You are entirely right, Alexander, that this reckoning is absolutely necessary to preserve the rule of law--we MUST investigate and, as necessary, prosecute the crimes of Donald Trump and his cronies, no matter how much the rabid Republicans howl and fuss about it.

I am not as worried as you are about "civil war," however. Whom would these delusional haters fight, and how? This is just hysterical bluster on their part, and while there may be sporadic outbreaks of insane, racist violence here and there, there will be nothing sufficiently organized or coherent to genuinely threaten our institutional infrastructure.

All Biden or state governors need to do if these morons get really ugly is to call out the National Guard. High ranking officers and even enlisted men in all branches of the military take their oath of service very seriously: to "preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to obey their commanding officers in doing so. I strongly doubt if any high-ranking officer would (like Robert E. Lee) take up arms against his own government. And Lee could claim that he was defending his home state from attack. There is no analogous situation here--just a dangerous, delusional cult of personality that has hijacked one of our political parties. Arrest and convict that "personality" and the cult will fuss and fume all they like, but there is little they can do about it.