Are We on the Verge of Civil War?

The era of bullhorns, bike locks, and beatings in the name of "tolerance".

Victor Davis Hanson

. . . "Something like that ancient divide is now infecting every aspect of American life.

" Americans increasingly are either proud of past U.S. traditions, ongoing reform, and current American exceptionalism, or they insist that the country was hopelessly flawed at its birth and must be radically reinvented to rectify its original sins. 

"No sphere of life is immune to the subsequent politicization: not movies, television, professional sports, late-night comedy, or colleges. Even hurricanes are typically leveraged to advance political agendas. 

"What is causing America to turn differences into these bitter hatreds — and why now? 

"The internet and social media often descend into an electronic lynch mob. In a nanosecond, an insignificant local news story goes viral. Immediately, hundreds of millions of people use it to drum up the evils or virtues of either progressivism or conservatism. 

"Anonymity is a force multiplier of these tensions. Fake online identities provide cover for ever greater extremism — on the logic that no one is ever called to account for his or her words." . . .