One of the themes that the right and left are trying to unify today is “disunity.”
From multiplexes to social media, the prospect of America collapsing into armed conflict has moved from a tinfoil-hat fringe idea to a lively undercurrent of the country’s political conversation.
Voters who attended campaign events voice concerns that political divisions could lead to large-scale political violence. Pollsters regularly ask about this idea in public opinion polls. A cottage industry has sprung up of detective stories, serious reviews, and forums about whether this country could be on the verge of a modern-day version of the bloodiest war in American history.
And “Civil War,” a dystopian action movie about an alternate America mired in bloody internal conflict, topped the box office for the second consecutive weekend. The film exceeded expectations in theaters from Brownsville, Texas, to Boston, highlighting the dark national fears that took root after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Of course, the idea of a future civil war remains just a concept. But as the next presidential election approaches, it has suddenly become hotly debated, reflecting the bipartisan anxiety that pervades American politics. In polls and interviews, some voters said they fear the rifts in the country have grown so deep that they could lead to real conflict, not just rhetorical squabbles.
Maya Wiley, who is running for New York City’s mayor in 2021 and is currently the president of the civil rights organization Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said, “Personally, I don’t think we will ever fall into a formal armed civil war.” I don’t believe it.” The group has conducted several opinion polls on this topic. “But it’s up in the air. I’m not at all surprised that we have such palpable fear about how things will turn out.”
Those fears are stoked by the violence and chaos that subtly and overtly permeate American politics. Violent threats against members of Congress are at record levels, as are reports of hate crimes in the country’s largest cities. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was beaten with a hammer in her home. During the former president’s criminal trial in court, a bystander doused him with an accelerant and set his body on fire.
In his first campaign speech of the year, President Biden warned of threats to the country’s democracy and suggested former President Donald J. Trump could incite future political violence.
“I take this sacred oath to you. As always, defending, protecting, and preserving American democracy will remain the central purpose of my Presidency,” he said. , in a speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where the incident occurred. The darkest period of the American Revolution.
Trump glorified the January 6th riot as patriotic and continued to press false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.When the former president I was asked Last August, Tucker Carlson declined to give a direct answer on whether the country was headed for conflict.
“I don’t know,” Trump said. “There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen before. There’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen before, and that’s probably a bad combination.”
There is no basis for such partisan politics in this film. Which side is unclear, and a “Union of the West” ideology by separatists in California and Texas is impossible to imagine given the deep partisan divide between the two states. There are no details about the causes of the conflict or the different visions each side has for the country’s future. There is no mention of Congress, courts, or other public institutions other than the presidency and the FBI.
This political ambiguity was a deliberate choice by British writer-director Alex Garland, who began work on the film in 2020, before the January 6 Capitol riot. “I think this film is about checks and balances, about polarization, about division, about how populist politics turns to extremism, where extremism itself ends up, and where news organizations fit into that.” Garland told The New York Times. .
Democratic strategist Eric Schultz, who met with Garland in the fall of 2021, said Garland’s goal was to create a film that could reach the widest possible audience and illustrate the risks of polarization, not just in the United States but around the world. He said that his goal was to produce a. He worked as a film consultant.
The political uncertainty helps the film appeal to audiences who bridge the political divide. According to people familiar with the film’s box office performance in various markets, an exit interview given to the studio that produced the film, A24, said that half of the movie’s audience were “liberal” and half were “conservative.” It turned out that he was aware of it.
The film exceeded expectations in traditionally conservative markets like Oklahoma City and Colorado Springs, as well as more liberal markets like Portland, Oregon. In Phoenix and Dallas, the majority of moviegoers identify as moderate or conservative. The primary reason viewers saw the film was the “political dystopian storyline” rather than an interest in independent or action films.
Interest in political turmoil has increased with a growing body of research showing that public fear of violence has increased dramatically.
A poll by Ms. Wiley’s organization found that 53 percent of likely voters believe the country is on the path to a second Civil War.
Other studies have shown related concerns. A CBS/YouGov poll conducted this year found that 49% of adults said they expected violence from the losing side in future elections. Additionally, a majority of adults in both Democrats and Republicans say American democracy could be in jeopardy depending on who wins the next election, an Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found. It has been found.
Jess Morales Lockett, a leader at Equis Research, which surveys Latino voters, said the debate about the civil war may be driven more by fear than reality for voters.
“I think people believe we’re on the brink of civil war,” she says. “When people say civil war or World War III, what they mean is instability and instability. They’re saying, ‘I feel unsafe.'”
But Barbara F. Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies civil wars, says the prospect of such a conflict is more than just a metaphor. She believes the country has been facing 10 to 20 years of political instability and violence, including assassinations of politicians and judges and the rise of paramilitary groups.
These realistic depictions of violence, occurring in very American settings such as golf courses, roadside gas stations, and the Lincoln Memorial, bring into sharp relief the scenes of violence that Americans associate with foreign conflicts. She said it became.
“The idea is that America can never have a civil war. We’ve already had really, really big wars,” said Ms. Walter, author of How Civil Wars Start. “There’s a sense of naivety, of innocence that we’re too good at that kind of thing. We weren’t.”
David Mandel, producer and writer of the TV show “Veep,” said the most successful films and shows depicting American political life have a “correlated relationship” with public opinion about politics. His show is a comedy about a clumsy vice president that started during the Obama administration and argues that politicians behave differently in private and that the wrong things they say in public can lead to political ruin. It was based on ideas. Trump constantly defied those norms as president, and “Veep” ended before he left the White House.
“By the first few weeks of the Trump administration, there were no ‘closed doors’ and no reversals,” Mandel said. “The show became impossible.”
David W. Bright, a historian at Yale University who specializes in the Civil War era, said he does not believe the country is on the brink of another Civil War. But if the country reaches that point, he said, the conflict could share more with the film version than the historical one.
The Civil War was a regional and ideological crisis that featured some of the largest armies ever assembled, he said. The second is more localized and vigilante, and is most likely to be stirred by increased polarization and institutional mistrust.
“For the past few years, there has been a lot of talk and books about whether the United States is on the brink of another civil war, but we have to keep telling people, ‘No, that’s not the case.’ “No. Think about it,” he said. “Our real Civil War blinds us in that sense.”
