Imagining the Second Civil War

This chapter discusses another drama that began in 2020, the Boogaloo movement and the threat of Civil War. With particular attention to the January 6 insurrection and the discourse of white nationalist groups that participated in that event, I discuss the role of the media in sustaining apocalyptic fear narratives, as well as discourse of an impending “civil war.” The prepper response to civil unrest and the post-Trump era will also be discussed, particularly in relation to right-wing populist narratives of white supremacy. I revisit the earlier discussions of the frontier narratives in the US and tie this to eschatologies of returning to an Eden in which America is “great again.”