A quarter of Americans are confident that a civil war will begin in the United States after the presidential election. This is reported by Time with reference to the results of a survey by YouGov.
Fears that an outbreak of violence is very or somewhat likely are shared by 27% of American adults, including 30% of women and 24% of men.
12% of respondents said that they personally know a person who could take up arms if he believed that Donald Trump had cheated out of victory. 5% said they know someone who would do the same if they thought Kamala Harris had been deceived.
If you compare with the checklist of factors that can lead to a fire, then "the United States ... has entered very dangerous territory," writes Barbara Walter, historian of the American Civil War of 1861-1865.
According to her, "we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe" because of political extremism, cultural tribalism, fascination with conspiracy theories, the proliferation of weapons and paramilitary groups and the undermining of faith in government and democracy.