While the exact number of casualties from the American Civil War is subject to debate, the United States National Park Service’s official estimates put the war’s combined Union and Confederate casualties at more than 1,125,000 (3% of the country’s population at the time), with the death toll exceeding all other major American wars combined.
In an election season that has already seen the attempted assassination of one presidential candidate, a line must be drawn for rhetoric that promotes or suggests violent means to political ends.
At Monday’s Middletown rally for vice presidential nominee JD Vance, State Sen. George Lang crossed that line in a speech, saying “I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved.”
“It’s the greatest experiment in the history of mankind, and if we come down to a civil war, I’m glad we got people like … Bikers for Trump on our side,” he continued.
Lang was quick to issue an apology on X: “I regret the divisive remarks I made in the excitement of the moment on stage. Especially in light of the assassination attempt of President Trump last week, we should all be mindful of what is said at political events, myself included.”
We agree with Lang’s sentiment in the apology, but reckless language can quickly spiral out of control. This was only the latest example of many egregious and hateful comments from both sides of the political spectrum that add fuel to the fire of American division.
In a 2021 survey of 112 public officials, the National League of Cities found an overwhelming majority of them — about 4 in 5 — experienced harassment, threats or violence. Ohio’s state health director, Amy Acton, resigned after armed protesters came to her house. Threats against members of Congress remained steady until 2016, when they rose tenfold in five years.
This is not a Left or Right issue. Stanford University’s Strengthening Democracy Challenge found Democrats to be nearly as supportive of political violence as Republicans and only slightly less tolerant of antidemocratic attitudes.
It’s critical to remember that we are not as divided as our politicians and some media would have us believe. Contrary to popular perception, ideological divergence in the American public has not increased greatly over time. We are, however, very emotionally polarized. Political scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that the vast majority of the public does not think about parties in ideological terms and that their ties to politics are instead “affective,” based on a sense of partisan identity that is acquired very early in life.
This identity leads to a dangerous “us vs. them” team mentality. And according to a 2023 report from The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “people may be more at risk of affective polarization and more supportive of same-party antidemocratic breaches if they fear that the other party will gain power and use it to undermine democracy. Affective polarization is likely driven more by feelings of threat than simply feelings of dislike.”
After an attempted assassination or a party’s candidate abruptly exiting the race, everyone will understandably feel that threat more acutely. But in times of heightened anxiety, we must not double-down on partisan tribalism, or vilify our fellow Americans.
“This was one of the consequences of the civil war,” wrote Ishmael Beah, survivor of the Sierra Leone civil war, in his memoir A Long Way Gone. “People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.”
For the sake of our democracy, we have to rebuild trust in one another. This begins with us: how we speak to and treat one another in their daily lives. But it is especially important that our elected representatives — whose constituents chose them to speak on their behalf — are held to a higher standard. Their language at rallies and other high-profile events is amplified more than anyone, so they must be held accountable for reckless, inflammatory language.
“There’s no coming back from a coup, or a civil conflict, or a major change in the way a government runs or is allowed to function,” said Dayton-based freelance journalist Stephen Starr, who wrote a book about his experiences in Syria during its civil war. “And every one of those real-world events, whether in Turkey in 2016 or Syria or Weimar Germany in the 1930s were first spoken — and willed — into reality by the autocrats and dictators of the day pushing their agenda on the masses.”
Civil war is not a joke. It isn’t something to hope for, or to leverage for political gain. Like all war, it is a brutal horror for which none of us are prepared. We must do everything in our power to de-escalate tensions before they boil over into something worse. That requires the most powerful tool we have: language.
“We are not enemies, but friends,” Lincoln wrote in his first inaugural address. “We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
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