31

Civil war?

A year ago, the Capitol

was under siege. Many

hoped Biden would

help to heal the nation

but today divisions

have deepened, leading

to fears of spreading

and escalating confl ict,

writes David Smith in

Washing ton

Continued on page 32

J

oe Biden had spent a year in

the hope that America could

go back to normal. But last

Thursday, the fi rst anniver-

sary of the deadly insurrec-

tion at the US Capitol,

the president fi nally recog-

nised the full scale of the current

threat to American democracy.

“A t this moment, we must decide,”

Biden said in Statuary Hall, where

rioters had swarmed a year earlier.

“What kind of nation are we going

to be? Are we going to be a nation

that accepts political violence as a

norm?”

It is a question that many inside

America and beyond are now ask-

ing. In a deeply divided society,

where even a national tragedy such

as the attack on 6 January only

pushed people further apart, there

is fear that it was just the beginning

of a wave of unrest, confl ict and

domestic terrorism.

Recent opinion polls show a sig-

nifi cant minority of Americans

at ease with the idea of violence

against the government. Even talk

of a second American civil war has

gone from fringe fantasy to media

mainstream.

“Is a Civil War ahead?” was the

blunt headline of aNew Yorkermag-

azine article last week. “Are We

Really Facing a Second Civil War?”

asked the headline of a column

in Friday’s New York Times.Three

retired US generals wrote a recent

Washington Postcolumn warning

that another coup attempt “could

lead to civil war”.

The mere fact that such notions

are entering the public domain

shows the once unthinkable has

become thinkable, even though

some would argue it remains fi rmly

improbable.