Former Russian Prime Minister and longtime Vladimir Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev recently made a bold prediction that the United States would soon collapse into a second civil war brought on by the 2024 presidential election. While such dire prognostication would usually be dismissed quickly as hyperbolic post-Soviet propaganda spewed by a government hit hard by U.S. sanctions, it’s impossible to dismiss such a concept completely when many Americans worry about the same possibility.

The more outspoken and partisan voices from both sides of the political spectrum see a country facing calcifying polarization, economic division, and growing threats of violence modeled on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and the post-George Floyd riots. They not only wonder out loud if the U.S. is hurtling toward internal large-scale armed conflict but seem resigned to some brand of sociopolitical or economic damage forging an irreparable divide among its citizens.