Geoffrey MillerVerified account

8/But race and religion provide easy dividing lines in an apocalyptic war situation. You can just look at people's skin color, or their hair, or the type of clothes they're wearing, and tell what group they're in. So it's easy to use those markets to separate friend from foe.

9/OK so why does this matter? Because I'm starting to think that lots of people go around with ARW scenarios sort of lurking in the backs of their minds. And that these dark imaginings inform what looks like boring normal politics.

11/I often hear people on the political right say things like "we've got the guns" - a clear reference to ARW. But people on the left think about it too. A friend in a performance art PhD program told me about how her friends used to talk about ARW all the time.

12/Does this mean America is preparing for an ARW? It's always possible (as the lesson of Lithuania teaches us). So maybe? But almost certainly not. Still, despite the extremely low likelihood, I'm starting to suspect that ARW scenarios inform much of our politics.

14/But what if "status politics" is really just another form of interest politics - a process of coalition building and positioning ahead of a possible ARW? What if "status anxiety" isn't about respect for its own sake, but about fear of being on the wrong side of an ARW?