US civil war is no longer just a far-right narrative

Civil war in the US has already begun, but nobody wants to see it

America's second civil war has already started. That is not the claim of some hotheaded Twitter user: it is the argument of a report published in The National Interest that equates lone-wolf shootings and far-right groups with a domestic terrorism movement carrying "all the ingredients of a rising civil war." The thesis comes from Barbara F. Walter, a leading scholar of political violence, in her book on how civil wars start. And she adds the uncomfortable nuance: nobody wants to believe that democracy is in free fall.

The diagnosis is not new. It has been circulating for decades. What changes is who buys it. Even Bill Gates warned that a civil war in the US "could be the end of everything." When the warning stops being the property of one faction and is echoed by intelligence-linked consultancies and members of Congress like Jamie Raskin —who frames the Capitol assault as "the beginning" rather than the end— the conversation is no longer marginal.

What does the report say about domestic terrorism in the US?

The The National Interest article, published on a Saturday —the exact date does not appear in the material— argues that what looks like isolated violence is in fact a pattern. Lone gunmen and far-right groups would be part of a single domestic terrorism movement. The wording is deliberately strong: ingredients of a rising civil war.

The academic foundation is Walter's work, which has turned the study of civil wars into a discipline with a method. Her conclusion, as summarized in the material: the available assessments point to that second civil war having already begun. It is not a fortune-teller's prediction. It is a reading of indicators —polarization, loss of institutional legitimacy, political violence— that in other countries preceded collapse.

The figure that weighs most is not the shootings. It is trust. Congressional approval hovers around 20%, according to the interview with Raskin cited in the material. The legal system loses legitimacy day after day. And half the population believes their democracy is in danger, while the world watches uneasily the unpredictable consequences of a collapse of the planet's greatest power.

The military, the militias and the problem of seizing power

Here the consensus breaks down. Part of the analysis holds that the US is the country with the most guns per capita and trained civilian militias: any army would have a hard time without resorting to bombs. Violence, in that reading, would be "equally democratized." Another current plays it down as posturing: weekend warriors who practice shooting and drink beer on weekends, incapable of standing up to the world's largest army if they break the rules.

The decisive argument, and the oldest, is that of the military. Civil wars erupt when the armed forces split; if they do not, the revolt is crushed. The USSR disintegrated suddenly and unforeseen by almost everyone. Nobody rules out something similar happening here. But nobody can date it.

Some add the external route: if there is no civil war, a war abroad is manufactured to send citizens to die far away. It is the diversion theory, as old as Rome and as hard to prove as to dismiss.

The culture war as a fuse

The divide is not only political. It is described as a culture war stoked for years: the proge movement, Black Lives Matter, the 2030 Agenda. Everything, according to this reading, points in the same direction: to divide and set people against each other. And politicians pour fuel on the fire instead of putting it out. The comparison made is nostalgic: the parliamentary debates of the early years of Spanish democracy, with Santiago Carrillo and Blas Piñar exchanging respect, versus today's spectacle.

The parallel with Spain is no coincidence. Here too a growing polarization is perceived that breaks the two-party system that reigned until four days ago. The difference is one of scale and weapons.

The astral calendar and the real calendar

A date is also being sought in the sky. Between 2025 and 2029, the transits of Uranus and Neptune over the US natal chart will resemble those of 1861, when the first civil war began, and of 1941, when the country entered World War II. The coincidence is curious. It is not evidence.

What is evidence is the institutional erosion Raskin describes: a legal system losing legitimacy, trust in government in free fall at every level. That needs no astrology. It is measured with polls.

What would happen to the world if the US breaks apart

The global consequence is the part nobody disputes. If the greatest power splits, the board shifts. One current of the analysis celebrates it: the fall of the US would free Latin America from the imperial yoke and many peoples from systematic plunder. Another antiestéticars it: the collapse of a nuclear giant rarely produces freedom, it produces chaos.

Between the two extremes, the most repeated position is that of interest. It is not a sarracena question, it is one of power. And power, in a civil war, lies where the weapons and the institutions are, not in the countryside.

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America's second civil war has already begun, says the report. It may be an exaggeration. It may be the umpteenth prophecy that fails to come true. But when half a country believes its democracy is in danger and the other half believes the first is stealing its elections, the ground is fertile. All that is missing is the spark. And sparks, in a country with more guns than people, are not in short supply.