But the Pax America is fading away, and in large part because of internal events in the United States. It's been 80 years since the West's last major war. We're due for one now. America, indeed, is probably closer to a civil war now than it has been since 1865.

While a leftist himself, American novelist John Steinbeck nevertheless put in a great turn of phrase, and this quote from his book "The Grapes of Wrath" applies to conservatives following the Trump verdict on Thursday:

“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”    

Conservatives (and a good number of libertarians) are certainly strengthened and knit together by this verdict. One need only look at Trump's post-verdict fundraising haul to see that. The left has succeeded in making Donald Trump a political martyr, and as a result, there are tens of millions of people ready to crawl on hands and knees through a mile of scrap iron and broken glass to vote for him. And any glimmering of election shenanigans in this cycle will engender a response that I'd rather not contemplate.

How does this bring us to a civil war?

See Related: The Democrats Are a Cornered Animal 

What's Next for Trump? The Facts, and Ways This Could Play Out.

There's an old saying that wars are fought by young men but started by old men. But civil wars aren't necessarily like that. We have, here in the United States right now, a generation of young men who have been told their masculinity is toxic; that they must accept the degrading of the culture their parents grew up in; that their sex is a matter of preference rather than biology. They have been told that women don't need them, and they have been shuffled to the back of the line in everything from mortgages to college applications. These are the ones, young men who are on the edge of desperation, young men who think they have nothing left to lose, who would start a second civil war. Add to that the fact that young men now are, politically, breaking hard to the right — and many of them are no doubt looking at yesterday's verdict with growing anger.

Look through the history of humanity, and you won’t see many wars fought over pronouns. Young men – the demographic described above – are generally more motivated to fight for the love of home, hearth, and country than for "social justice" or other nebulous terms. Denizens of the red states, people on the right of center, are more likely to hold attitudes that would serve well in conflict: self-reliance, thrift, courage, mental and physical fortitude. And that's why the right would win any such conflict.

The rank-and-file military would be key players. The military leans right, except for some senior officers who are often as much politicians as soldiers; it’s likely, though, that most ordinary soldiers, especially combat arms soldiers, would side with the right, in many cases even taking their weapons and supplies with them.

Add to that the fact that the left, especially the radical progressive left, tends to badly overestimate the popularity of their policy positions. The vast majority of the population does not want drag queens wiggling their crotches in front of children, or allowing twelve-year-olds to make decisions to undergo life-changing “gender-affirmation” surgeries and treatments. The very lunacy of the progressive left will tip a lot of fence-sitters, people who would otherwise support liberal positions like same-sex marriage, into supporting the right if things come to open conflict. And, finally, two words: Second Amendment. The rural/suburban right is far, far more likely to own/use/maintain proficiency with firearms. Who has the guns can make a huge difference, and in America today, the right has almost all the guns.

Honestly, look at the progressive left’s track record. Every time they have attempted to run a society, even on a small scale, the result has been abject failure. Example: Seattle’s “CHAZ” attempt, where leftist radicals seized control of several blocks of a major city. Within days, they were out of food; within weeks, the zone had devolved into a dictatorship led by a warlord, backed by a gang of armed thugs. This is not a formula for the kind of cohesive society that wins wars.

A second civil war would be catastrophic. It would be fought not on distant fields, not by massive armies maneuvering against each other in open country. It will be fought in the streets, in the towns, amongst us in ways no other war has touched us since the Revolution, and if similar conflicts are any indication – see not only Bosnia but also the Spanish Civil War – it will result in hatreds that will last generations. The Spanish Civil War would likely be the model for this conflict: a vicious, partisan battle, fought out in the streets and villages. The Spanish Civil War, it should be noted, was also a training ground for Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, and, in that sense, was a precursor to a much larger, far more destructive global war. And bear in mind that China, also, has a generation of young men who have little to lose.

Right now, the left is LARPing. They love their protests and their occupations, and now, with the conviction of Trump, they think they have won a victory — and if Trump wins in November, all bets are off. The left will try to ramp up their protests, and their riots, but things are very liable to spin out of control. 

It's all fun and games until someone fires the first shot.

Steinbeck also summed up the mood of the people with words that have become immortal in American literature:

...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

There is a tension in the air following the verdict in former President Trump's Manhattan trial. Even here, in the Great Land, it's palpable. We are stepping into an undiscovered country, and this summer's political conventions and, much more so, November's election will set the path forward for America and Americans, possibly for the century to come. I hope that a second civil war doesn't happen. I hope that America will overcome all this, return to some semblance of normalcy, and that the tough people who make good times will win through and put this interlude behind us without violence. 

But history isn't interested in our druthers.