A war correspondent’s view of conflict in the US

To say that the United States is polarized politically is an understatement. A 2014 survey by political scientists Shanto Iyengar and Sean Westwood found that 33 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans would be “disturbed” if their child married someone from the opposite political party, compared to 5 percent in the 1960s. The 2020 election further exacerbated the divide. In The Storm Is Here, Luke Mogelson, a journalist who covered the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, turns his keen powers of observation on the worsening polarization in this country.

From the anti-lockdown protests that broke out in spring 2020 to the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s murder to the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Mogelson embeds himself with his fellow Americans, offering a stark eyewitness account of these key events. He introduces us to a compelling cast of characters, including Karl Manke, a 77-year-old barber in Michigan who defied the statewide shutdown order; Michael Lynn Jr., a firefighter who faced increasing racism as 2020 wore on; and Felix, an amiable veteran turned ranch hand in Murdock, Minnesota, who saw no possible connection between the Trump flag hanging from his small house and the White supremacist church next door.

These people, and many others spanning political lines, share what Mogelson describes as “a diminished faith in the government as a reliable authority, whether to administer justice or to ensure their safety. One emotional feature of contemporary conflict is the ever-present, low-frequency dread of the random catastrophe. . . . When no place is immune from haphazard demolition, more abstract structures—the invisible schema that holds societies together—also become precarious.”