COLUMN | TOMORROW

Justin Trudeau probably won’t ask Joe Biden if the U.S. is headed for a war between the states. But a report from within his government says it’s time for Canada to get ready.

Justin Trudeau may not need a think tank to tell him the churning anger across the border is a threat to North American stability. | Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images

By Alexander Burns

06/11/2024 05:00 AM EDT

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Alexander Burns is head of news at POLITICO. He has covered elections and political power across the U.S. for over a decade and co-wrote a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His reported column Tomorrow explores the future of politics and policy debates that cross international borders.

When Justin Trudeau meets Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Italy this week, Trudeau will probably not ask whether the United States is at risk of erupting in civil war in the next few years.

A think tank housed within Trudeau’s government is already pondering that question.

In a spring report titled “Disruptions on the Horizon,” a quiet office known as Policy Horizons Canada proposed American civil war as a scenario that Ottawa should consider preparing for.

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.”

It’s an unsettling thing to find out your immediate neighbor is getting nervous about the possibility of gruesome violence in your home.

There has been no shortage of apocalyptic forecasting about Trump-era American politics. Since the 2016 election, left-leaning nonprofits, political consultants and academics have indulged in endless speculation and role-playing exercises, ostensibly to help them defend democracy. In practice, much of this has amounted to self-indulgent role playing. One hysterical episode in 2020 involved a war-game simulation that ended with Biden and his allies encouraging the entire West Coast to secede from the........

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