Political scientist Robert Pape keeps getting asked about civil war, which he thinks is the wrong question entirely, because the actual danger doesn’t require anything that organized.
Mass unrest can now change political outcomes on its own, and the institutions built to absorb that pressure keep getting weaker.
Whether the next disputed result holds depends less on who wins than on whether the guardrails are still standing by then, and right now that’s genuinely unclear.
@ProfessorPape
Video
Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal)🇺🇸 Mass support for political violence gives unstable people permission, and social media hands them applause on the way
Professor Robert Pape describes the loop, where someone volatile posts, gets validated instantly by thousands of strangers, and reads that as proof the country agrees with whatever he’s contemplating.
Assassination attempts and street unrest keep getting covered as isolated flashpoints tied to whatever happened that week.
They’re symptoms of something structural that built up over years, and treating each one as a standalone news cycle guarantees nobody addresses what’s actually producing them.
@ProfessorPape
Video
— https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2103684906157007279
