It Could Happen Here
It Could Happen Here started as an exploration of the possibility of a new civil war. Now a daily show, it's evolved into a chronicle of collapse as it happens, and an exploration of how we might build a better future. Every day Robert Evans, Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, and James Stout take you on a jaunty walk through the burning ruins of the old world and towards a better one that lays just on the horizon.
The podcast began in 2019 when Robert Evans consulted civil war scholars, military officers, former federal agents, and State Department strategists after becoming concerned about escalating political violence. All agreed that a second American civil war was plausible. The original nine-part series walked listeners through how such a conflict could unfold—examining the triggers (political violence spiraling beyond containment), the cascading fracturing of political parties into competing factions, and the mechanisms of state collapse. Evans drew on his firsthand reporting from Iraq and Ukraine to ground the scenarios in real-world precedent. The show later relaunched as a daily program, evolving from hypothetical analysis into a chronicle of contemporary collapse and practical exploration of how to build resilient communities amid systemic breakdown.