Stephen Marche is a Canadian novelist and journalist. He writes for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker and Esquire, among other outlets. His latest book, which we’ll be discussing in this interview is THE NEXT CIVIL WAR: DISPATCHES FROM THE AMERICAN FUTURE, published by Avid Reader Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.

He writes, “There will be those who say that the possibility of a new civil war is alarmist. All I can say is that reality has outpaced even the most alarmist predictions.”

“The intelligence services of other countries are preparing dossiers on the possibilities of America’s collapse. Foreign governments need to prepare for a post-democratic America, an authoritarian and hence much less stable superpower. They need to prepare for a broken America, one with many different centers of power. They need to prepare for a lost America, one so consumed by its crises, that it cannot manage to conceive, much less to enact, domestic or foreign policies.

The purpose of this book is to give readers access to the same advance information. These dispatches are projections but not fantasies. The next civil war isn’t science fiction anymore. The plants to the first battle have already been drawn up. And not by novelists. By colonels.”

We spoke with Stephen Marche on April 19, 2022.

Links to articles pertinent to this interview:

Where Will This Political Violence Lead? Look to the 1850s. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/29/political-violence-1850s-paul-pelosi-00064107

Biden says US democracy is under threat. Here’s what he can do to help fix it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/16/biden-says-us-democracy-is-under-threat-heres-what-he-can-do-to-help-fix-it

The January 6 hearings are a brilliant spectacle. That’s also their danger https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/21/january-6-hearings-trump-consequences

With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/26/second-civil-war-us-abortion

Effort to Remove Marjorie Taylor Greene From Ballot Can Proceed, Judge Says https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-jan-6.html

Judge Blocks Effort to Disqualify Cawthorn from Ballot as ‘Insurrectionist’ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/us/politics/madison-cawthorn-north-carolina-insurrectionist.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Legal Effort Expands to Disqualify Republicans as ‘Insurrectionists” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/us/politics/insurrectionists-congress.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

How Do We Break the Cycle Of Political Violence? https://hartmannreport.com/p/how-do-we-break-the-cycle-of-political?s=r

Self-proclaimed Leader of Sovereign Citizen Group Sentenced to Federal Prison for Promoting Tax Fraud Scheme https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/self-proclaimed-leader-sovereign-citizen-group-sentenced-federal-prison-promoting-tax-fraud

Sovereign citizen Bruce Doucette sentenced to 38 years in prison https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/05/23/sovereign-citizen-bruce-doucette-sentenced-38-years-prison

Everything We Know About Jerad And Amanda Miller, The Las Vegas Couple Who Went On A Shooting Rampage https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikehayes/everything-we-know-about-jerad-and-amanda-miller-the-suicida

Florida Neo-Nazi leader gets 5 years for having explosive material https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-neo-nazi-leader-gets-5-years-having-explosive-material-n836246

Extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the future of the Republican party https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/13/extremists-like-marjorie-taylor-greene-are-the-future-of-the-republican-party

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/ also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRuvKtFvqo

For a Black Man Hired to Undo a Confederate Legacy, It Has Not Been Easy https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/arts/confederate-statue-removal-contractor.html

Fearing a Trump Repeat, Jan. 6 Panel Considers Changes to Insurrection Act https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/us/politics/trump-jan-6-insurrection-act.html