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All is fair in love, war and, it would seem these days, Republican Party politics.

Over 100 of its primary ads this spring and summer saw candidates or their supporters waving guns around. Among them was Eric Greitens, the disgraced former governor of Missouri, who thought the best way to win the candidacy for a seat on the US Senate was an attack ad that showed him hunting his moderate Republican rivals with a shotgun.

Cocking the weapon and following men in combat uniforms who break down someones door, Greitens (who quit as state governor in 2018 after sex and finance scandals) calls on voters to get a hunting permit for Rinos, a derogatory label for moderate Republicans.

Such Republicans (what few there are left of this endangered species) werent the only ones affronted. The Missouri police union said his deplorable video sent a dangerous message that it was acceptable to kill those who have differing political beliefs.

The horrible possibility dawning on many Americans is that a large very large number of their compatriots really do believe this, and that America is not just a divided nation, along the lines of Red and Blue states, but one with the potential to combust.

Beyond the high-profile militia groups such as the Oath Keepers, which took part in the 6 January riot at the Capitol, theres a much larger and more diffuse armed movement of ordinary people, poisoned by a diet of misinformation and conspiracies; a group of millions in varying stages of acceptance that the federal government is an illegitimate tyranny to be overthrown by any means necessary. Polls suggest that 30 per cent of Republicans and 11 per cent of Democrat voters think violence can be justified for political ends.

Some experts estimate there are over 20 million assault rifles among the more than 400 million guns in circulation. Gun retailers are doing their best to fan the flames, including the South Carolina outfit that declared it wants to sell as many AR-15 and AK-47 rifles to [safeguard] the rights of the people against tyranny.

UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, an expert on gun policy, told Newsweek: The idea that people would take up arms against an American election has gone from completely farfetched to something we have to start planning for and preparing for.

These warnings make the task of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is under pressure to prosecute Donald Trump for his pivotal role in the 6 January insurrection, even more fraught. If Trumps candidacy for the 2024 election is undermined by an indictment from a Democrat justice department, who knows what sort of violence might kick off? Then again, what on earth might happen if a crooked and treacherous president like Trump is able to get away with it?

The outside world views Americas woes with a mix of curiosity its contortions are a vivid spectacle and varying degrees of schadenfreude. Any guilty secret pleasure derived from Americas agony would soon be snuffed out, though, with the tyrannies in Beijing and Moscow ready to take its place on the world stage.

Its undeniable that America is a dangerously divided country, with Democrat states ever more at odds with the Republican ones. It looks like two nations, each split into red and blue blocks and mixed up on the North American continent.

The split is fuelled by economics and culture wars. The recent raft of laws in red states designed to restrict rights on abortion, and classroom discussions of race, gender, and sexual orientation, have made things worse.

Many observers say the US is entering its most unstable period since the Civil War. American writers, political scientists and even the man at the top are openly discussing the possibility that America is sliding towards large-scale civil unrest.

In This Will Not Pass, one of the recent books on the forces tearing America apart, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns quote Joe Biden as telling a senior Democrat: I certainly hope [my presidency] works out. If it doesnt, Im not sure were going to have a country.

According to Barbara F Walter, a political scientist at the University of California and the author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them, the warning signs are flashing. She says the US is already a factionalised anocracy a semi-democracy that is quickly approaching the open insurgency stage.

Civil conflict usually requires distinct demographic groups at each others throats. That box is ticked. Republicans are largely white, small-town and rural. Democrats are now nearly all urban and multi-ethnic.

Its not just about backwoods men with guns. The Trump faction the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement now dominates the Republican Party. It is present in right-wing media networks, evangelical churches, among wealthy Republican donors, elected officials and millions of voters.

The various components of the Maga movement have one thing in common, though: the belief that with God on their side, democratic methods are optional. And worse, their ambitions extend far beyond their current power bases.

One leading US public policy pundit said to me this week: Politics is ultimately a game of power expanding power, so its not surprising that [the] Maga movement would want to expand their power as much as possible. This will certainly include enforcing its values (social and economic) beyond the traditionally red states.

Key Maga figures are planning how to load the electoral dice in enough states, through gerrymandering and voter suppression, to ensure Democrats face impossible odds in winning the presidency. The election of the Senate, which gives vastly greater voting power to Americans in conservative, rural states, ensures that meaningful control of the upper chamber is already beyond the Democrats reach.

Its not difficult to imagine how a politicised, extremely right-wing Supreme Court (which in the past few weeks has flouted public opinion in overturning abortion rights and gun control laws), would be ready to impose its social values on the nation even if a majority opposed them.

Dont assume mass protests or even violent ones are a preserve of the far right. If Trump contests the next election and loses by any margin, and cant overturn the results through legal means, Republicans will probably declare the election fraudulent, and violent protests would be inevitable. But if Trump wins by a slim margin that could be blamed on underhand GOP tactics, expect massive protests by Democrats voters instead.

Moderates and liberal Americans are pulling their hair out. A US historian based in London told me recently: The only way that things get better is if these Maga mother f**kers get massively electorally defeated, otherwise they will begin clawing their way to autocracy or even fascism. Look at the political ads by people like Greiten, about killing opponents; this is fascism. Its terrorism.

Americas fate is in its own hands. Its still a democracy, albeit like all Western nations, a flawed one. Peoples votes still count. In theory. But even if the moderate majority ultimately prevails, a huge, armed, and angry minority will still have a score to settle.

If mainstream Republican leaders like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell put their country before their own careers, and faced down the extremists in their own party, US democracy might win a reprieve. But there seems little hope of that. In kowtowing to the mob, McCarthy, McConnell, et al might be the worst traitors of all as America edges towards a cliff face.

Link:
Culture wars have pushed US democracy to the brink. Civil strife is possible - iNews