The giddy talk of civil war trivializes our divisions, which are real and deep. It is hard to maintain a sense of common citizenship when we increasingly see each other as utterly alien. But projections of a new civil war are overwrought. For one thing, we lack the sectional geographical divide that was central to our actual Civil War and a single, central issue over which compromise became impossible.

Walter predicts something more like guerilla war instead of a real civil war with localized terrorist acts. (Once again we can draw on the violent history of the new left in the 1960s for a precedent — another case of leftist projection.)

It is more likely that Americans will continue the accelerating process of self-sorting. Americans are moving in large numbers to states more congenial to their political and social views (mostly from blue to red states) or forming enclaves within red and blue states.

Some of the ideological divides can be ameliorated by reinvigorating federalism: Let Vermont be Vermont, and let Idaho be Idaho. The possibility of “terrorist acts” that Walter predicts would be diminished substantially through reinvigorated federalism.