Ominous civil war warning as expert predicts exact date the US will split
Professor Benjamin Cohen from the University of California-Santa Barbara warned that the possibility of political polarization reaching a violent breaking point throughout the US was 'substantially greater than zero.'
In one scenario, the political economist and author of 20 books envisioned California declaring its independence from the US in 2035, amid growing friction with the federal government - prompting the next president to take drastic action.
'President [JD] Vance has threatened a military takeover of state government in Sacramento, backed by National Guard troops from nearby red states. Armed conflict looks increasingly possible,' Cohen wrote in a fictitious news bulletin about his hypothetical scenario.
Although states seceding may seem like an impossible probability to many, Cohen explained that there is a growing movement in so-called 'dream states' to rally behind the causes some feel they belong to, rather than remain part of the greater US family.
'Identity can be a very powerful motivator,' the professor said. 'That's why I worry about the risk of civil war. When it comes to something as strong as a sense of community identity, rationalism falls by the wayside.'
A recent YouGov poll found that Cohen's fears are shared by many Americans, with 40 percent believing that it's either 'somewhat or very likely' the US will have another civil war within 10 years.
The same percentage believed that war would be fought between Democrats and Republicans, not between individual states.
Professor Benjamin Cohen predicted that states could start breaking away from the US by the year 2035 given the country's political polarization
'It's difficult for me to imagine how things would divide up if there were a civil war,' Cohen said in a university release. 'But the probability of such a war is substantially greater than zero.'
He added that the possibility of states deciding to secede from the US was an 'underappreciated phenomenon.'
Seceding from the US essentially means a state or group of states would be deciding to leave the country to form an independent nation.
This would mean they're rejecting the authority of the US Constitution, federal laws, and the federal government, setting up a new government and handling things like taxes, defense, and trade on their own.
The threat of a civil war emerges because the US Supreme Court has already ruled that it is illegal for states to secede without the consent of all other states in the union.
Just like in Cohen's nightmare scenario, the federal government would likely declare the action illegal and take measures to stop it.
However, studies continue to find more and more Americans believe that the government is reaching a critical breaking point and may even stop functioning as a democracy within a decade.
The June 30 YouGov poll of 1,111 adult US citizens revealed that 31 percent think America will become a fascist dictatorship by 2035. Another 20 percent think the US will turn communist by then.
'It seems to me we cannot ignore the risks of the current fissures and fragmentation — the breakdown of a sense of community,' Cohen added.
Despite predicting that California as a whole would be the first state break away from the US, the specialist in international political economy said that dissatisfied Americans desire to redraw the geographic borders of the US to better fit their political ideologies.
For example, while New York City has heavily leaned Democratic for years, the rest of New York State has actually favored Republicans.
In Cohen's new book, Dream States: A Lurking Nightmare for the World Order, the professor warned of an impending breakdown in society that could literally split states in half.
'We tend to simplify geography by looking exclusively at the existing lines on a map that separate one sovereign state from another,' the author explained.
'The reality is there are many people within those states that are very unhappy with the arrangement. They'd prefer to draw the lines in a different way. In some cases, they're prepared to fight to redraw those lines,' he warned.
In California, that battle has seemingly already began, with riots in Los Angeles over the federal government's mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
President Trump warned that California Governor Gavin Newsom's actions during the crisis in Los Angeles was taking the country closer to a civil war.
The president said he would support arresting Newsom and called the rioters in Los Angeles 'insurrectionists.'
'I would do it,' the president said on June 9 when asked about Newsom daring his administration to arrest him.
'He's a nice guy but he's grossly incompetent, everybody knows it,' the president added. 'I don't want a Civil War. Civil War would happen if you left it to people like him.'
An appeals court has allowed the White House to keep control of National Guard troops Trump deployed to Los Angeles to handle anti-ICE riots.
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