Bill Gates says political polarization could lead to a civil war

They were never a threat. The military could have swooped in and killed everyone. "Democracy" is not that fragile, and cannot be destroyed by occupying a building. If democracy dies it will be because there are tens of MILLIONS of people don't want to participate anymore, at which point it's a civil war. A small minority of extremist cannot threaten a large system, unless of course those small minority is meant to be half of the country based on political leanings (at which point, it's not an insurrection and just a civil war).

By exaggerating the threat, it ironically adds fuel to the fire of a civil war, becoming like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The geographical lines are largely the same. Slavery is no longer the top-line issue, but the ideological lines date back to the Declaration of Independence. These are people with a deep antipathy towards each other, forcibly united by the necessity of fending off their original colonial host.

They never trusted each other or liked each other. Much of the sloganeering puts that front-and-center. We'd never have to make our national motto "Of many, one" if we actually believed it. We created our indoctrination oath after the Civil War, forcing children to repeat that they were "one nation indivisible". They say it in the hopes that they'll come one day to believe it -- and the message was later deliberately obscured by cramming "under God" ungrammatically into the middle of it.

It's exactly the same Civil War as it was the first time, a war running hot and cold since fourscore-and-seven years before the "Civil War" was underway. It's remarkable that the cease-fire has lasted this long.

I don't give a damn what people think. When they start threatening my safety because they're not getting their way, that's when it's a problem.