We were sitting on the back of his Trump-branded pick-up truck earlier this week when he made the prediction.
“I think that’s the only thing that’s going to bring America back together after this election if we lose.”
Civil war? When I moved to America a year ago, I recall people raising this fear. I remember thinking they were mad. How could anyone possibly believe the ‘world’s greatest democracy’, as it’s sometimes fondly described, could be heading for civil war?
Image: Mark Stone talks to Zach Scherer and Corey Check
I’ve reported from numerous failed or failing states over the years. It seemed nonsensical to suggest that the United States of America could be among them.
Well, a year on, my view is shifting and I am profoundly concerned.
The armies and frontlines are not formed in the traditional sense. But make no mistake, there are armies and there are frontlines. The fault lines are alarmingly deep. It would be wrong to think America can just muddle its way through this inflection point in its history.
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Recent polling suggests that a growing number of Americans believe political violence is acceptable. Just last week the husband of the nation’s third most senior politician, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in their home. Police say she was the target.
On the same day as the attack, authorities warned that threats of violence against politicians nationwide had massively increased.
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The nation is bitterly divided and there is one thing causing this agitation – about a third of voting-age people in this country believe the 2020 election was stolen. They believe Donald Trump won.
Doubt sown into fabric of US society
If you spent the past two years thinking this was a fringe view peddled by a former president; a con which can now be dismissed as background noise, well think again.
Doubt has been sown into the fabric of American society. People have been duped. They are dismissing the institutions on which American democracy was built. They have been told not to trust their electoral process.
Back on the pick-up truck, Mr Scherer’s friend Corey Check was angry. These two young disciples of Mr Trump firmly believe the election was stolen by Joe Biden and the ‘woke radical left’.
“Everything. Everything is at stake. America is at stake. If we lose it, our country’s going to hell…” Mr Check said.
Image: This group of Republicans all thought Donald Trump was the rightful winner in 2020
Loyalists still believe Trump won
Rattled by their stark predictions, I sought out a different generation of Republicans hoping for a more measured, nuanced perspective.
Local campaigner Cindy Hilderbrand had invited me to meet a group of six friends and activists at the local Republican party headquarters.
My first question – how many of them thought that Mr Trump was the rightful winner in 2020? All their hands went up.
“Absolutely did win,” retired US Marine Paul Garcia said.
He was interrupted by another in the group, Cheryl Guenther: “… and it wasn’t just the election day shenanigans. It was everything leading up to that. The suppression of the news, the suppression of everything that happened, brought on by media. The media is nothing more than a Democrat arm that is helping suppress all of this information.”
To be clear, there is no evidence at all that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Audits, recounts and court cases in states across the land concluded that nothing had occurred which would have changed the result of the election. Mr Biden won by a wide margin.
Even Mr Trump’s closest aides and his own family have said he lost. Yet he persists and his loyalists believe him.
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Golfer Trump mocks White House successor Biden
Conspiracy theories spread faster than facts
Our conversation turns to the policy issues. On abortion, on crime, on drugs, on guns, on the economy, they all have perfectly legitimate conservative views. Broadly – abortion is wrong, crime and drugs are out of control, gun control is unconstitutional and the struggling economy is Mr Biden’s fault.
But here’s the problem. They believe they are failing to get their way on those policy issues not because a majority disagrees with them but because a minority stole the last election from them.
American society is siloed in echo chambers. They consume wildly partisan cable news, they believe nonsense on social media and dismiss factual reporting. Conspiracy theories spread faster than facts.
Image: ‘I think there’s a genuine threat to democracy,’ Ryan says
Threat to democracy ‘understated’
Not far away, at a rally for the local democratic party candidate, I got talking to a young Democratic Party voter, a man of similar age to Mr Scherer and Mr Check but poles apart in perspective.
Was this idea of a threat to democracy overstated, I asked.
“I think it might be understated. I think there’s a genuine threat to democracy in this country and it really scares the hell out of me,” Ryan told me.
“I don’t want to end up like what we’ve seen in Europe in the past. If we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it and we need to uphold democracy to keep going, otherwise we are going to falter as well. I am worried.”
As America heads to the polls for this midterm take on the country’s direction, the anger and the division cannot be overstated.
Reflecting on all the conversations I have had, it’s jolting and bewildering.
There is so much going on; so many issues and there is absolutely no trust for the other side. There is anger and a sense of betrayal but I felt fear too. There is a real sense that Americans on all sides don’t know what comes next or how they will react to it.
Donald Trump has waded into the debate surrounding Sydney Sweeney’s jeans ad.
The American Eagle ad, which features the 27-year-old actress, who starred in the HBO series Euphoria and White Lotus, has the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”.
It has sparked a debate in the US over race and Western beauty standards.
Image: One of the Sydney Sweeney jeans ads. Pic: AP
In a Truth Social post, the US president described it as the “hottest ad out there”.
Hailing Sweeney as a “registered Republican”, he said the jeans are “flying off the shelves”, adding: “Go get ’em Sydney!”
Most of the criticism of the ad has centred on videos using the word “genes” instead of “jeans”, with one in which Sweeney says: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.”
Critics argued the play on words potentially promotes eugenics, a discredited theory that believed humanity could be improved through the selective breeding of certain traits.
But others have defended the ad, saying the critics are reading too much into its message.
The video appeared on American Eagle’s Facebook page and other social media channels, but is not part of the ad campaign.
In a statement on Instagram on Friday, American Eagle Outfitters said the campaign “is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
Stocks in American Eagle Outfitters jumped by 23.3% after Mr Trump’s intervention.
They say all publicity is good publicity, and Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad is certainly notching up the column inches, especially now Donald Trump has intervened.
The US president must have been breathlessly excited when he found out Sweeney was a registered Republican because he wrote a Truth Social post in support of her before deleting it twice and reposting three times to correct various spelling and grammatical errors.
He clearly could not wait to get involved in the discourse.
“Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there,” he wrote. “Go get ’em Sydney!”
In any other era, the president weighing in so heavily on one side of a pop culture issue would’ve been unusual.
But the current president knows people are talking about the ad around their dinner tables and at parties right now. By injecting himself into the discussion, they will now be talking about him too.
In his Truth Social post, which he reposted three times to fix various typos, Mr Trump compared the ad with “woke” ones “on the other side of the ledger” – as he criticised other companies, as well as hitting out at Taylor Swift.
“The tide has seriously turned – Being WOKE is for losers, being Republican is what you want to be,” he wrote.
Sky News has contacted Sweeney’s agent for comment.
Soulja Boy has been arrested and charged with possession of a firearm during a traffic stop.
The rapper, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, was a passenger in the car that was stopped in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles early on Sunday morning, the LAPD said.
“A passenger was detained and police arrested DeAndre Cortez Way for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm,” the statement added.
Possessing a firearm as a convicted felon is a felony.
The 35-year-old was booked into jail in the LAPD’s Wilshire Division shortly after 6am. It is not clear if he has since been released.
Police did not provide information on what prompted the traffic stop and who else was in the vehicle with Way.
Soulja Boy is yet to publicly comment on the incident.
Soulja Boy is best known for his 2007 hit Crank That, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks and landed him a nomination for best rap song at the Grammys.
The rapper was arrested and charged with a felony in 2014 for carrying a loaded gun during a traffic stop in LA.
In April this year, the Chicago hip-hop artist was ordered to pay more than $4m (£3m) in damages to his former assistant after being found liable for sexually assault, as well as physically and emotionally abusing them.
Police in Tennessee have discovered 14 improvised explosive devices in a man’s home as they were arresting him, the local sheriff’s office said.
Officers were executing a warrant in the home of Kevin Wade O’Neal in Old Fort, about 45 miles (70km) east of Chattanooga, after he had threatened to kill public officials and law enforcement personnel in Polk County.
After arresting the 54-year-old, officers noticed “something smouldering” in the bedroom where he was found.
Image: Kevin Wade O’Neal. Pic: Polk County Sheriff’s Office
On closer inspection, they discovered an improvised explosive device and evacuated the house until bomb squad officers arrived at the scene.
Fourteen devices were found inside the property – none of which detonated.
Image: Improvised explosive devices were found in Kevin Wade O’Neal’s home. Pic: Polk County Sheriff’s Office
Image: Kevin Wade O’Neal’s home in Old Fort, Tennessee. Pic: Polk County Sheriff’s Office
O’Neal was charged with 11 counts of attempted first-degree murder, corresponding to nine officers and two other people inside the property when the suspect tried to detonate the devices.
He also faces 14 counts of prohibited weapons and one count of possession of explosive components.