‘Regime Cleavage’: How the ‘Language of Humiliation’ is Engineering a Second American Civil War

Image by Andrew Valdivia.

A January 2026 Gallup poll showed that 89 percent of all Americans expect high levels of political conflict this year, as the country heads toward one of its most decisive midterm elections ever.

Gallup, however, was stating the obvious. It is a surprise that not all Americans feel this way, judging by the coarse, often outright racist discourse currently being normalized by top American officials. Some call this new rhetoric the “language of humiliation,”...