Minnesota unrest raises fears of deepening US political breakdown

The fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in Minnesota has triggered protests and a political standoff between federal authorities and state and city leaders, sharpening fears about rising internal conflict in the United States.

Local officials have called on federal agents to step back, while Washington insists immigration laws must be enforced, raising concerns about competing claims to authority on the ground.

Stephen Marche, author of 'The Next Civil War', said the situation reflects a deeper breakdown in trust and legitimacy rather than a traditional uprising.

He described the incident as an example of violence against civilians that signals a dangerous shift in how political disputes are playing out in modern democracies.

"I think what we're seeing in Minnesota has a very specific technical term that the experts in civil conflict use. It's called one-sided violence against civilian populations. So that's not an insurrection or anything like it. It's really something closer to state terrorism, although it doesn't really fit that definition quite neatly either.

"The vision of civil war that I had in the book is certainly not state against state or like pitched armies against pitched armies, but basically chaos and political illegitimacy, where violence becomes the primary mode of negotiating the political landscape.

"I think America is in a period like the troubles in Ireland, where violence is defining politics in a way that it never has in that country since the Civil War in the 1860s.

"What we're seeing right now is the breakdown of the United States as a political concept, really."

Marche warns that expectations that the crisis will ease after the upcoming elections are misplaced, arguing that the forces driving instability (inequality, weakened institutions and collapsing trust) are now entrenched.

He says America is entering a period of sustained decline, with serious consequences for global politics.

"The idea that this is going to all change in the midterms or at the very latest in 2028 is really the most dangerous idea for everyone in global politics. It's such a nice thing to believe that we're all just going to go back to normal. What we're seeing right now from America is the new normal."

To listen to Marche in conversation with CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit, use the audio player below: