Looking south

Thank you for Stephen Marche’s recent article on the idea of a civil war erupting in the United States (“The End of an Empire,” November), which was among the best I have read on the subject. Similar articles in other outlets often draw from examples only in American history or current events. What made Marche’s contribution stand out was his use of scholarly research on situations well outside of the US, pointing to precedents in which public order has broken down. In light of ongoing episodes of mass violence in the country, these comparisons need to be made. Avoiding the navel-gazing of US discourse is a valuable contribution of independent Canadian media, and readers south of the border are lucky to benefit from it.

Chris Szabla

New York, NY

Marche offers a thought-provoking take on the impact an increasingly polarized America might have on Canada. The picture that Marche paints of the US is bleak: evidence of a salient partisan divide among Americans, President Donald Trump’s repeated rhetorical attacks on government organizations, the

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