“We clearly are closer to civil war than we were 50 years ago,” Robert D. Putnam of Harvard, an eminent and even-tempered sociologist, told me. “The only comparable period in our history, I think, is 1850-1860” — the decade that led to the Civil War. “Red states, they’re going to become more red, and purple states are going to become red, and the blue states are going to get a lot bluer,” Hawley predicted. They don’t add up to civil war in the Ft. Sumter sense. He noted that red states and blue states are fully integrated in a single national economy, unlike during the 19th century.

Source: Los Angeles Times July 04, 2022 00:11 UTC