Division is with us since forever, but societies in the developed world are aging and thus lack the necessary "cannon fodder" of enough fit young men for a civil war. Civil wars are very often associated with youth bulges [0] and our days of having a youth bulge are over in the West.

(There is a possibility of massive influx of young men from Africa and Asia into Europe, which would replenish the potential, but that does not concern the USA.)

[0] https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/youth-bulge-a-de...

40-y.o. somethings are less militarily capable and, these days, usually fat. They will stick to their keyboards.

But yeah, all that hate worries me as well.

Having just seen MLK day go by, I think the situation in the US is considerably better than it was back then, when despite campus cultural policing being enforced by actual shootings and both dissidents and presidents were being murdered, the country did not have a full civil war.

You can't really have a civil war without an economic crisis, and the one thing all the helicopter COVID money guaranteed was not having a massive economic crisis. See Kazakhstan; it's been somewhat unfree for years, but the thing that triggered fighting in the streets was a spike in energy prices.

However I do think there's a risk of more political violence around elections. Eventually some group is going to bring guns to a government building and refuse to leave.