Oh, of course I don’t wish for a civil war. I’m the Voice of Reason, right? But there are a lot of people in this country—more than you or I would like to admit—who are wishing for exactly that. Not cosplaying morons in buffalo horns and face paint, but armed, combat-trained military veterans who have somehow become convinced that their “freedoms” are under attack and it’s their patriotic duty to defend them.

These people have been waiting and preparing for years, just biding their time and waiting for their moment, and are now convinced that moment has arrived. This time it won’t be another War Between the States, but a true civil war, pitting one segment of society against another in the streets, like Lebanon in the 1980s or Yugoslavia in the ’90s or Syria in the 2010s. And if it does come down to it, it could well devolve into a three-way affair, Red versus Blue versus Black.

It’s a gruesome prospect and I dread it to my bones, but I do fear it may come to pass.