

Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP/dpa
Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP/dpa
Politics
Most Americans do not want civil war. Anyone who is declaring it should stop.
First published in The Atlantic on September 11, 2025
by Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic
September 18, 2025 | reading time: 8 Min.
Some years ago, trying to understand what it might take to break America’s fever of political violence, I asked a former federal prosecutor what she thought about the possibility of a second civil war in the United States.