rally.113 In Pennsylvania, a county

GOP party commissioner described “a major Stalin-like purge going on” against

Trump-critical Republicans,114 and the state Republican Party voted for a “strong

rebuke” of Senator Pat Toomey for voting to convict Trump in his second Senate

impeachment trial.115 In Wisconsin, moderate state party chairman Andrew Hitt

announced his retirement.116 The Arizona party was a staunch supporter of Ali

Alexander’s campaign of disruption in 2020-21, retweeting even some of Alexander’s

more outrageous statements.117 Perhaps most revealing was the reaction to Georgia

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s insistence on honestly counting the votes in

his state: the state party convention voted to censure him for "dereliction of his

constitutional duty”.118

Given this Republican Party acceptance—from top to bottom—of Trump’s

election lies, it is certain that some Republicans will renew these claims of election

fraud in 2024, and likely that any Republican presidential nominee would support them.

However, the likely Republican nominee for 2024 is Donald Trump: 59 percent of

Republican voters supported his renomination in an August 2022 poll.119 My scenario

will therefore be built on the assumption that Trump is again the Republican nominee

in 2024. The scenario considers how, if Trump is defeated again, his supporters

might launch an armed uprising.

Leadership

While the organizational muscle mustered by people like Ali Alexander

and Amy Kremer was necessary to make the January 6 insurrection possible, the

leadership of Donald Trump was indispensable. What made the coup attempt happen
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was Trump’s dogged determination to overturn his election defeat by extralegal

means.

Having insisted in both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns that “the only way

we lose is if they cheat,” Trump escalated his claims of tampering after he realized

he had lost in 2020. According to a Washington Post tally: “After Nov. 3, [Trump]

made more than 800 false or misleading claims about election fraud, including 76

times offering some variation of “rigged election.”120 His rhetoric urging followers

to demand his illegal continuance in office was clear, as in the infamous January 6

line, “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore”.121

The election lies were powerful: according to a May 2021 poll, 53% of Republicans

believed that the election was stolen and Trump was the “true president”.122

Trump, indeed, is unique among past Presidents in his willingness to

challenge legal and constitutional limits in the pursuit of power. He publicly

solicited Russian interference in the 2016 election in his favor.123 During the 2020

election campaign, he explicitly sought Ukrainian help. On the domestic front, one

of his national security advisors, John Bolton, assessed that for Trump, obstruction

of justice is “a way of life”.124 And when he lost his reelection bid, he was the

only president ever to attempt to overturn the result.

Trump’s ultimate goal is suggested by his repeated references to his desire to

remain President even beyond the constitutionally mandated term limit of eight

years. His response to Xi Jinping’s repeal of presidential term limits in China is one

indication. Trump commented, “He’s now president for life … I think it’s great.

Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday”.125 Similarly, at the Republican

National Convention in 2020, Trump instructed his supporters to chant, “12 more
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years”.126

Scenario: Disputed 2024 Election

According to symbolic politics theory, the preconditions for civil war in

the U.S.— specifically, for an insurgency by the extreme right—already exist.

Justifications for right-wing insurgent activity are a mainstay of widespread

conservative narratives. Widespread predispositions on the right identify liberals

and Democrats as evil enemies, prompting also widespread feelings that the left

constitutes a threat to those on the right. Much of the necessary organizational

structure exists: an ecosystem of right-wing groups that are capable of violence, and

links between the Republican Party and those groups. The only elements missing

are a leader of national stature to call for violent action and a cause celebre to

serve as the pretext.

If Donald Trump is the losing Presidential candidate in 2024, he could

become that leader and his election loss the pretext. His reaction would likely

begin the way his 2020 reaction did: with public rejection of the results, claims of

fraud, lawsuits, and pressure on Republican politicians to act to overturn the result.

The response would be different, however, because many of those Republican

politicians who did their constitutional duty in 2020 have been repudiated by their

party. The expectation for 2024, therefore, is that most Republican officeholders

will use every power resource at their command to secure the inauguration of a

President Trump regardless of the vote count. If they succeed, the result will be

electoral authoritarianism but not civil war. If they fail, Trump is likely to escalate.

In such a context public opinion will be polarized and the right radicalized.

The atmosphere will certainly include mass protests, probably unarmed violence
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(as on January 6, 2021), and possibly armed attacks. The majority of Republican

voters will be convinced that justice demands the re-inauguration of President

Trump, and will be enraged that they have been denied this outcome. In this

atmosphere, Trump might decide to try to launch another coup attempt.

The process would probably include a better-organized repetition of the

2020 tactic of convening rogue Electoral College meetings in disputed states which

would declare Trump the winner in those states. Trump could then begin forming

a counter-regime hosted, let’s say, by the governor of Florida. Other Republican-

led state governments and Republican members of Congress might then refuse to

recognize the duly elected Democratic president and instead proclaim allegiance

to Trump. This is the revolutionary scenario, realizing the right-wing slogan that

“1776 is always an option.” The revolutionary regime would then seek

recognition from federal institutions. Trump would in this scenario call for protest

rallies outside federal offices, perhaps with winking references signaling that

protestors should come armed. Protestors would demand that federal workers accept

Trump’s authority. Some state governments would likely side with Trump and

refused to protect the federal workers. The lame duck or newly reelected president

would have to federalize the National Guard in each defiant state and order it to

deploy to protect federal property.

Everything would then hinge on whether the National Guard chain of

command remained intact and the troops remained loyal to federal authority,

especially in the state hosting Trump (Florida, in this hypothetical). If the Guard

follows orders, it could probably deter any serious violent assault on the federal

workers. Trump and

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his supporters would have to be arrested and the rebellion would then collapse.

The loyalty of the Guard, however, is not a certainty. Many military

personnel and police tend to lean right, which means they would probably be hearing

the Republican narrative: “stolen” election, Trump’s “rightful” authority, etc. This is

especially true of military officers: one study found 63% of military officers

identifying as “conservative”.127 Might they heed this call? If a core group of

insurgent Guard officers in any state managed to convince a significant number of

their soldiers to support Trump’s insurrectionary regime, they could enable the

insurgent government (both the state’s and Trump’s) to gain control of the state in

a process which might or might not involve violence against forces loyal to legal

authority. Alternatively, divided Guard units might simply refuse to act. In either

case, the legal President would then have to declare the state in rebellion and send

the regular military to restore order.

The employment of the regular U.S. military would mean the end of the

battle, but it could potentially signal the start of the war. As Marche observes, citing

an unnamed retired colonel, “There is no conceivable situation in the immediate

future by which a militia force, no matter how prepared, … could compete with U.S.

forces tactically.”128 Even dissident Guard units would probably be easily

overcome. Neither the rebel regime nor organized militia groups that supported it

would long survive. As Thomas Hegghammer has argued, “modern states have

become so effective at repressing small rebel groups that the latter only survive if

they can periodically leave the area of state control.”129 Specific, organized groups

can be and would be suppressed.

Doing so, however, could be the most likely path to civil war. The greater
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the number of states in which the insurgents gain initial victories, the larger the

fight needed to suppress the insurgency. Every dead right-wing “martyr” in these

battles would be inspiration for like-minded terrorists to strike out in retaliation.

Marche argues: “To clamp down on domestic terrorism, the U.S. government will

have no choice but to control arms, control the movement of people, and control hate

speech.”130 Each effort at control, each military action, escalates the debate over

whether the federal government is overreaching, prompting escalating acts of violent

defiance. For example, he imagines “an attempt to disarm Oregon Three Percenters

after they hang a government informant turns into a bloodbath on both sides.”131

Ultimately the U.S. Army attempts to implement its counterinsurgency doctrine,

which only fuels the insurrection.

Walter’s analysis points to the same difficulty. She summarizes the key causal

mechanism this way: “Multiple studies have found that if a government responds with

brutal force to the early mobilization of an extremist group, local support for even

unpopular groups increases.”132 Thus Marche is probably right that anyplace the U.S.

government tried to institute martial law or implement a counterinsurgency military

strategy would respond with insurgent violence. Marche assumes an ineluctable

political logic here: open defiance of federal law will force the government into

increasingly harsh crack- downs, which will motivate further defiance.

An insurgency of this sort would ultimately have no chance of success as

long as U.S. government authorities remained loyal and cohesive, but they might

not. The Republican Party organization remains loyal to Trump. What would

twenty-odd Republican governors and scores of Republican-led state legislative

bodies do after they saw the U.S. military crush a Trumpist counter-regime to
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which some of them have pledged allegiance, with which most of them sympathize,

and which holds the fervent allegiance of all of their bases of support? It seems

certain that at minimum they would howl in outrage, saying everything possible to

attempt to delegitimize the federal government’s reaction. Conservative news outlets led

by Fox News would amplify these arguments, and social media would spread them.

In this context, it is conceivable that leaders of GOP-dominated states would

claim that the federal government had so discredited itself that they moved to

secede. The idea of secession is, in fact, already being seriously discussed: in June

of 2022, the Texas Republican Convention called for a referendum on "Texas

Independence."133 One or two such moves would set a precedent that others might

follow. Even if this trend were confined to states with both legislative houses and

the governorship controlled by Republicans, that would mean (if the pattern that

held in 2022 remains stable) that up to twenty or more states, potentially

comprising most of the South, Great Plains and mountain West, would secede.

Could an army whose officer corps is overwhelmingly from those regions go to war

against them all?

If we assume GOP politicians do not go that far, the aftermath of a quick

crushing of a Trumpist rebellion would still be fertile ground for a mass

outburst of loosely-coordinated “leaderless resistance.” The symbolic leadership

would come from Donald Trump, first while free and then as a martyr in custody.

The motive would come from Trump’s lies, which would be spread by sympathizers

in both mass media and social media. The means would be the simultaneous self-

activation of the whole ecosystem of extreme-right groups: militia groups including

Three Percenters and Oath Keepers; Proud Boys and Boogaloo Boys; neo-Nazis, Klan
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and neo-confederate groups might all see the initial clashes as the signal to “get out

their guns.”

The results would be familiar—widespread terrorism—but on a scale

unfamiliar to the U.S.: multiple weekly mass shootings and occasional bombings

aimed variously at members of racial and religious minority groups, immigrants, gays,

government targets including schools, and random mass-casualty targets like

shopping outlets. It could involve armed militia groups patrolling city streets

claiming to enforce law and order while providing camouflage for the most violent

extremists to kill. In response, left-wing groups like Antifa might grow larger and

more violent as well. It is easy to imagine the result being over 100 deaths per

month, enough to exceed the standard civil war criterion of 1000 battle deaths per

year.

To be clear, such a scenario is unlikely because it requires a sequence of

events all to occur: Donald Trump must be the Republican Presidential nominee; he

must lose the election; his attempt to steal the election must fail; he must respond to

that failure by attempting an unconstitutional seizure of power; and he must attract

military sup- port, in the first instance by National Guard units. Even if some of

these events are plausible, the likelihood that all of them would occur in sequence

is quite low. If Trump is the losing nominee, however, the probability becomes

much greater.

Conclusion

According to many of the usual indicators for civil war risk, the United

States in primed for one. According to the Goldstone model, the key risk factors
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are partial democracy and polarization, both clearly present in the U.S. since

January 6, 2021. The symbolic politics model offers a compatible analysis, first by

identifying key elements that create the polarization: narratives justifying partisan

hostility, hostile pre- dispositions, and feelings of threat that can turn those

predispositions into actions. Those narratives are repeated on a daily basis by

right-wing media sources such as Fox News commentators and further spread on

social media, strengthening the hostile predispositions and reinforcing

conservatives’ feelings of threat.

A symbolic politics analysis also posits the necessity of means,

opportunity, and leadership, but these are also present in the U.S. Means and

opportunity start with a constellation of extremist groups, especially white

supremacist and anti-government groups including militias, which if unified would

constitute a significant insurgent force. The Republican Party has already forged

links to many of these groups. Most of all, many of those groups look to Donald

Trump for leadership. The last time he told them to fight, they did. He is capable

of doing so again.

This article has also suggested a scenario in which these causal elements

could come together: a second presidential election defeat for Donald Trump. It is

easy to imagine Trump pursuing an extraconstitutional effort to seize power which

would have to be suppressed by a large-scale use of military force. If that clash

alone did not result in more than the 1,000 combat-related deaths that define a civil

war, subsequent incidents of revenge terrorism would probably have that effect. Other

scenarios might generate similar outcomes. These scenarios have become probable

enough that they merit sustained attention.

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Notes

1. Monica Duffy Toft, “How Civil Wars Start,” Foreign Policy February 18,

2021, https://foreign-policy.com/2021/02/18/how-civil-wars-start/ (accessed

February 11, 2022).

2. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future

(New York: Avid Reader Press, 2022), 1.

3. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them (New

York: Crown, 2022), xviii.

4. In the period 2012–2021, 75% of extremist-related killings were carried out

by right-wing extremists, as compared to 20% by domestic Islamist

extremists and 4% by left-wing extremists. Anti-Defamation League,

Murder and Extremism in the United States 2021, 7,

https://www.adl.org/murder-and-extremism-2021 (accessed August 27,

2022).

5. Milja Kurki, Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal

Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

6. James D. Fearon and David Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War,”

American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 75–90.

7. Jack A. Goldstone, Robert H. Bates, David L. Epstein, Ted Robert Gurr,

Michael B. Lustik, Monty G. Marshall, Jay Ulfelder and Mark Woodward,

“A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability,” American Journal

of Political Science 54, no. 1 (2010): 196.

8. Ibid., 195–197, 204.

9. Walter, How Civil Wars Start, 67.

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10. Walter’s term “ethnic entrepreneurs” is based on the concept of “political

entrepreneurs” popularized in David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild,

“Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict,”

International Security 21, no. 2 (1996), 41–75. A first-rate account of

Serbian nationalism and Milosevic’s rise is V. P. Gagnon, Jr., The Myth of

Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s (Ithaca: Cornell

University Press, 2006).

11. Walter, How Civil Wars Start, 108.

12. Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001); Stuart J. Kaufman, Nationalist

Passions (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).

13. The US is ranked thirteenth in the world in GDP per capita. World Bank,

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_des

c=true (accessed August 27, 2022).

14. Walter, How Civil Wars Start, 138.

15. Christopher Ingraham, “There Are More Guns than People in the United

States, According to a New Study of Global Firearm Ownership,”

Washington Post, June 19, 2018,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there-are-more-guns-

than-people-in-the-united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of-global-firearm-

ownership/ (accessed August 27, 2022).

16. Walter, How Civil Wars Start, 142–153.

17. Marche, The Next Civil War, 10, 47–48, 99.

18. Eli J. Finkel, Christopher A. Bail, Mina Cikara, Peter H. Ditto, Shanto
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Iyengar, Samara Klar, Lilliana Mason, Mary C. McGrath, Brendan Nyhan,

David G. Rand, Linda J. Skitka, Joshua A. Tucker, Jay J. Van Bavel,

Cynthia S. Wang, and James N. Druckman, “Political Sectarianism in

America,” Science 370, no. 6516 (2020): 533–536.

19. Brian Stelter, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous

Distortion of Truth

(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), 35–36.

20. Ibid., 41.

21. Ted Johnson, “Cable News Networks See Big Gains in Viewership During

Tumultuous 2020,” Deadline, December 24, 2020,

https://deadline.com/2020/12/ratings-cable-news-networks-2020-

1234660751/ (accessed February 18, 2021).

22. John Gramlich, “5 Facts about Fox News,” Pew Research Center, April 8,

2020, https:// www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/08/five-facts-about-fox-

news/ (accessed August 27, 2022).

23. Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella, Echo Chamber: Rush

Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment (Oxford: Oxford

University Press), 65.

24. Stelter, Hoax, 38.

25. “Hannity,” October 23, 2018,

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20181024_010000_Hannity

(accessed June 6, 2021).

26. John Whitehouse, “Laura Ingraham’s show used Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s speech

condemning sexism to fearmonger about Democrats,” Media Matters, July

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24, 2020, https://www.me- diamatters.org/laura-ingraham/laura-ingrahams-show-

used-rep-ocasio-cortez-speech-condemning-sexism-fearmonger (accessed

August 28, 2022).

27. “Fox’s Dan Bongino claims Democrats ‘are deliberately destroying American

cities’,” Media Matters, June 29, 2021, https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-

news/foxs-dan-bongino-claims-democrats-are-deliberately-destroying-

american-cities

28. John Whitehouse and Katherine Abughazaleh, “Timeline: Fox News

Misinformation 2020,” Media Matters, December 30, 2020,

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/ timeline-fox-news-

misinformation-2020 (accessed August 28, 2022).

29. “Hannity,” November 27, 2019, https://archive.org/details/TV-FOXNEWS

(accessed June

6, 2021).

30. “Tucker Carlson: Democrats want ‘Demographic Replacement,’ with a

‘Flood of Illegals’ to Create ‘a Flood of Voters for Them’,” Media Matters,

December 20, 2017, https://www. mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-

carlson-democrats-want-demographic-replacement-fl ood-illegals-create-flood

(accessed June 6, 2021).

31. Casey Michel, “Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s ‘Great Replacement’

Segment Used a New Frame for an Old Fear,” ABCNews.com, April 12,

2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/ opinion/tucker-carlson-s-great-

replacement-fox-news-segment-uses-newer-ncna1263880 (accessed June 6,

2021).
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32. “Hannity,” February 4, 2021,

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20210205_060000_

Hannity (accessed June 6, 2021).

33. “Ingraham Angle,” Dec. 2, 2019, https://archive.org/details/TV-FOXNEWS

(accessed June 6, 2021).

34. “Hannity,” September 6, 2019,

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20190907_010000_Hannity (accessed

June 6, 2021).

35. Whitehouse and Abughazaleh, “Timeline: Fox News Misinformation 2020.”

36. “Hannity,” Dec. 3, 2019, https://archive.org/details/TV-FOXNEWS (accessed June

6, 2021).

37. Whitehouse and Abughazaleh, “Timeline: Fox News Misinformation 2020.”

38. Ibid.

39. “The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton,” December 21, 2020,

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20201221_080000_The_Next_Revo

lution_With_Steve_Hilton (accessed June 6, 2021).

40. “Hannity,” December 17, 2020,

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20201217_020000_Hannity (accessed

June 6, 2021).

41. Whitehouse and Abughazaleh, “Timeline: Fox News Misinformation 2020.”

42. Tyler Monroe and Rob Savillo, “Fox News has attacked Black Lives Matter

over 400 times in a 6-month period,” Media Matters, May 26, 2021,

https://www.mediamatters.org/ black-lives-matter/fox-news-has-attacked-black-
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lives-matter-over-400-times-6-month-period (accessed August 27, 2022).

43. “Ingraham Angle, October 9, 2012,

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20181010_020000_The_Ingraham_Angle

(accessed June 6, 2021).

44. “Fox Host: If Protests Continue, ‘that Second Amendment Starts Looking

Miraculous’,” Media Matters, September 21, 2020,

https://www.mediamatters.org/dana-perino/fox-hos t-if-protests-continue-

second-amendment-starts-looking-miraculous (accessed August 28, 2022).

45. Whitehouse and Abughazaleh, “Timeline: Fox News Misinformation 2020.”

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid.

49. Sarah Palin seems to have been first in articulating the idea that

Republicans represent the “real America.” See George Packer, “How

America Fractured Into Four Parts,” The Atlantic, July/August 2021.

50. Yphtach Lelkes and Sean J. Westwood, “The Limits of Partisan Prejudice,”

Journal of Politics 79, no. 2 (2016): 485–501; Finkel et al., “Political

Sectarianism in America;” Shanto Iyengar, Gaurav Sood, and Yphtach

Lelkes, “Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization,”

Public Opinion Quarterly 76, no. 3, (2012): 405–431; and Alan I.

Abramowitz and Steven W. Webster, “Negative Partisanship: Why Americans

Dislike Parties But Behave Like Rabid Partisans,” Advances in Political

Psychology 39, Suppl. 1 (2018): 119–135.

51. Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes, “Affect, Not Ideology,” 690.

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52. American National Election Survey, https://electionstudies.org/ (accessed August

27, 2022).

53. Pew Research Center, “Partisanship and Political Animosity 2026,”

https://www.pewresearch. org/politics/2016/06/22/1-feelings-about-partisans-

and-the-parties/ (accessed August 27, 2022).

54. Pew Research Center, “Partisan Antipathy.”

55. Ezra Klein and Alvin Chang, "’Political Identity Is Fair Game for Hatred’:

How Republicans and Democrats Discriminate,” Vox.com, December 7,

2015, https://www.vox. com/2015/12/7/9790764/partisan-discrimination

(accessed August 28, 2022).

56. Ibid.

57. Erin C. Cassese, “Partisan Dehumanization in American Politics,”

Political Behavior 43, no. 1 (2021): 29–50.

58. Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason, Lethal Mass Partisanship:

Prevalence, Correlates, & Electoral Contingencies,” Prepared for

presentation at the January 2019 NCAPSA American Politics Meeting,

20.

59. Finkel et al. “Political Sectarianism in America.”

60. David Neiwert, Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of

Trump (London: Verso, 2017), 47.

61. Daniel A. Cox, “After the Ballots Are Counted: Conspiracies, Political

Violence, and American Exceptionalism,” American Survey Center 2021,

https://www.americansurvey- center.org/research/after-the-ballots-are-

counted-conspiracies-political-violenc
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e-and-american-exceptionalism/ (accessed August 29, 2022).

62. Abramowitz and Webster, “Negative Partisanship,” 125.

63. Philip Klinkner, “The Easiest Way to Guess if Someone Supports Trump?

Ask if Obama is a Muslim,” Vox, June 2, 2016

https://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11833548/donald-trum p-support-race-

religion-economy (accessed August 29, 2022).

64. “Majority Says the Federal Government Threatens Their Personal Rights,”

Pew Research Center,

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2013/01/31/majority-says-the-federa

l-government-threatens-their-personal-rights/ (accessed January 10, 2021).

65. “Ipsos Poll: Nativism Topline 5.27.2016,”

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/news_ and_polls/2015-

12/NativismTopline%2012282015.pdf (accessed January 10, 2021).

66. Kalmoe and Mason, “Lethal Mass Partisanship,” p. 19.

67. Michael Dimock and Richard Wike, “America Is Exceptional in the Nature

of its Political Divide,” Pew Research, November 13, 2020,

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/13/ america-is-exceptional-in-

the-nature-of-its-political-divide/ (accessed January 10, 2021).

68. Neiwert, Alt-America, 48.

69. Chris Cillizza, “Three-quarters of Republicans believe a lie about the 2020

election,” CNN, February 4, 2020,

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/04/politics/2020-election-donald-

trump-voter-fraud/index.html (accessed August 28, 2022).

70. Kalmoe and Mason, “Lethal Mass Partisanship,” p. 32.

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71. Larry M. Bartels, “Ethnic antagonism erodes Republicans’ commitment to

democracy,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 37

(2020): 22752–22759. Cf. Daniel A. Cox, “After the ballots are counted:

Conspiracies, political violence, and American exceptionalism,” American

Survey Research Center, February 11, 2021, https://www.amer-

icansurveycenter.org/research/after-the-ballots-are-counted-conspiracies-political-

violence-and-american-exceptionalism/ (accessed August 28, 2022).

72. Robert O’Harrow Jr., Andrew Ba Tran and Derek Hawkins, “The Rise of

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terrorism-data/ (accessed August 298, 2022).

73. Arie Perliger, American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism

(New York: Columbia University Press), 18–26.

74. Southern Poverty Law Center, The Year in Hate and Extremism 2020, 40,

https://www. splcenter.org/news/2021/02/01/year-hate-

2020?gclid=CjwKCAjw3qGYBhBSEiwAcnTRLud-n

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75. On embrace of Great Replacement theory, see Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Hate in

the Homeland: The New Global Far Right (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2020), 11.

76. JJ MacNab, “Assessing the Threat from Accelerationists and Militia

Extremists,” Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Intelligence and

Counterterrorism, Committee on Homeland Security, July 16, 2020,

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https://homeland.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Testimony%20-%20

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77. Cloee Cooper, Ethan Fauré, and Olivia Lawrence-Weilmann, “Mapping

Far-Right and Anti-Immigrant Movement Alignment with County Sheriffs,”

Political Research Associates, September 14, 2020,

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igrant-movement-alignment-county-sheriffs (accessed August 26, 2022).

78. Marche, The Next Civil War, pp. 47–48.

79. Niewert, Alt-America, pp. 164, 168, 173; Sam Jackson, Oath Keepers:

Patriotism and the Edge of Violence in a Right-Wing Antigovernment

Group (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020, 46.

80. Niewert, Alt-America, 174-77, 186-87, 197.

81. “Have Hate, Will Travel: The Demographics of Unite the Right,” Anti-

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 Accepted Manuscript
Version of record at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2022.2137892

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85. Perliger, American Zealots, 46.

86. Marche, The Next Civil War, 3 and passim.

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88. Ibid.

89. Ibid.

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 Accepted Manuscript
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92. Mencimer, “How a Feud Between Two Tea Party Leaders.”

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 Accepted Manuscript
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Pro-Trump Demonstrations in Washington,” Washington Post, December 11,

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 Accepted Manuscript
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104. Anna Massoglia, “Shell Companies and ‘Dark Money’ May Hide Details

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110. Amy Gardner, Election Deniers March Toward Power in Key 2024
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Battlegrounds,” The Washington Post, August 15, 2022,

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 Accepted Manuscript
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 Accepted Manuscript
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 Accepted Manuscript
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Military Relations

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130. Marche, The Next Civil War, 158.

131. Ibid., 161.

132. Walter, How Civil Wars Start, 97.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks for comments on earlier drafts of this article go to Sam Jackson, Bob Pape,

Arie Perliger, members of the University of Delaware Political Science

Colloquium, and two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).