To glimpse the coming dismemberment of the United States of America, just stop by your local bookstore.

“How Civil Wars Start” by Barbara F. Walter, one of the most-discussed titles of the moment, warns that the signs typically heralding such conflicts are now evident at home. “Divided We Fall” by David French, published weeks before the 2020 election, pictures the cleaving of the United States into two culturally distinct states, united only in their mutual detestation. On the magazine racks, the Atlantic argues that the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol was merely “practice” for the more effective democratic subversion that’s now underway. And on the fiction shelves, you can pick up a paperback of Omar El Akkad’s 2017 novel, “American War,” a grim vision of environmental destruction, youth radicalization, internally displaced populations and biological warfare in the United States, a vision rendered less fashionable only by its timing (here, the second American civil war is not waged until the latter half of the 21st century).