I’ll be honest and say fantasies of a second civil war are trite. Right wingers will make one up about big government overreach (aka international capitalists removing the protectionist frameworks keeping crybabies like US ranchers and carmakers afloat) where the conclusion is getting back to what the founding fathers desired. Cosmopolitan types will make one about “””polarization””” and oh have you no decency??? where in the end everyone becomes a perfect, compliant neoliberal subject.

Whatever the case, it’s pure american exceptionalist drivel. Both are adamantly for the document that says slaves are worth 3/5 of a person. There is no serious willingness or dare I say ability to contend with what actual war looks like. These fantasies always stand counterpoint to the reality where as it turns out we aren’t having a setpiece war. Ever. It’s all cultural animosity. Economically, in the real world, everything is in lockstep. So a film about a scary future we can look at then turn off, it reassures us of the greatness of the US, in weal or woe, a place outside of history, above history.

That's not going to happen.

What will happen, assuming he's successful, is the Democrats will quietly fall in line after a few weeks of posturing. There will be lawsuits, and the courts will ultimately decide in Trump's favor.

Unrest comes when people have their way of life existentially threatened through hunger or homelessness. Or when their position within the caste is in question.

Unrest will come from the Right if they lose. When the undecideds and liberals lose an election, they say "damn, better luck next time" and move on. They aren't willing to do anything that might jeopardize their comfortable way of life.

The people pushed to the margins will be further castigated, and find themselves in an even more dangerous position.

Unrest will come from the margins. People with nothing, and everything, to lose. The police will be granted further impunity to kill, and POC/LGBTQ+ will die. They'll protest, and they'll be killed by cops and right wing nutjobs alike. And no help will come. "Allies" will start to go quiet if the violence gets particularly bad and those communities will learn who their true friends are.

Arm yourselves. Violence is coming regardless of who wins in November.