This is what many are predicting if we don’t make any meaningful changes before 2022. And at that point who would blame people on the left for not trusting the government similar to how people on the right already don’t.
It's a problem...
Has there ever been a time in history with similar anger, polarization, wealth inequality, and distrust or no confidence in the government that didn’t change without a civil or world war? Has it ever just worked itself out by nonviolent means?
Well on the first question, we don't know and can't know because even with new parameters thrown into the mix (climate change, or truly extreme income and wealth inequalities) sometimes it takes a very long time for a civil war to finally bust out. The USA is among those nations which have experienced the misery, familial and societal damage and lingering issues created by a war that can pit brother against brother. Most but not all nations that have been through that once have made efforts not to go there again. The ones that suffer apparently endless approaches or ventures into another round of civil war have usually been at least somewhat at the mercy of external proxy managers with their own interests. Lebanon and Afghanistan come to mind, similarly Kashmir... and lately Yemen.
On the second question though, yes, sometimes distrust in the government does get worked out short of using violence. How temporary that might be (e.g., limited to a given term of someone's time in an elected or appointed office) is another question. As recent examples, Israel has managed to stay in one piece even while suffering through extended periods of failing to agree on a government after its elections. I would expect the same of Germany now as it embarks for the first time upon having to form at least a three-party coalition to agree upon its next Chancellor. The key is talking, talking, talking.
And talking issues to death still does remains a preferred option for most Americans, even though I view with alarm the shrinking window of issues comprehension that seems to have sprung up through a focus on soundbites and tweets.
We do seem to have a deep libertarian streak in the USA, but at least in the modern era so far, a vast majority of us does not seem to prefer either vigilante justice or anarchy. So when we see a couple dozen guys in some militia threatening to invade a state capitol, or twelve hundred people getting amped up enough in a demonstration to start committing violence, that's 24 or 1200 people out of 332,000,000.
You be the judge as to whether mass media and social media coverage of such events warrants 24/7 clickbait presentation and enough ad revenue generation to cover in a single day the total student debt of about 2,000 college kids.
I mean CNN racked up 1.7 billion bucks in 2020 off our fascination with ensuring we don't miss so much as a single new soundbite of some Senator reacting to some reporter's citation of an incendiary tweet posted by someone you never heard of. That's 4.6 million dollars a day, and that's not even counting the clickbait ad revenue to social media whence the eyeballs on CNN came from.
Civil war? Nah. We are way too busy reading and writing tweets about how there's gonna be one.
Meanwhile the Koch empire and all those other dark money superPAC outfits are buying your Congress critter's vote on stuff that matters: climate change, infrastructure, voting rights. They don't want a civil war either. At least not in the USA. And they have the money to guarantee it won't happen. It's enough to make the average Wisconsin or Michigan or upstate New York militiaman weep, even if the average progressive or blue dog Dem is also in tears.
