It almost goes without saying that America’s foreign enemies would try to capitalize on attempts by its domestic enemies to undermine the country. The primacy of the individual in our system is anathema to the Chinese Communist Party, the World Economic Forum, the One-Worlders, and Islam in general. An outright alliance (albeit temporary) with the Left is easy to predict. And as in the example of our CW I, different nations would back different factions.

China is already in a war with us. This week’s declassification by President Trump of more election interference intelligence only hints at the scope of that war. An internal conflict here would be immediately capitalized upon by China.

While in most of the world a proliferation of firearms would be a trigger, in the US, it may act more as a stabilizing influence – it is much harder to massacre a well-armed populace. However, organized militias and lone actors radicalized online raise the risk of tit-for-tat attacks. Incidents like political assassinations or attacks on infrastructure could spiral if perceived as justified “self-defense” by factions. Surveys show a minority, but non-trivial, percentage of the Left view violence as sometimes justified for political goals. The recent spate of often successful attacks on their political opponents confirms that position.

Political violence is now a fact of life in the US. It is often noted that the Left uses it on a sliding scale, while the Right views it as an On/Off switch. I’d wager that a successful assassination of President Trump would be THE On switch for the Right to finally unleash en masse. And, once started, that would be difficult to turn off.

For sure, this is the one that worries me. Conflicts over issues like illegal immigration, 2d Amendment restrictions, abortions or drug laws could lead to states defying federal authority (or vice versa). This might involve National Guard deployments, sanctuary policies, or nullification-style resistance.
If a state creates laws against ICE agent masking, in clear violation of federal law, what happens? Does local law enforcement start trying to arrest federal officers? Does a governor attempt to mobilize the state National Guard against the feds? Sounds a lot like a Fort Sumpter moment.

I think economic stress is more an underlying foundation than a trigger for strife. Certainly, a sudden crash could exacerbate things, but the perception of great inequality (Tax The Billionaires!) lays a groundwork for other dissatisfactions. The Left always presents this as class warfare but, in reality, unfettered immigration is a huge driver. The pressure on housing has led to sky high rents and great difficulty in youth access to home purchasing. The downward pressure on wages from illegals working for significantly under market and under the table, makes job seeking particularly difficult for our entry level citizens.
The Trump recovery, job on-shoring, and US energy production may put this in the background, so long as the benefits make their way down to the lowest levels.

There are clearly deep partisan divides in this country on issues like election integrity, immigration, abortion, guns, race/cultural identity, and economic policy. Many of them are “yes or no” issues on which compromise is impossible. Likewise, when parties align more around group identity than policy, and when each side views the other as an existential threat, compromise becomes nearly impossible. Social media amplifies the differences.

At the same time, social media, the internet and AI have broken the lock that traditional media had on gatekeeping the news and deciding what is accepted as fact. The now-obvious prior control of “the narrative” has resulted in a deep loss of trust in news reporting and trust in the government that propagates its narrative through the media.