'Plunging into civil war': Canadian government think tank mulls bloody future for America

A think tank housed within Canada's government has issued a warning about deteriorating conditions in the United States could lead the country "plunging into civil war."

As Politico reports, the Policy Horizons Canada think tank released a paper earlier this year that outlines how the political divisions in America could grow to the point where mass violence erupts.

"This hypothetical was tucked into the middle of the 37-page document, which sketched the possibility in 15 spare words: 'U.S. ideological divisions, democratic erosion, and domestic unrest escalate, plunging the country into civil war,'" reports Politico's Alexander Burns. "It’s an unsettling thing to find out your immediate neighbor is getting nervous about the possibility of gruesome violence in your home."

‘MIA MTG’: Why Marjorie Taylor Greene has no district offices

That said, Burns notes that the report sees only a very small chance of such a situation occurring and he wonders if it is simply a projection of Canadian fears about the state of American politics.

John McArthur, a Brookings Institution scholar who sits on the Policy Horizons steering committee, speculated to Burns that Trump's presidency completely shook Canadians' notions of their neighbors to the south, with whom they have long shared a mutually peaceful and friendly existence.

"Stressing that he was speaking for himself and not Policy Horizons, McArthur noted that the rise of American protectionism and isolationism during the Trump administration had rattled the Canadian psyche and upended decades-old economic relationships," writes Burns. "Donald Trump’s policies and personal behavior toward Canada — including trashing Trudeau after a previous G7 meeting in Quebec — have left a painful mark."