heidim's review
4.0
An interesting and somewhat frightening book. I listened to this in audible form and felt that the book jumped around quite a bit, making it a little hard to follow at times. It may have been easier to follow in written format. No foot notes or references were provided on the audio version I listened to so unable to judge how much factual research was done versus author opinion.
vschleich's review
3.0
While I found the author made some great points, I felt like it was almost too deterministic. It was an interesting framing, if not panic inducing.
otterno11's review
challenging
medium-paced
1.5
“America is becoming two Americas, Americas that hate each other, that don’t speak to each other. No one occupies the middle ground anymore; everyone has separated into one side or the other, one party or the other, no matter what they may claim.” Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War, pg 96
It can be a useful exercise, I think, to imagine possible futures based on extrapolating and building on current trends, allowing one to possibly plan for the worst in addition to perhaps better understand what can be done now to fix things before they break. While it is easy to engage in alarmism or exaggeration in predicting the “end of the world,” it is also important not to fall into complacency in a period of societal stress. Fictional dystopic works imagining the collapse of the United States during this period of mounting tension are pretty common, as are works detailing the material contemporary forces leading the country closer and closer to a breaking point.
In The Next Civil War, Canadian novelist and commentator Stephen Marche blends these two trends to discuss, from his “outsider's perspective,” the issues facing a polarized United States and then sketches out some possible scenarios he sees as likely to spark the next US Civil War. A self-described centrist (though acknowledging that the Canadian political mainstream may read as more liberal by US standards), Marche hopes his status as a foreigner gives him an objective viewpoint to examine trends identified by the various experts he interviews, statistical studies he examines, and predictive models he consults and make a “more than an educated guess” about the imminent fall of the US, whether to a brutal insurgency inside its own borders pitting the “blue against the red” or a fracturing of the union through the secession of various states based on partisan lines. In this, he is not quite successful and I feel that he, as a Canadian, may be less objective than he seems to believe.
As a whole, Marche’s predictions are severe, beginning the book by stating “The United States is coming to an end. The question is how,” which is the kind of broad, sweeping statement that can’t really be disputed, but throughout his “dispatches” imagining inciting incidents that draw from these sources he appears to believe that an imminent collapse in the near future is all but inevitable. In his speculations, he builds some thought-provoking scenarios and identifies some of the roots of the growing divides in the country, particularly the contradictions that have long existed in US political life.
“One reason why Democrats view Republicans as other and Republicans view Democrats as other is that they are other. The Democrats represent a multicultural country grounded in liberal democracy. The Republicans represent a white country grounded in the sanctity of property. America cannot operate as both at once.” Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War, pg 99
It is frustrating, then, that he ultimately focuses on a simplistic “bothsidesism” and blames “hyperpartisanship” for the current US tensions and political paralysis, rather than the material or social causes that have exacerbated this over the last thirty years, lamenting the “middle ground” that he believes we have lost. Whatever accurate analysis or helpful insights he makes are undermined by this framing.
“The difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party over the past thirty years is that Republicans became the party of white resentment of growing diversity, while the Democratic party became the party of imposed multiculturalism.” Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War, pg 220
This is illustrated by how, while he does a reasonable job describing the fascistic elements that have gained power in the Republican party, what he calls the “hard right,” his analysis of the left is flawed, built of false equivalencies. While he correctly identifies white racial resentment as fueling Republican anger, for instance, pages later he writes that “hyper-partisanship is now the defining hatred of the United States,” an insulting statement in a period of mounting antisemitic, queerphobic, and racist violence. Even as he rightly states that the threat of political violence and domestic stochastic terrorism comes overwhelmingly from the right, he cannot help, it seems, painting both the right and left as equally violent, equally authoritarian.
In this, he comes dangerously close to conflating, say, Richard Spencer with civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson, writing that, all their ideological differences aside, while “all they share is a spirit of fury,” “they both want to overcome America in all its glorious, ludicrous contradiction,” making them, essentially, each responsible, in their way, for its fall. He makes this explicit in his discussion of the debate around the tearing down of the Confederate monument at the University of North Carolina, Silent Sam, comparing Black Lives Matter activists and the Sons of Confederate Veterans by writing how they are “on both sides, highly organized and entirely capable of violence," and "would refuse compromise anyway.”
Even disregarding the activist left and the far right, Marche conflates ideological differences and refuses to take into account the vast field of political thought in the US even in the mainstream parties. The US Democratic party, for example, is certainly not blameless in contributing to the current gridlock, with its bipartisan embrace of the neoliberal capitalist policies of economic deregulation and cutting of social services, but only one US party has embarked on so fierce a campaign of antidemocratic rhetoric and policy making, and only one party has made bipartisanship a hallmark of its platform for years despite little reciprocation.
Marche will make a factual observation, like how the antiquated electoral systems the US still relies on severely overrepresent certain segments of society leading to, say, a Democratic candidate losing the presidency while winning the popular vote, but by the next paragraph he magnifies the divide by claiming that a president from either party would “be an icon of American leadership for half the country and an icon of oppression and illegitimacy for the other half” or implying that liberals would not have been upset if Trump had been assassinated.
All of this ignores the very real number of US citizens who have, for various reasons, become divorced from the US political process if not from ideological beliefs. Neither Republicans or Democrats consist of unified blocs, not even counting the many who find themselves outside the two party system. There are many who may have fraught or complicated feelings about the current president even from their ostensible “side,” rather than two unreasoning sides full of loathing for each other and who ignore everything the other side stands for.
But then, I’m definitely not claiming to be unbiased, and as a left leaning progressive, of course, I can be expected to blame my ideological opponents for the state of the country, but while I often have trouble understanding the motives of my ideological opponents, I can recognize that my own way of thinking is not the way everyone thinks. For an account blaming everything on a mutual polarization between partisan groups, then, Marche’s work here is not a very nuanced interpretation.
On this note, there is a lot missing from Marche’s account. He mentions fascism just once and mentions capitalism or corporations only a handful of times, which seems to be a major omission, both extremely relevant concepts to understanding US society and its political disarray in the current moment, particularly for an account imaging a second civil war. He uses the phrase “both sides” more than a dozen times, however. All in all, his historical background is lacking as well, and I thought often as I read of the other works Marche mentions, Break it Up by Richard Kreitner and American Nations by Colin Woodard, each of which has much more to say about the regional cultural differences and differing visions of what the United States is, what its vaunted commitments to “freedom” and “liberty” actually mean and how people with incompatible definitions of those qualities have competed throughout the history of the country.
After all of Marche’s dire and fatalistic analysis of the current state of mutual loathing that “each half” of the country feels for each other, he ends the account with a short milquetoast appeal to American exceptionalism as a virtue. How “both sides” have stopped listening to each other, leading to inevitable armed conflict, but refusing to name any actual policy goals that could alleviate these tensions and the overarching outside threats, like climate change, that threaten US stability at the present as well. Ultimately, whatever thought provoking scenarios Marche imagines, The Next Civil War is a lacking exercise with little insight I haven’t already seen.
ctournat's review
1.5
Claims to take a neutral stance but clearly favors liberal ideology and bashes republicans with illegitimate claims.
miguelf's review against another edition
4.0
Reading two recent works (“How Civil Wars Start” and “The Next Civil War”) elicited strong feelings of dread for what might await the US in the coming years if the worst case scenarios that these works discuss come to pass. Of the two, Walter’s book is more historical focused while Marche’s lays out a more realistic hypothetical scenario which isn’t too difficult to foresee occurring. However good these were at discussing similar instances and flashing red signs today, it nonetheless makes sense to remember that these works are discussing this single topic outside of many other mitigating conditions. Also, I would point to a recent work entitled “White Hot Hate” which has a recent event that could have come out of either of these works, but has what will hopefully have conditions which will be present in the future, which is the presence of sane, ordinary people working with established institutions to ensure that these worse case scenarios don’t come to fruition.
shane_digiovanna's review against another edition
4.0
Terrifyingly Depressing
Before January 6th, I would’ve given this book two stars. It’s an incredibly pessimistic look at what the author believes are likely futures for the USA. He presents several different scenarios for how a new civil war, or national collapse, could happen, interspersing it with interviews and data from experts.
I’m a bit torn on how to judge this book. It’s too pessimistic for me. I have hope in America. At the same time, a President of the United States incited an insurrection and attempted a coup. And most Republicans believe Biden is illegitimate. Perhaps I just don’t want to be as pessimistic as this book is. Regardless, it’s an illuminating, if (hopefully) alarmist and pessimistic read. If you are of a certain ideological orientation, you’ll hate this book. For the rest, read it and try to have the hope that we may not deserve.
Before January 6th, I would’ve given this book two stars. It’s an incredibly pessimistic look at what the author believes are likely futures for the USA. He presents several different scenarios for how a new civil war, or national collapse, could happen, interspersing it with interviews and data from experts.
I’m a bit torn on how to judge this book. It’s too pessimistic for me. I have hope in America. At the same time, a President of the United States incited an insurrection and attempted a coup. And most Republicans believe Biden is illegitimate. Perhaps I just don’t want to be as pessimistic as this book is. Regardless, it’s an illuminating, if (hopefully) alarmist and pessimistic read. If you are of a certain ideological orientation, you’ll hate this book. For the rest, read it and try to have the hope that we may not deserve.
mactammonty's review
4.0
He sums up the problems of the US nicely. Much of this can apply to most democratic countries right now. He does not offer many ideas for change.
booksandbark's review
3.0
In the past few months, I've devoured a few books on civil wars and the death of modern democracies. It's a niche academic interest of mine, sparked by the two comparative politics classes on democracy and dictatorship I took in college, and sustained by the current environment of political discord. Of the five books I've now read on civil wars and democratic decline — the other four being [b:How Civil Wars Start|58369678|How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them|Barbara F. Walter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631631215l/58369678._SY75_.jpg|93104178], [b:How Democracies Die|35356384|How Democracies Die What History Reveals About Our Future|Steven Levitsky|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1523290463l/35356384._SY75_.jpg|56718117], [b:Twilight of Democracy|50155421|Twilight of Democracy The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism|Anne Applebaum|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1577773311l/50155421._SY75_.jpg|73121545], and [b:Say Nothing|40163119|Say Nothing A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland|Patrick Radden Keefe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1537315266l/40163119._SY75_.jpg|62303430] — this is by far the worst. At its best, it's poorly cited, and at its worst, it's pure speculation and fear-mongering.
I could tell from the introduction that Marche is not someone who studies civil wars or authoritarianism — he's not even a political scientist or researcher. According to his Wikipedia page, he's a Canadian novelist and cultural commentator. Marche opens by saying that his identity as a Canadian moderate would keep him objective and neutral — and then proceeds to make vast generalizations and sweeping statements of opinion that he then attempts to pass off as fact. There is a horrific lack of nuance throughout the book: for example, Marche claims that California could secede and be a successful, unified country with lots of military might — which completely ignores that the vast majority of California, geographically, is conservative and that most of California's military personnel are not from the state itself (I'd imagine in the event of a secession/disunification, they'd prefer to go their home states). And throughout the book, statements that are purely speculative are presented as fact: the US will fail as a country, the US will fall apart in the next 10 years, etc. (All of this is not to say that non-academics can't write great nonfiction — Say Nothing, mentioned above, was written by [a:Patrick Radden Keefe|197852|Patrick Radden Keefe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1538163619p2/197852.jpg], a journalist with a law degree, and it's one of my favorite nonfiction books ever written because it's so well researched and presented. [a:Anne Applebaum|64761|Anne Applebaum|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1222952630p2/64761.jpg] is also a journalist, and her writing in the field of political science is also well-respected.)
While I don't mind the idea of speculative nonfiction — [a:Barbara F. Walter|647920|Barbara F. Walter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1636561803p2/647920.jpg] has a decently thought-out chapter in her book How Civil Wars Start that's entirely speculative — I didn't appreciate the way Marche went about it. For one, he used "would" in two very different senses throughout the book. Because he mixes the speculative portions throughout the factual portions, it becomes hard to tell sometimes when he's using "would" to create an entirely fictional, speculative event with little basis in reality or if he's using "would" to logically follow an idea rooted in fact to its conclusion. There's a world of difference between the two. Despite Marche claiming that all of the speculative scenarios are grounded in carefully-vetted modeling, he doesn't include any type of modeling to support his claims other than well-known climate modeling. Additionally, the speculative sections read more like novels than case studies. I don't care about the setting or sense of place when I'm reading nonfiction — I want to know what the implications of a particular scenario are! This isn't political science: it's fiction.
I will say, however, that the parts that are cited are well-cited, factual, and align with the key findings of other, more reputable authors like Walters, [a:Steven Levitsky|597491|Steven Levitsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1543949752p2/597491.jpg], and [a:Daniel Ziblatt|1405020|Daniel Ziblatt|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (all of whom are political science professors at the University of California—San Diego or Harvard). For the most part, though, I'd really recommend any of the above authors over Marche's work — and I'm disappointed to find this book listed among their work on the NYT's list of "8 Great Books to Read About the Decline of Democracy."
I could tell from the introduction that Marche is not someone who studies civil wars or authoritarianism — he's not even a political scientist or researcher. According to his Wikipedia page, he's a Canadian novelist and cultural commentator. Marche opens by saying that his identity as a Canadian moderate would keep him objective and neutral — and then proceeds to make vast generalizations and sweeping statements of opinion that he then attempts to pass off as fact. There is a horrific lack of nuance throughout the book: for example, Marche claims that California could secede and be a successful, unified country with lots of military might — which completely ignores that the vast majority of California, geographically, is conservative and that most of California's military personnel are not from the state itself (I'd imagine in the event of a secession/disunification, they'd prefer to go their home states). And throughout the book, statements that are purely speculative are presented as fact: the US will fail as a country, the US will fall apart in the next 10 years, etc. (All of this is not to say that non-academics can't write great nonfiction — Say Nothing, mentioned above, was written by [a:Patrick Radden Keefe|197852|Patrick Radden Keefe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1538163619p2/197852.jpg], a journalist with a law degree, and it's one of my favorite nonfiction books ever written because it's so well researched and presented. [a:Anne Applebaum|64761|Anne Applebaum|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1222952630p2/64761.jpg] is also a journalist, and her writing in the field of political science is also well-respected.)
While I don't mind the idea of speculative nonfiction — [a:Barbara F. Walter|647920|Barbara F. Walter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1636561803p2/647920.jpg] has a decently thought-out chapter in her book How Civil Wars Start that's entirely speculative — I didn't appreciate the way Marche went about it. For one, he used "would" in two very different senses throughout the book. Because he mixes the speculative portions throughout the factual portions, it becomes hard to tell sometimes when he's using "would" to create an entirely fictional, speculative event with little basis in reality or if he's using "would" to logically follow an idea rooted in fact to its conclusion. There's a world of difference between the two. Despite Marche claiming that all of the speculative scenarios are grounded in carefully-vetted modeling, he doesn't include any type of modeling to support his claims other than well-known climate modeling. Additionally, the speculative sections read more like novels than case studies. I don't care about the setting or sense of place when I'm reading nonfiction — I want to know what the implications of a particular scenario are! This isn't political science: it's fiction.
I will say, however, that the parts that are cited are well-cited, factual, and align with the key findings of other, more reputable authors like Walters, [a:Steven Levitsky|597491|Steven Levitsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1543949752p2/597491.jpg], and [a:Daniel Ziblatt|1405020|Daniel Ziblatt|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (all of whom are political science professors at the University of California—San Diego or Harvard). For the most part, though, I'd really recommend any of the above authors over Marche's work — and I'm disappointed to find this book listed among their work on the NYT's list of "8 Great Books to Read About the Decline of Democracy."