Joe Rogan recently warned that we may have gotten to Step 7 of 9 in the lead-up to civil war. Glenn reviews the 9 Steps and explains why he believes Rogan nailed this one. But Glenn also lays out what Americans MUST do to reverse this trend...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So if you take what Fetterman said yesterday about how people are cheering for him to die on the left, and then you couple it with something that was on the Joe Rogan show on Tuesday. He was saying that the reaction to the death of Charlie Kirk makes him think that the US is closer to Civil War than -- than he thought.

Now, let me quote him. He said, after the Charlie Kirk thing. I'm like, oh, my.

We might be at seven. This might be he step seven on the way to a bona fide Civil War. Charlie Kirk gets shot, and people are celebrating.

Like, whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

You want people to die that you disagree with?

Where are we now on the scale of Civil War?

Well, let me go over the scale of Civil War, because it's sobering.

Now, none of this has to be true. If we wake up and decide, I don't want to do this anymore!

Okay?

Here's step one.

Step one. Loss of civic trust.

Every civil conflict begins when people stop believing that the system is fair. Are we there?

We're so far -- we're so far past the doorway, we are comfortably asleep on the couch on this one. Gallup and Pew both show trust in Congress, the media courts, and the FBI government are now at record lows.

The Edelman Trust Barometer classifies the US now as severely polarized. Majority of Republicans distrust federal elections. Majority of Democrats don't trust the Supreme Court.

Americans are really united on one thing, and that is the other side is corrupt!

When faith in the rules collapses, the republic begins to wobble. But that's step one. Step two, polarization hardens into identity!

Political disagreement is normal!

Identity conflict is fatal!


But that's what Marxists push. Identity politics. This is when politics stopped being about policy, and started being about who you are as a person.

Have we crossed this one into step two?

I mean, we're neck deep into this. A study on this, from PRRI.

It's a survey, found 23 percent of Americans believe political violence may be necessary to save the that I guess.

I think that's an old study. Americans now sort themselves by ZIP code into ideological enclaves. The big sort: Universities, activists, corporations. Everybody is promoting oppressor versus oppressed.

And that -- does what?

It puts us into incompatible tribes. Opponents aren't wrong anymore. The opponent is dangerous!

If I go back and you look at civil wars, Lebanon, before 1975. Yugoslavia, before 1991. That's -- we're doing that. Okay?

Step three. Breakdown of the gatekeepers. The gatekeepers are kind of like the referees of society. It's the media, political parties, churches, civic leaders.

When they fail, extremism fills the vacuum. Okay. Where are we on this? Have our gatekeepers failed us?

Yeah. I think both parties, especially the left, you know, everything I predicted that the left was going to be eaten by the extreme left, and then the communists and the socialists is now happening.

They've lost control of the fringe of each party. Media transformed, you know, from referees into team coaches. Tech platforms. It's outrage for profit. Universities are not there to cool things down. They heat them up.

Churches. Churches are useless. Useless.

When the referees leave the field, the game devolves into a brawl. And the refs are gone off the field. So there are only nine steps. We're at step four. Here's step four.

Are you ready for this one?

Parallel information realities.

Civil wars don't require different opinions. They require different realities.

I remember reading about Germany, at the beginning of, you know, the Nazi era. How the two new newspapers. One was propaganda for the government.

And the other one, it was the last one that was kind of the holdout.

And they said, you could read them, and they would cover the same thing.

But they had almost no information was the same. Except, that happened yesterday.

Here's what they said. And then everything else was different. That's exactly -- I mean, step four is complete!

We can't agree on facts, right?

Crime rates. Border numbers. Inflation. Election security.

Two Americans can watch the same video. And see opposite truths.

Social media algorithms are creating customized political universes.

Digital echo chambers. Deepfakes. We're just at the beginning of that. And both sides accuse the other of running disinformation machines.

Why? Because we don't have a shared reality. So if you don't have a shared reality. How do you settle any dispute?

On the nine steps, we're up to number five. Coming in at number five.

Loss of neutral rule of law.

This out of the nine steps with, five is the pivot point.

It's not corruption, it's the belief that the law is no longer neutral.

Are we there yet?

Let me tell you the CBS you.gov poll. 67 percent say the justice system is used for political purposes.

I think that's low. January 6 defendants given years in prison, 2020 rioters were released. High profile political figures, prosecuted or shielded based on party.

FBI whistle-blowers alleging pressure to inflate domestic extremism numbers. States like Texas, directly defying federal directives, on border enforcement.

And now, leading the way, with the federal government.

History is really cold and unforgiving on this point.

Once the people believe justice is political! Remember, this is the turning point.

The republic stands on borrowed time. Once you no longer believe that justice is achievable. Step six.

Are we there?

I think we are.

Step six. Normalization of political violence!

This is where violence stops shocking the system. Are we there?

Remember, where violence stops shocking the system. Look at evidence just from Virginia. What they just voted for.

He was calling for the death of a -- a political opposition.

Calling for his children to be killed.

Was called on it, never apologized.

Never said anything other than, yeah. I know. He dug it deeper.

Was anyone shocked by it? Apparently not. They elected him. Here's the evidence. 2020 riots.
574 events. $2 billion in damage. Was anybody outraged by that? Or was it downplayed and excused?
Assassination attempts. Assassination attempts against the president. Supreme Court justice.

Fistfights. And mob actions on college campuses. To silence speakers. Rising to do for punching a fascist or stopping genocide. Depending on the ideology. Online chatter discussing Civil War, national divorce, and revolution.

When violence becomes part of the political language, a nation crosses an invisible line. We're now up to step seven out of nine.

This is where Joe Rogan said, are we at step seven?

The rise of militias and parallel forces.

When a state loses he is monopoly on force.

Countdown accelerates. So where are we on this one?

I think we're seeing, maybe early signs of this.

You're starting to see the -- the states kind of organize these mobs, you know, to go after ICE.

Right?

Armed groups, right-wing, left-wing radical secessionists. Anyone.

Once they start forming their own police forces. Or their own option forces, then you have -- then you have everything really falling apart.

Entirely!

I don't think we're there, yet!

But we're starting to see the beginnings of this.

Step eight. The trigger event.

Civil Wars don't begin with a plan. They begin with a spark.

So where are we?

We're not here yet. The conditions are right. Potential triggers, disputed election in '26 or '28.

Political assassination or major attack.

Supreme Court decision that ignites mass unrest.

Financial crisis or dollar crisis.

A state federal standoff turning violent!

Nothing is ignited yet, but the room is soaked in gasoline. So we don't have seven. We're on the verge of eight, at any time. And here's nine.

This is the point of no return.

When police, military, or federal agencies split, even if no one calls it that, well, where are we?

Well, I just read a story about how with the Mamdani election in New York, a good number of the police force is going to leave. And they're going to go join police forces elsewhere. You also have the tension between the state National Guard, and the federal directives, the state guard and the state directives. Law enforcement recruitment is at crisis lows. The distrust of the FBI, DOJ, CIA. Tens of millions of Americans. I always really respected those institutions. I have no respect for them now. If you have states openly defying federal rules on immigration, drug laws, sanctuary policies.
Whistle-blower claims of internal politicization.

All of these things are in play for the first time in 150 years, people can imagine!

So I give this to you, not to be fearful of, but to know where you are. As a map!

Know where you are.

And hopefully, it might wake some people up, if you chart America on, on the nine step model of Civil War. Steps one through four, completed!

Step five, happening!

Step six, happening! Step seven, beginning! Step eight, just waiting for it. And step nine, avoidable, only if step eight, never happens. Again, I'm not telling you for doom purposes, this is diagnosis. This is a doctor going, I want you to look at the chart.

And this is a doctor saying, I want you to look at -- do you see what's happening to your body?

If you don't stop this habit, you are going to die. You don't have to die. You can stop smoking and drinking right now. You can start exercising. But if you don't, you are going to die.

The question is, are we the nation that says, nah, that's not going to happen to me. Or are we the nation that wakes up and sees our chart and says, good heavens, it's way far more gone than I thought it was. But I feel something in the air.

I'm going to change my behavior. The nation that refuses to look and wake up and stop calling their neighbors enemies, is the nation that fails!

We have to strengthen these things that have already fallen. And, you know what, the easiest one to do is?

Church. Where are you ministers and pastors priests and rabbis?

Where the hell are you?

I think there's going to be a special section for you, when you cross over to the -- because you're doing things in the name of God!

So when you get to the other side, I think there's going to be a special section for those who remained silent. While his rights were being taken away.

You don't own that right.

I don't own that right.

The Lord gave us those rights, and said, protect them!

By you, being the representative, the voice box, if you will, of the Lord, to shepherd his people. By you not standing up and saying, hey, by the way, we have -- we have a moral responsibility to protect these rights for the next generation! By you refusing because you're afraid. Because I think, there's no politics in the Bible! There's no politics in the Bible. Really?

The whole thing is about politics. Is about the moral way you have to live your life.

Calling things as you see them. Calling them back to eternal principles.

He didn't tell anybody how to vote. Render to Caesar what is Caesar's.

But there are certain principles that you have to have, or you lose not only this citizenship, but the next citizenship. The one that really matters. And, boy, if you are doing it because you're a coward, you are in the wrong business!

Get out of the pulpit, and go to work at Jack in the Box.