Political Violence Leading to Civil War is No Longer Crazy Talk

 There seems to be more and more chatter about America’s political violence and the talk of it descending into Civil War.  Folks are buying guns like never before. The Right believes the Left is delusional and dangerous.  The Left believes the same of those on the Right.  Those on the Right want nothing to do with the “woke” movement that can no longer define a woman, wants to kill babies up to the moment of delivery and believes that little kids can choose their gender...but yet can’t define how many genders there actually are!  The woke-folks believe that anyone who disagrees with them should be cancelled.  It certainly seems that there is no way for these groups to compromise and meet-in the middle.  All the ingredients seem to be here for violence to break out.

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Dr Garen Wintemute used to laugh off warnings of a civil war coming to America as “crazy talk”. Then the emergency room doctor in California saw the figures for gun sales.

Wintemute, who founded a centre to research firearms violence after years of treating gunshot wounds, had long observed that the rush to buy weapons came in waves, often around a presidential election. Always it fell back again.

January of 2020 gun sales took off. Just an unprecedented surge in purchasing and that surge continued,” he said. “We were aware that, contrary to prior surges, this one wasn’t ending. People are still buying guns like crazy.”

Many were buying a weapon for the first time.

Wintemute wanted answers and they stunned him. A survey for his California Firearm Violence Research Center released last month showed that half of Americans expect a civil war in the United States in the next few years. One in five thought political violence was justified in some circumstances. In addition, while almost everyone said it was important for the US to remain a democracy, about 40% said that having a strong leader was more important.

“Coupled with prior research, these findings suggest a continuing alienation from and mistrust of American democratic society and its institutions. Substantial minorities of the population endorse violence, including lethal violence, to obtain political objectives,” the report concluded.

Suddenly Wintemute didn’t think talk of a violent civil conflict was so crazy any more.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/20/us-political-violence-civil-war