Book Review: The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future (2022). Stephen Marche.

Stephen Marche, the Canadian writer whose amusing chronicle of the current state of relations between women and men, The Unmade Bed, I recently reviewed, has written this new book, The Next Civil War.  It is one of several recent books on the topic of the state of our politics in the United States, and whether polarization of opinion and the formation of two warring “tribes” of Americans must ultimately lead in the very near future to a fracturing of the nation by force of arms.

 

Marche explores a variety of different triggering scenarios for a new civil war, and uses these hypotheticals to explore a number of possible outcomes.  In the process, he also discusses our social and political polarization, our apparent hatred for members of the other “tribe”, the real dangers posed by the huge quantity of military-style firearms and ammunition owned by the population, and the inevitable problems, many of them revealed by our recent counter-insurgency disasters abroad, that might be faced in any attempts by the central government, military and police to put down local insurgencies.

 

Ironically, something similar to his first scenario recently occurred, but it happened (of all places!) in Canada, in the form of the truck convoy blockade and protest in the capital city of Ottawa.  And in that instance, the Canadian government simply evoked emergency powers, and over several days arrested some of the participants, and hauled their trucks away without bloodshed, thereby ending the protest.  The relatively rapid response to the January 6^th Capitol takeover attempt in Washington, D.C., in terms of the large numbers of arrests and prosecutions of participants that have occurred, is another counter-example to the sorts of runaway rebellions Marche envisions. 

 

Of course, you could also look to recent events in the United States, such as several takeovers of public property in the West by heavily armed militias a few years ago, as perhaps a more convincing model for the sort of dangerous trigger events that Marche describes.  But still.

 

Another question I have now, having recently read this book, is whether the Russian invasion in Ukraine may have an unexpected effect on our sentiments here in the U.S., in terms of moderating our passions and our tolerance for autocracy, extreme political positions, violent resolutions to our problems and our apparent loathing for many of our fellow citizens.  And as Marche points out, even trying to separate the United States administratively, legally and financially into separate countries, as some separatists desire, would be a daunting if not impossible task.

 

So I’m not really convinced by this whole “a new civil war is coming” trend in the zeitgeist.  But this book is definitely an interesting thought experiment in exploring the risks we face from our internal divisions and hostilities.  Recommended.