Something remarkable — and dangerous — is happening in American public life. Not a textbook civil war between armies, but something closer to a soft civil war: pockets of political violence, mutual hostility, and competing visions of legitimacy clogging the streets of major cities. The ingredients are there and unlike some before me, I'm not dismissing this as mere hyperbole.
Michael Snyder is among those warning that these clashes could escalate into something far worse. In his recent Substack essay, he sketches a scenario in which violent confrontations tied to immigration enforcement operations and Left-wing "response teams" have put cities like Minneapolis, Chicago and New York on a knife edge, and could even lead to federal invocation of the Insurrection Act or martial law.
Let's be clear: calling this a full-blown civil war in the classical 1860s sense is premature and misleading — there are no rival national governments or coherent territorial fronts (yet). But nor is it trivial. A better term might be a soft civil war — a state of deep fragmentation where social trust collapses, norms break down, and different groups begin to fight rather than debate. And unlike a fad, this isn't just hot air — there are real instances of protest-related violence, barricade formations, street occupations and confrontations with law enforcement that show how unstable some urban environments have become.
Why the "Soft Civil War" Narrative Isn't Crazy
Several dynamics make this more than doom-scroll hysteria:
1) Fragmented Authority: Streets, Not Legislature
Across multiple cities, reports describe protests turning confrontational and autonomous street zones being erected amid police withdrawal. That's not peaceful dissent, it's a breakdown of conventional civic order.
2) Escalating Retaliation Logic:
Whether it's a fatal shooting during enforcement operations or clashes with opposing activists, every violent incident feeds counter-violence and hardens attitudes. Snyder argues, rightly, that each death and confrontation deepens the spiral.
3) Organisation on the Ground:
Groups on both sides aren't just spontaneous crowds; there are accounts of organised "response teams," communication networks and tactical coordination in protests. That's not random, it's structured social conflict.
This isn't an inevitable slide into nationwide civil war. It may well fizzle, or it may settle back into episodic unrest. But neither outcome should be taken for granted. The real danger, and the one that's comfortably ignored in polite discourse, is that the social contract can erode one neighbourhood at a time, long before anyone calls it "civil war."
The Stakes Are Not Imagined
What's happening now isn't about a single protest or single city. It's about the sense that competing groups no longer recognise the other side as part of a shared civic reality. Whether it's federal authorities versus local communities, political factions versus institutions, or ideologically motivated agitators versus anyone they see as "the enemy," this is the psychological core of a civil schism — long before muskets and armies appear.
Historical parallels are not exact, but we can look at how internal conflicts elsewhere began: street clashes, territorial control attempts, mutual delegitimization, and only later did armies join. Euromaidan in Ukraine, for example, began with protests that escalated into street combat and then into broader conflict with geopolitical implications.
It May Fizzle — But Don't Bet On It
The comforting take is: "America's too big and wealthy; society will absorb this." That's hopeful, but wishful thinking is not strategy. Social breakdown often begins subtly; rhetoric intensifies, institutions lose legitimacy, and then small violent engagements suddenly become the norm rather than the exception.
A lot of commentators on social media and in mainstream outlets will insist this is just overblown fear-mongering. But taking that line without careful examination is how societies sleepwalk into much worse outcomes.
We can dismiss talk of civil war as hyperbolic, or we can engage honestly with what deep social polarisation looks like:
Multiple urban conflicts unfolding simultaneously.
Erosion of trust in police and political institutions.
Polarised media ecosystems that validate opposite realities.
That's not just "protests"; that's structural fragmentation. Whether it culminates in full-scale conflict, martial law, a constitutional crisis, or prolonged instability, nobody can predict with certainty. But to ignore the warning signs as fantasy isn't courageous, it's complacent.
The quiet truth is this: soft civil wars don't announce themselves before they begin. They creep in through fragmented streets, radicalised factions, and everyday interactions turning hostile. And once they get rolling, they are very hard to stop.
https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/a-war-has-erupted-on-the-streets