Magazine’s big question provokes huge alarm
The respected New Yorker magazine, renowned for its serious-minded, forensic journalism, raised eyebrows around the world on January 5 after publishing a story under the headline asking “Is a civil war ahead?”
Editor David Remnick, writing before the anniversary of the Capitol riots and citing Professor Barbara Walter’s book and interviewing Steven Levitsky, the co-author of another, How Democracies Die, concluded:
“As the anniversary of the insurrection is observed, the greater drama is not obscure. We are a country capable of electing Barack Obama and, eight years later, Donald Trump. We are capable of January 5, when the state of Georgia elected two senators, an African-american
and a Jew, and January 6, when thousands stormed the Capitol in the name of a preposterous conspiracy theory.
“‘There are two very different movements at once in the same country,’ Levitsky said. ‘This country is moving towards multiracial democracy for the first time. In the 21st Century we have a multiracial democratic majority supportive of a diverse society and of having the laws to insure equal rights. That multiracial democratic majority is out there, and it can win popular elections.’ And then there is the Republican minority, which too often looks the other way as dangerous extremists act on its behalf. Let’s hope the warnings about a new kind of civil war come to nothing, and we can look back on books like Walter’s as alarmist. But, as we have learned with the imperilled state of our climate, wishing does not make it so.”
In the magazine’s latest edition, writer Evan Osnos reports on a public event in Idaho in October “when the pro-trump commentator Charlie Kirk was asked by a fan, ‘When do we get to use the guns?’ The crowd tittered, and the fan continued, ‘I mean, literally, where’s the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?’”