A New Civil War in America?

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Barack, Washington, Wickenden, News, Obama, Politics, Wnyc, Lizza, President

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When rioters, encouraged by the President, stormed the Capitol, one year ago, to overturn the results of the election, the idea that such a thing could play out in America was stunning. But the attack may have been just the beginning of an ongoing insurrection, not a failed attempt at a coup. David Remnick talks with Barbara F. Walter, the author of the new book “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them.” Walter is a political scientist and a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-director of the online magazine Political Violence at a Glance. She has studied countries that slide into civil war for the C.I.A., and she says that the United States meets many of the criteria her group identified. In particular, anti-democratic trends such as increased voting restrictions point to a nation on the brink. “Full democracies rarely have civil wars. Full autocracies rarely have civil wars,” she says. “It’s the ones that are in between that are particularly at risk.”

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1:11.2	I'm Dorothy Wickendon on today's Politics and More podcast, David Remnick talks with the political
1:17.2	scientist Barbara F. Walter. Walter has studied countries that have been consumed by civil
1:22.7	unrest, and in her new book, How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them, she notes that the United States
1:29.6	may face similar eruptions.
1:34.9	When rioters stormed the Capitol a year ago, many of them armed and all of them
1:39.7	intent on overturning the results of a democratic election, the idea that this could happen in America was stunning.
1:47.2	Some of the officials in charge ignored multiple warnings of violence,
1:51.3	which left law enforcement undermanned and barely able to ward off the charge.
1:57.0	By evening on January 6th, the riot had fizzled.
2:00.8	Hundreds of people have now been charged with
	...

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