Could a Trump Impeachment lead to major US civil unrest?

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The violent scenes in Charlottesville this weekend served as an ugly reminder to us all that there is still a lot of racial tension simmering under the surface in the US. To many in Europe, myself included, it was horrifying to see so many men march under Nazi banners, armed with machine guns and other high calibre assault rifles. Even saying out loud is surreal, there were Nazi supporting, white supremacists with machine guns on parade this weekend.

There has been a lot written on the far right in the US recently. The regularly used line is that the Trump election has emboldened far right groups to be more confident and outspoken in their views. The First and Second amendment of the US Constitution currently mean it is legal in many parts of America to openly espouse racist ideology while visibly carrying a gun. These rights have led to the formation of many armed groups who seek to ‘defend” the civil rights of free speech etc. The challenge is that there is effectively nothing in the US that is deemed hate speech, as this is often seen as a transgression of the First Amendment.
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This could potentially be all well and good in a peaceful, united society. Unfortunately, the United States is not currently in that state of existence. There have been many riots over the last three years in the US, many of which came before the election of Donald Trump. It would be naïve to simply point the finger at his election as the sole contributor for the re-emergence of the far right. Many of these groups had already started to re-brand online (google “Kekistan” and “Pepe the Frog”) and publicly in the last number of years under the overall banner of the “alt-right”.

So far, these groups have used small, mostly localized events as rally calls for protests and shows of strength. The initial protest this week was against the removal of a status of a Confederate General from the US Civil War. The fear would be that any removal of President Trump could be the catalyst for outright civil war or, at the very least, serious civil unrest. While I do not see, this happening under current circumstances, if there are further flashpoints of violence and larger crowds attending it could potentially become a reality. Especially if the investigation of collusion with Russian continues and is perceived as partisan or biased against President Trump.
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 Monday morning dictates that this can only be a short thought piece and I do not want it to be sensationalist. The unfortunate reality however is that events across the globe are moving faster than ever and mutating in ways that seem impossible.  Fortunately, the great shocks in the Western World in recent times have been electoral results. We need to be prepared for the next one not being so democratic…