One of the most disturbing developments over the past several years has been the political right’s increasing embrace and use of violence to achieve its ends, to the point that many Republican politicians have now tacitly embraced such tactics and given them a patina of mainstream appeal. Early in the Trump administration, we saw a mass expression of intimidation and violence by white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, which culminated in the death of a protestor against the right-wing demonstrations there. And on January 6, we all witnessed the ominous culmination of this trend, with a mob spearheaded by white nationalist and fascist paramilitaries attacking the U.S. Capital at the instigation of a Republican president who aimed to stage a coup to remain in power. Since then, right-wing activists aligned with the Republican Party have employed threats of violence to harass and terrorize teachers, election workers, Democratic politicians, and others that such extremists have identified as the enemies of America.
So on the face of it, it’s not surprising that we would encounter the occasional think piece or Twitter thread that asks whether the United States might be veering towards a civil war; after all, our country already suffered through such a conflict a century and a half ago, so that we can’t dismiss the idea as simply unprecedented. But to consider the possibility of civil war means to consider that two opposing political sides might resort to violence to resolve their differences or impose the will of one over the other — and that, I would argue, is far from the actual situation in the United States.
In fact, I would go even further, and suggest that haphazard assessments of a possible “civil war” actually risk providing cover for right-wing extremists, Trumpist conservatives, and, increasingly, those mainstream Republicans who wink and nod at violence and intimidation so long as it’s carried out for ends that benefit the GOP. By suggesting that Democrats and the left are also, or might soon be, champing at the bit to let loose the dogs of war, such speculation creates a sort of anticipatory justification for the violent acts and rhetoric of the right — sure, it might just be the right embracing violence now, but pretty soon everyone will be doing it! In this manner, speculation that jumps ahead to civil war speculation skips over the very much one-sided reality of the present.
In this present-day reality, political violence is overwhelmingly being directed and instigated against Democrats and Democratic-leaning populations (African Americans, Latinos, the LGBTQ community) by right-wing actors, not the reverse. There is simply no analogue in the other direction. Our country is now home to a far-right, fascistic movement that sees violence as a necessary way to overcome their advantages in numbers, ideas, and basic morality. Crucially, the embrace of violence that we increasingly see on the right has very little to do with fighting equals on a field of battle, but rather wielding violence to intimidate and harm ordinary citizens of opposing political beliefs going about their daily business. The name that we would apply to such violence in any other country is “terrorism,” and its aim, insofar as such acts are meant to short circuit or destroy democratic governance, is more properly described as “insurrection.” Even when you hear of right-wing groups talking about an imminent “civil war,” the term is misleading; they are either deluding themselves that their political opponents are as bloody-minded as they are, or that they intend to fight this nation’s police, domestic security (i.e, the FBI), and armed forces. But the first is a fantasy, and the second is not civil war, but, again, a form of insurrection. In this sense, the concept of civil war is deeply self-serving for the far right, providing a cover of legitimacy for what are actually fantasies of murder, mayhem, and terror against unarmed civilians.
Frankly, I sometimes wonder if even continuing to talk about the generic rise of “political violence” at this point can obscure as much as it illuminates, even when we are clear to name those committing this violence. When the right engages in violent actions or intimidation against civilians, it is not simply engaging in violence but specifically conducting terrorism: it is attempting to create political change by violent methods against civilian targets.
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This parsing of terms isn’t just a theoretical exercise; the language we use to describe our fraught reality will impact how the American majority thinks about the violent rhetoric and methods increasingly prevalent on the right side of the political spectrum. At best, arguments that the country is “headed for civil war” assume that while Americans on the left may not be resorting to violence presently, they will at some point either see no choice, or be unable to resist the urge, to physically fight their political opponents. Such speculation makes it seem natural for citizens to, at some point, just take up arms and start killing their opponents. But skipping ahead to such a conflict, when our current reality is that it is the right — including mainstream politicians — who are naturalizing political violence, serves to take our eyes off this current, one-sided reality in which the right’s position is in fact deeply self-incriminating and delegitimizing, so long as this country holds itself to be a democracy. The nation as a whole is not becoming more politically violent; the American right is. And that violence reflects an anti-democratic, authoritarian, and bloody-minded mentality that should supercharge the majority’s efforts to defeat this movement through democratic politics, as well as via law enforcement’s efforts to prosecute anyone who uses violence or violent intimidation to effect political change.
But even when they are more accurate, discussions of the violence and violent rhetoric coming from right-wing actors can obscure an arguably more threatening truth — that now even mainstream GOP politicians see violence and intimidation as key to gaining power, most clearly evidenced in the party’s continued fealty to Donald Trump despite the former president’s coup attempt and years of incitement of violence against minorities, the press, and the political opposition. For more recent examples, we need look no further than this week’s news, with Senator Lindsey Graham warning that any prosecution of Donald Trump will result in “riots in the streets” by the former president’s supporters. This is hardly a neutral prediction by Graham; rather, it’s his attempt to game the legal system, by warning federal prosecutors from doing their duty lest they provoke a violent backlash, while also sending a message to Trump supporters as to what they might do to help the former president. Even if politicians like Graham don’t directly instigate violence, they have no compunction in harnessing it to serve their political ends.
Perversely, an over-emphasis on political violence as a threat to American democracy, up to and including speculative talk about civil war, distracts from a broader, far-likelier danger: that violence will be used by Republican politicians as a tool in a quasi-legal push to dismantle American democracy, so that the GOP, with its dwindling share of the electorate, can still have a shot at holding the various branches of the U.S. government. As you know, we’ve experienced a wave of Republican voter suppression and gerrymandering across the country, which aims to ensure that Americans are not given fair representation in future elections in states like Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. At the same time, we’ve also seen attempts to harass and intimidate election officials, a complementary effort intended to help tilt the field in favor of Republican candidates. And at the more extreme end, there have been instances of right-wing extremists attacking pro-life marches and BLM demonstrations by driving cars through protestors, which have the political aim of terrorizing their political opponents from exercising their rights to assembly and to organize politically. To relate this back to the civil war discourse — the more likely future for America is not that we might devolve into civil war, but that the GOP and the right use violence as an adjunct to an illegitimate deformation of American democracy. To talk about violence coming from the right — let alone civil war — without talking about this larger, more consequential Republican movement to subvert our political system obscures the dangerous synergy between the two, and helps the GOP evade accountability for its incriminating behavior in the here and now.