Like Joe Biden’s ascension to the White House, the impeachment of Donald Trump for illegally keeping classified documents and obstructing justice offers a partial answer to a big question in American politics: Can the nation’s institutions contain your excesses?
The reaction to the accusation highlights another one: what happens when they do? When the Democrat defeated him, armed supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol to prevent the transfer of power, assaulting police officers and chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. Within minutes of his indictment last week, threats and even calls for civil war surged on social media platforms used by his supporters.
Violent rhetoric doesn’t just come from the grassroots. Arizona Republican Kari Lake announced “To get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans like me… Most of us are card-carrying NRA (National Rifle Association) members. ).” Trump himself previously warned of this “Death and Destruction” if he was charged in a separate case, for hush money payments.
His mockery at the moment is intended to deter action against him, despite the extraordinary case presented by the prosecution, including the now-familiar photo of boxes stacked in a bathroom. It is critical to avoid hysteria or fatalism about the threats facing American democracy. It is true that the most dire forecasts did not come true after the 2020 elections.
Yet last year, research found that more than two in five Americans think civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next decade. The number of people who believe violence would be justified to return Mr Trump to the White House has fallen since last year, but still stands at 12 million. An increasingly divided country is also increasingly well-armed, with nearly 400 million privately owned guns; their owners are disproportionately white, male and Republican. According to one study, nearly 3% of adults, or 7.5 million people, bought a firearm for the first time between January 2019 and April 2021.
A host of analysts have warned that the US could be headed for widespread political violence. Professor Barbara Walter points out in her book How Civil Wars Start that two conditions are key: ethnic factionalism and anocracy, when a country is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. She believes the U.S. has the former, and remains close to the latter, although the near-term threat has receded somewhat since 2021. Others have backed away from warnings of civil war, but believe a major civil disruption is entirely plausible.
No violence broke out at the impeachment hearing in Miami, as some had feared. Key far-right figures are now locked up: more than 1,000 people have been charged with crimes related to January 6, and hundreds jailed. Others say they feel Mr. Trump has abandoned them. However, the growth of threats and political violence in recent years is undeniable. That the language of Mr. Trump and his enablers make them more likely, surely, for now, is out of the question.
* Guest editorial by The Guardian.
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