And the modern side will also be the losing side if violence breaks out. The urban prosperity machine requires trade and highly specialized work, which is vulnerable to political turmoil. Whereas the guns and food are overwhelmingly in the rural parts of the country.
I don't think it's all doom and gloom though. There are some promising signs that cities don't have to be coastal to embrace the new model and prosper. Austin, Pittsburgh, Denver; to name a few.
And even though the Trump administration is doing damage, it could also act as an inoculation. Their complete lack of competence is a limiting reagent. And in response, a lot of people who took benign, stable political institutions for granted (their relative rarity could easily be missed from a typical education) no longer do.
