America divided: BEHIND THE LINES

With the perception of reality between Democrats and Republicans so distorted, could civil war really happen? Some experts doubt an armed conflict could arise – but others foresee a Northern Ireland-style insurgency …

- David Smith

Joe Biden had spent a year hoping the United States could go back to normal. But last Thursday, the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, the president finally recognised the full scale of the threat to American democracy. “At this moment, we must decide,” Biden said in Statuary Hall, where rioters had swarmed a year earlier. “What kind of nation are we going to be? Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?”

It is a question that many inside America, and beyond, are asking.

A slew of opinion polls show a significant minority of Americans at ease with the idea of violence against the government. Even talk of a second civil war has gone from fringe fantasy to media mainstream.

“Is a Civil War ahead?” was the blunt headline of a New Yorker magazine article last week. “Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?” posed a headline in the New York Times.

The mere fact that such notions are entering the public domain shows the once unthinkable has become thinkable, even though some would argue it remains firmly improbable.

The anxiety is fed by rancour in Washington, where Biden’s desire for bipartisanship has crashed into radicalised Republican opposition. The president’s remark last Thursday – “I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy ” – appeared to acknowledge that there can be no business as usual when one of the major parties has embraced authoritarianism.

Illustrating the point, almost no Republicans attended the commemorations as their party seeks to rewrite history, recasting the mob who tried to overturn Trump’s election defeat as martyrs fighting for democracy.