On Wednesday, September 5, Heather Mac Donald was interviewed on the Rush Limbaugh radio program about her new book The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.  Her interviewer was Mark Steyn, who was substituting for Limbaugh.  The two discussed the total eclipse of sanity on America's university campi, and, right toward the end, Ms. Mac Donald said she saw it leading to [?] "civil war, if not race war."  

 

That "[?]" is because I may have gotten the lead-in wrong -- she might have said 'she feared' or 'one possibility is' or 'I hope it won't mean' ...  (If you're a member of Limbaugh's "Rush 24/7" club, you can listen to the podcast of the interview and report back to us.)

 

But the part I put in full quotes is verbatim correct—I wrote it down immediately after hearing it.  

 

"Race war."  Quite striking.  Yep, that's what the very measured associate editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal said.

 

Earlier that same day, Steyn himself had written (recalling a physical confrontation he'd experienced several years earlier in a U.S. Senate hearing room):

I confess, as a meek mild-mannered wordsmith and notorious Canadian showtune queen, I'm sick of all this physical intimidation by the left and occasionally think it might be quicker and psychologically healthier just to get the hell on with full-scale civil war.

Such thoughts are in the air, enough so that prominent individuals are starting to utter them aloud (Mac Donald) or put them in writing (Steyn). 

 

Another example, of the written variety, popped up the very next day as—in a TV segment Steyn was about to join—Fox News host Tucker Carlson touted his soon-to-be-released book Ship of Fools: How A Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution. 

 

Revolution?  Civil war?  Or race war?  Let's not quibble.  As the late and fearless immigration patriot Terry Anderson used to mutter to me, "It's coming."