Is dystopian society finally materializing?

I had a debate with a fellow author over the weekend. He writes superhero fiction. He poses that, by the year 2042, there will not be enough major disasters or conflict to justify America transforming to a totalitarian state. He says the nation has endured other major catastrophes, and none of them changed the form of government, like I represent in my novel Skin Trials. Events such as the fire of 1871, the earthquake of 1905, and the September 11 terrorist attacks, didn't change the form of government.

Dystopian society yet, or nah?

Conflict, protests, government defections… what’s next?

Here's why I think what happens next in America could be different.

Some historians predict a 35% chance of America entering civil war in the next fifteen years. Other historians think the likelihood is even higher than that, more like 60%.

But if this actually happened, what will be the tipping point? The issue that drives us to actually raise arms against one another, or against the government?

It won't be the financial distress, or it would have happened in the Great Depression of 1932, the excesses of 1980's, or the Great Recession of 2008.

It won't be natural disaster. We've seen plenty of that, and humans have a pretty high tolerance level for floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and fire.

However, when do red-blooded humans most often disagree? When do we march, protest, yell and carry signs?

When our freedoms and liberties are threatened. When we feel like we're no longer in control of our destiny or property. In America, these last few years, that's been Occupy Wall Street. The Tea Party of 2010. The Women's March on Washington of 2017. Antifa. Unite the Right. Charlottesville, Virginia, 2017. 

War.

Right now, we still have strong rule of law in America, which keeps us all in check. 

But what happens if our military or police is not advanced or strong enough to prevent tomorrow's conflicts? And our rule of law crumbles... 

The war of tomorrow will not look like the Civil War of 1861. It will be far more stealth and technologically advanced. And it may come from small factions of unhappy people we can't easily find or detect.