Tone Down the Political Rhetoric Or Reap the Whirlwind

FP Live broadcast a discussion earlier this week with the provocative title, “Could Civil War Erupt in America?” In it, Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal interviewed Barbara F. Walter, formerly a member of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Political Instability Task Force and a professor of international relations at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Walter is a leading expert on civil wars, violent extremism, and domestic terrorism. She also is the author of several books on the topic, including How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them, published in 2022.

According to Dr. Walter, research has identified two predictive factors that point to the likelihood of civil war.

First, a government must be “anocratic,” that is, a hybrid government that combines authoritarian powers with democratic practices. The second factor is when political parties in a country are based on factionalism—race, ethnicity, or religion—rather than parties based on particular ideas. Walter has said elsewhere that if these two factors are present, a country has a 4% chance of experiencing a civil war in a given year, and the chances increase by 4% every year that the two factors remain present.

The Center for Systemic Peace monitors political behavior in 167 countries and reports on emerging issues or persistent conditions related to political violence and failed states. Countries are graded on a scale ranging from +10 (most-free democracies) to -10 (harshest autocracies). The United States perennially held a +10 rating until being downgraded to a +9 in 2016 based on Russian interference in the Presidential election that year.

America was downgraded to a +8 in 2019 due to refusal by the executive branch to provide requested information or respond to subpoenas issued by the legislative branch; in healthy democracies, the legislative branch serves as the strongest check against an overweening executive branch. Following the January 6, 2021, riot and invasion of the Capitol, the Center for Systemic Peace downgraded the United States to a shockingly low +5, which Dr. Walter pointed out is in “the anocracy zone,” (-5 to +5).

If we take the -5 rating as accurate (and, remember, that grade was assigned three years ago), it means the United States has experienced a weakening of its democracy and can now be described as an anocracy for only the second time in its history (the first consisting of the period from independence in 1776 to 1801). As described above, being an anocracy is one of the two factors that can point to the potential for civil war.

But what of the other condition? That political parties are factional? The Center for Systemic Peace’s Polity Project claims that America has experienced three periods of polarization and resulting political factionalism: 1854-1872, 1967-1974, and 2016 to the present. The first of these periods resulted in the U.S. Civil War. The second period, which saw political violence in the form of widespread protests, riots, assassinations, and instances of domestic terrorism, notably did not lead to civil war. As for the present, it is too soon to say.?

The two mainstream parties currently are not factional: the Republican Party identifies as conservative, and the Democratic Party identifies as liberal. Both parties have their share of centrists, and both have their fringe elements—the far-right of the Republican Party and the radical left of the Democrat Party.

In her FP Live discussion, Dr. Walter noted that it primarily was the left that conducted political violence and carried out acts of terrorism in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, but since the 2000s it is far-right groups that have been responsible for most domestic terrorism in the country. This is too simplistic, however, and buys into the “mostly peaceful demonstrations” description of the summer of 2020, which by far saw the longest sustained period of political violence in America in decades. Googling “deaths attributed to BLM protests” yields results claiming only that “more than 19” died as a result of protests stemming from the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, but look more closely, and every source notes that that figure only includes deaths that had occurred in the first two weeks of protests. Digging deeper nets results suggesting at least 25 deaths but likely “dozens of others” were related to the protests. Riots led by Antifa, BLM, and other left-wing actors broke out across the country, from Maine to California, from Washington State to Florida, resulting in violent assaults, arson, vandalism, and looting. More recently, a number of left-wing pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S. have devolved into violence resulting in numerous arrests.

Make no mistake, both left and right have engaged in heated and dangerous rhetoric.

Former President Donald Trump has rightly been criticized for using careless language, including references to “a bloodbath,” political violence, and even “World War III” should he lose the election in November, while some of his supporters have predicted or called for civil war if the former President loses the election or is found guilty of the various crimes of which he stands accused.

Democrats do not get a free pass, as elected officials from President Joe Biden to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi all have used incendiary language about the former President. In a private call to donors only days before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, President Biden said it was “time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye.”

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters threatened to “take Trump out tonight,” and Massachusetts Senator and one-time Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren urged supporters to “take [Trump] out now.” Michigan State Representative Cynthia Johnson urged “soldiers” to “Make [Trumpers] pay,” as celebrities such as Johnny Depp and Madonna have mused aloud about “assassinating a President” or “blowing up the White House.”?

Right or left doesn’t matter. Words matter. Calls for political violence have consequences.

In an update to its investigation into the July 13 attempted assassination of former President Trump, the FBI said on Wednesday that while they have yet to determine a clear motive, the would-be assassin undertook a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event” and studied the announced appearances of both President Biden and former President Trump, including both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. It was only when the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was announced that the 20-year-old shooter became “hyper-focused on that specific event as a target of opportunity.” It is not unreasonable to think he could have been influenced by calls for violence from both sides of the political spectrum.

While she did not make the same claim in this week’s appearance on FP Live, Dr. Walter has said previously that, despite being in what she describes as the “incipient violent phase,” the United States is not moving closer to civil war at this point.

So, how do we prevent sliding into the active or open insurgency phase? Politicians, pundits, and supporters need to recognize that their words have consequences and must tone down the rhetoric. Calling for the violent overthrow of the government; questioning the legitimacy of the judicial system; tagging opponents as Communists, animals or worse; asking why there are not “uprisings all over the country;” or calling for Americans to “take out” a political figure must cease and cease now. To paraphrase the Book of Hosea, “Those who sow violence shall reap the whirlwind.”

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Captain Scott Rye, USN (Ret.), is a former correspondent for Daily Shipping Guide, the former long-time editor of Alabama Seaport magazine, and the author of Of Men & Ships: The Best Sea Tales and Men & Ships of the Civil War.

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