> American civil war feels quite possible at the moment.

I think that's unrealistic. What group has both the motivation and ability to rally both state governments and a large chunk of the military into open warfare on American soil? Both parties love polarizing rhetoric to keep their base riled up, but they have nothing to gain and everything to lose in an open civil war. Various militias, "patriots," and racial and religious warriors can occupy some government buildings, kill some cops, and provoke disastrous police standoffs, but have no ability whatsoever to prosecute an actual war.

Insurgency, maybe, but a full out civil war would be very very implausible at this point. State militias are severely underpowered to launch a full on war.

Basically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Passing a budget is a gargantuan governmental task - it's almost 4 trillion dollars, you think it should or could be just thrown around like peanuts? Now if somebody thought about making this budget less gargantuan, that would be interesting - but nobody ever does that.

Indeed. As a political independent I was hoping for a Republican president this time around in order to give the more extreme right wing partisans some chill after 8 years of demonizing Obama. Hillary is probably the worst possible choice for those people and they are openly talking about armed revolt.