Civil War, the new A24 film from British director Alex Garland, imagines a scenario that might not seem so far-fetched to some; a contemporary civil war breaking out in the United States.
And while the film has taken heat for little mention of politics, the question of an actual civil war has everything to do with it.
Amy Cooter is a director of research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Her work has led her to the question that Garland's movie has put in the minds of both moviegoers and political pundits: Could a second civil war really happen here?
Cooter joins host Andrew Limbong to discuss the actual threat of current political movements in the U.S., outside of the movie theaters.
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Every unit is holding a "stand down" to talk about extremism in the ranks. But the armed forces are still grappling with fundamental questions of how to define, identify and best deal with it.
With potential violent unrest ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, the FBI in Atlanta on Friday said it has deployed bomb technicians, tactical teams, special agents and other personnel to “help combat threats of violence to our state Capitol, federal buildings and communities.”
In the week since the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the FBI has announced dozens of arrests, with many more to come. Some of the rioters have lost their jobs, with others placed on no-fly lists. Chris Joyner is an investigative reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On Georgia Today, he discusses his reporting on Georgians swept up in the insurrection.
"This effort to have a mass uprising nationally is something that we should be very concerned about because, again, it's not just a Michigan problem, this is an American problem," Dana Nessel said.
A slew of arrests in the alleged plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan sends a message to other armed groups agitating for political violence: You are being watched.
Militias are named in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. Many of the groups bearing that name today self-identify as members of the alt-right...