Civil war sounds crazy, but so did a Trump presidency

Ordinarily, I don’t engage or indulge topics such as this: The prospects of another civil war in the United States. Such things seem too far-fetched, speculative, even ridiculous to bother with, unworthy of 900 words. But the prospect of civil war — an actual split in the country and violent confrontations between red and blue — is exactly the topic of my Oct. 10 column in The Baltimore Sun. Perhaps I’ve been overexposed to dire warnings. Perhaps I’ve read too many news accounts, opinion polls and fact-based commentary about the prospects of a Trump comeback and the deep divisions within the country. I came of age during the Vietnam War era, when Americans at home split and fought bitterly over the U.S. military operation in Southeast Asia. But that was nothing compared to what we’re seeing now. That was mere disagreement over policy. We are at a different place, where the Republican Party is fully aligned with a man and a movement that disregards democracy and the Constitution and works against the general interests of the country for the sake of power. There’s not much more to it than that. Given all that’s happened in the last five years — and, specifically, what happened on Jan. 6 — is civil war (or at least violent clashes, chaos and an unstable, ungovernable country) really inconceivable?