If you had asked me ten years ago about the possibility of a future civil war in America, I—an “Intelligence Community” veteran who analyzes civil conflict in Asia—would have laughed. I’m not laughing anymore, and neither are a lot of other people. Recent tensions between the federal government and Texas over the former’s refusal to secure the border and enforce immigration law are bringing to life scenarios that once seemed theoretical, if not fantastic. In mid-January, “Texas soldiers” took control of a section of the border near Eagle Pass and then denied access to federal agents, setting the stage for a standoff some alarmists are calling “today’s Fort Sumter.” Even as Texas pushes beyond legal and normative boundaries, creating a potential constitutional crisis in the process, more dangerous challenges lie ahead. In today’s America, a combination of democratic backsliding, ethnic factionalism, and elite splintering have set the stage for a series of intractable political and legal challenges that could plausibly lead to violence in 2024. The only real questions now relate to the scale of the violence and whether the American union will ultimately survive it.

I’m not alone in my pessimism; Barbara F. Walter, a prominent political scientist, argues that the conditions for civil war are emerging in America. Her findings are a relatively sound synthesis of a large body of research into the correlates of civil war. What mars Walter’s study is that she embeds her findings in a tendentious analysis of American politics, laying the blame for these dangerous trends at the feet of white men, Republicans, and all the other boogeymen of the Left. There is a revealing irony in seeing an assessment of the prospects for civil war laid out so myopically by a rising member of the ruling class, as if the last eight years of Democratic Party-led soft coups and anarcho-tyranny never happened. It is this same lack of self-awareness that is driving our society to a breaking point.