Quote Originally Posted by poop
Civil wars don't just spontaneously erupt because a bunch of yahoos get pissed off.
No they don't. But they do start when political leaders get assassinated.

You need two sides organised against each other.
You need two armed sides, and one side to put the other side in a situation where it's fight or roll over. People don't tend to roll over, especially armed people, and especially when they're motivated by an intense hatred of the political leader of their opponent.

What would more likely happen is you'd see a rise in extremist right wing terrorism.
Maybe. If Trump got killed, I think we'd being witnessing widespread riots at this moment in time. How does the left respond to that? Do they take to the streets in an attempt to restore order? Or do they stay inside and wait for the police and military to restore order?

Also, the reaction of the government is important. They can't be too soft otherwise they risk failing to restore order. But if they get a bit too heavy handed, that can get more people onto the streets. This is an extremely difficult balance to maintain.

The path to civil war can very quickly go steeply downhill. An incident like an assassination is certainly enough to take matters beyond the point of no return.