Civil War or 1776

I've been a skeptic of claims that the United States is heading for Civil War II. The laws and policies of the United States that led to the split between the confederacy and the Union as distinct geographic regions don't have an analog today. The major splits today are between rich and poor and urban and rural, and these splits are really likely to be transient. There's a million little subcultures and factions in the US. The cities and regions that soak up all the Federal Reserve funny money today might go bust tomorrow.

A more worrying and persistent, long term trend is the accumulation of quasi-governmental "power" by corporations and cartels in the US who now seek to enact government like authority over individuals. Tech companies and financial companies, who should act as common-carriers and not be permitted to intervene in legal trade or stifle speech begin to enact the whims of their executives and shareholders. In some cases, the reasons are ideological, in some they're acting on behalf of cartel associates. The cartel businesses seem unrelated, like pharma companies and credit card companies, but really they're just one big entity.

I think there's a real potential for rapid escalation to violence, unfortunately. It's not hard to think of scenarios that spin out of control almost immediately and where large portions of the population would jump in.