When we get tired of blowing up Muslims for Israel, will we turn on ourselves?

Scenarios for a second American Civil War have existed ever since the first one ended. Some hyperbolists called Reconstruction the Second Civil War. Alt-history novelists have imagined the ascension of Huey Long or George McGovern to the presidency as Civil War II trigger. The real-life (?!) ascension of Trump has inspired similar fantasies, leading red state partisans to gleefully thump their chests and imagine how easy and fun it would be to take San Francisco—a fantasy that triggers the hell out of the SF-based blue staters.

How might civil unrest spill over into civil war? One common scenario is race war. The late Charles Manson, we are told, staged his killer-hippie mass knifings because he thought the Beatles were sending him secret orders to start a black-vs. white apocalypse. Obviously Manson must have been taking some really, REALLY bad acid while playing Beatles records backward in hopes of hearing John sneering "Paul is dead"—then suddenly grokked that the White Album, whose mysterious title does not appear on the record and makes no sense anyway, is really about white power! Manson lieutenant Tex Watkins explained: "and what it (the song 'Helter Skelter') meant was the Negros were going to come down and rip the cities all apart…Before Helter Skelter came along, all Charlie cared about was orgies."