Political rhetoric is heated, to say the least. I won't say it's never been worse because, well, it's been pretty bad in the past, but it's not exactly a race against two people with a deep respect for one another, either.

And this division isn't new. We've been seeing it daily for years and it's only grown.

But we're the United States of America. We don't have to worry about anything more violent than the odd riot, right?

Well, a new poll finds that a lot of you don't believe that in the least and actually think far worse is likely.

America hasn't been this divided since the Civil War. But does that mean that if the election doesn't go the way that either party wants, another civil war will break out?

According to a poll taken by The Times, about a quarter of the U.S. population fears that civil war may break out after the election.

Barbara Walter, a noted Civil War historian, wrote a 2022 bestseller, "How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them." She said that measured against a checklist of the factors that could lead to civil war, “the United States … has entered very dangerous territory.” She added that “we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe because of "political extremism, cultural tribalism, the embrace of conspiracy theories, proliferation of guns and militias and the erosion of faith in government and democracy."

Only the final item on her checklist matters. Neither the right nor the left has faith in our institutions to govern us. The right doesn't trust the vote-counting process while the left thinks Trump will "destroy democracy" if he wins. It's an incendiary mix that doesn't bode well for the post-election period. 

Fears that an eruption of violence is very or somewhat likely are shared across the political divide by 27 per cent of American adults, including 30 per cent of women and 24 per cent of men, YouGov found in a survey of 1,266 registered voters on October 18-21.

Twelve per cent of respondents said they knew someone who might take up arms if they thought Donald Trump was cheated out of victory in under two weeks’ time. Five per cent said they knew someone who might do the same if they thought Kamala Harris was cheated.

That's terrifying, right?

Well, yes and no. 

The idea of a civil war should be scary. If there's another one, it won't be clearly defined geographically-bound political units engaging in traditional warfare with one another. As bad as the Civil War was, it at least had clear boundaries and battles for territory that often kept much of the fighting away from the civilian population, with notable exceptions.

This time around, it'll be neighbor versus neighbor in a far more literal sense. No one should want any such thing.

But the survey asked if they knew someone who might take up arms. That's an important point because it involves their perceptions of others versus what those people might actually do. If you've ever been accused of being something that you're not, you can easily see how that perception may not reflect reality in the least.

Moreover, while the survey found that 27 percent found the likelihood of a civil war as likely or somewhat likely, 32 percent didn't. Again, a lot of this is framed based on what they think other people will do versus what they, themselves intend to do.

Now, are we inching closer to a civil war? I personally have figured we had one coming for at least a decade now, but I also thought we'd have had it by now, so I might not be the best prognosticator on civil wars.

But while this is going to make a lot of people nervous, I don't think that we need to worry about it this year. I think riots are definitely possible, even probable. That's especially true with a Trump win, but I rule nothing out if Harris wins, particularly if there's anything shady about it.