This is no more worrying than anyone (I hope) expected.
But the threat of gullible, potentially violent idiots who believe whatever trusted sources tell them, in order to avoid liberal media bias, which is often clear-eyed, objective assessment of facts which are presented in the wrong light, which is to say, by people they don't trust, is real.
So let's hypothesize for a moment. Worst-case scenario time, if you will. The Psalm 109 crowd, who correlate well with (though are skewed a bit to Christianity from) the Birther crowd, manage to incite some racially-motivated extremist (be careful clicking that last one at work; it is an active hate site, on a lot of no-go lists) to find some opportunity to kill the President and most of the Cabinet. Speaker Pelosi is sworn in as President of the United States, and proceeds with the investigation of the biggest racially-motivated crime since the 1920s, the gravity and significance of Rodney King and Bloody Sunday '65 aside. This leads all kinds of otherwise-peaceful bigots and sympathizers to have their beds overturned and their feelings hurt (not to mention their feelings of injured superiority trampled by having a no-kidding woman in charge in the White House) and sign-carrying becomes less and less related to reality, and more and more related to outright violent overthrow of the government.
And something, let's say a raid on some fairly unsympathetic, conservative Christian group that goes horribly wrong, causing the deaths of some children, sparks a call to arms. It spreads across the Southern or Western state it happened in, to Texas, never overly-populated with Unionists (nor particularly effective at teaching their own admittedly convoluted history) and then on across the South, driven by unscrupulous megachurch pastors and ambitious politicians without any legitimate hope of forming a majority to rural Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, and...it happens. Articles of Secession are drawn up by statehouses, referenda are put before citizens in special elections, and racial madness grips the entire nation (or at least the South.) National Guard units called up refuse to report; those that do show up only quell riots by "the wrong color" people, and war becomes open.
It could happen. Economic stress, ignorance, fear, and wanton indifference to the consequences to others in pursuit of ratings and controversy could all boil over one day, in the mind of someone suggestible enough or just predisposed to hate and terror.
It could have happened several times more than it has so far, and I don't think it particularly likely now. But the people who do think it most likely that the United States will fracture into war, really want it to. And that bothers me. But I still believe that President Lincoln was right: that these dead shall not have died in vain, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Even if some foolish fraction of his party now seem determined to see that it will.
So let's hypothesize for a moment. Worst-case scenario time, if you will. The Psalm 109 crowd, who correlate well with (though are skewed a bit to Christianity from) the Birther crowd, manage to incite some racially-motivated extremist (be careful clicking that last one at work; it is an active hate site, on a lot of no-go lists) to find some opportunity to kill the President and most of the Cabinet. Speaker Pelosi is sworn in as President of the United States, and proceeds with the investigation of the biggest racially-motivated crime since the 1920s, the gravity and significance of Rodney King and Bloody Sunday '65 aside. This leads all kinds of otherwise-peaceful bigots and sympathizers to have their beds overturned and their feelings hurt (not to mention their feelings of injured superiority trampled by having a no-kidding woman in charge in the White House) and sign-carrying becomes less and less related to reality, and more and more related to outright violent overthrow of the government.
And something, let's say a raid on some fairly unsympathetic, conservative Christian group that goes horribly wrong, causing the deaths of some children, sparks a call to arms. It spreads across the Southern or Western state it happened in, to Texas, never overly-populated with Unionists (nor particularly effective at teaching their own admittedly convoluted history) and then on across the South, driven by unscrupulous megachurch pastors and ambitious politicians without any legitimate hope of forming a majority to rural Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, and...it happens. Articles of Secession are drawn up by statehouses, referenda are put before citizens in special elections, and racial madness grips the entire nation (or at least the South.) National Guard units called up refuse to report; those that do show up only quell riots by "the wrong color" people, and war becomes open.
It could happen. Economic stress, ignorance, fear, and wanton indifference to the consequences to others in pursuit of ratings and controversy could all boil over one day, in the mind of someone suggestible enough or just predisposed to hate and terror.
It could have happened several times more than it has so far, and I don't think it particularly likely now. But the people who do think it most likely that the United States will fracture into war, really want it to. And that bothers me. But I still believe that President Lincoln was right: that these dead shall not have died in vain, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Even if some foolish fraction of his party now seem determined to see that it will.