I released Episode 1 of The Rise of King Asilas, “The Ascension,” in 2017, yet listening to it in 2026 feels less like revisiting the intended speculative fiction and more like hearing an eerie warning about America’s political trajectory. The narrator describes “America’s second civil war” as a conflict of “brother versus brother, sister versus sister, and neighbor versus neighbor.” These are classic phrases of toxic rhetoric that ultimately divide people who would otherwise love each other if not for their insistence on changing each other’s minds. At the time, many listeners may have interpreted it as dramatic dystopian storytelling. Today, after years of political unrest, violent protests, assassination attempts against political leaders and public figures, and increasingly militant rants from all sides of the ideological spectrum, the language sounds disturbingly familiar.

What makes Episode 1 particularly fascinating is that it was originally written as satire, not to predict a conventional civil war. In fact, the entire series was written as satire, but it didn’t land that way when they were posted, and they certainly don’t feel like satire now. What I had originally envisioned was the parody of a nation psychologically and culturally fractured beyond repair. King Asilas explains that the divisions began with politics (“democrats versus republicans” & “conservatives versus liberals”) and eventually expanded into deeper ideological warfare involving economics, identity, and the role of government itself. But I held on to hope that things would correct themselves for the sake of keeping America the greatest country in the world. Instead, the show’s progression mirrors what many Americans believe has happened over the last decade.

The United States of 2026 is not engaged in a formal military conflict between states, but it is undeniably experiencing a crisis of national consensus. To many Americans, it increasingly feels that way. Political discourse has become increasingly hostile, with opponents no longer viewed merely as people with different ideas but as existential threats to the country itself. A country that a growing number of people feel genuine angst towards. Public trust in institutions (government, media, academia, even elections) has sharply eroded. Violent speech that once existed only on the fringes now circulates openly across social media platforms and political commentary channels. The celebration of death and destruction as a means to achieve political ends has become tolerated and commonplace. Along with this, any semblance of respectful disagreement has utterly dissolved. 

This is why some commentators, including figures like Tim Pool, frequently discuss the possibility of a “second civil war.” They often clarify that such a conflict would not happen in the literal sense, like in the 1860s. Instead, it would be decentralized: ideological warfare, civil unrest, institutional sabotage, political radicalization, and sporadic violence erupting across communities. In many ways, that is exactly the version of conflict Episode 1 portrayed years earlier. Fans of the show have told me on several occasions that Tim Pool speaks as though he listens to The Rise of King Asilas. As flattering as these comments are, he has never indicated he is even aware of the show, at least not in public.

One of the episode’s most prolific lines is the description of America being “lost in ambiguous character” before ultimately embracing “stoic populism.” These phrases were woven in with a certain specificity because even back then (in mid 2017), the seams of America’s fabric were coming undone. Whether one agrees with the philosophy presented in the story or not, the phrase captures a growing sentiment of an impending second civil war and the belief that America no longer knows what it is. Across the political spectrum, there is widespread disagreement over national identity, morality, patriotism, history, borders, religion, and even objective truth itself. And I won’t even get into the outright self-hatred that permeates throughout the endless protests in the streets across America.

The rise of General Asilas in the story is presented as a reaction to chaos and the collapse of political debate. He emerges not because democracy is floundering, but because citizens have become exhausted by disorder and division. Historically, this has often been the pathway through which strongman leaders gain influence. When populations lose faith in institutions, they frequently gravitate toward figures who promise stability, certainty, and national restoration, even at the cost of democratic norms. Because so much insanity grips America in the story, acceptance of a king to “restore order” was mostly fathomable. Could such a thing actually occur in the real world? 

It’s a theme that resonates strongly in 2026. Americans increasingly speak in apocalyptic terms about elections and political outcomes. Every major election cycle is framed as “the most important in history.” And those words have been repeated for the last number of decades, but they’ve become more hostile in recent times. Political opponents are accused not merely of incompetence, but of treason, tyranny, fascism, or revolutionary subversion. This constant escalation creates a climate where compromise becomes impossible because each side believes defeat would mean national collapse. Hence, the emergence of “lawfare” in place of winning cultural and political debate is to be expected at the conclusion of any election, whether at the local, state, or national level.

Episode 1 also understood something many political analysts now openly acknowledge: technology and media intensify polarization. While this pilot episode focuses primarily on ideological divisions, the broader series repeatedly alludes to information warfare, propaganda, and manipulation. In today’s world, algorithm-driven outrage dominates online engagement. Political tribalism is monetized daily through podcasts, livestreams, and social media ecosystems that reward emotional escalation over nuance, which only exacerbates an already toxic arena for discourse. Moreover, the episode’s “civil war” concept is not merely about violence. It is about alienation. Americans increasingly live in separate informational realities, consume different media, distrust different institutions, and hold radically different interpretations of events. In practical terms, this creates conditions where national unity becomes extremely difficult to sustain.

What makes “The Ascension” compelling in hindsight is not that it literally predicted specific events. Rather, it identified underlying pressures that were already forming beneath the surface in 2017. I (like many others) recognized back then that America’s divisions were deepening in ways many people underestimated. The show extrapolated those tensions forward and imagined what could happen if distrust, resentment, and ideological absolutism continued unchecked.

In 2026, that warning feels less theoretical than it once did.

Whether America is truly entering a “second civil war” remains a matter of debate. Some argue the phrase is irresponsible hyperbole, while others believe the conflict is already underway in cultural, informational, and psychological forms. Some even argue that the emergence of AI is, in some ways, the new ultimate ruler. An electronic monarch that oversees, influences, monitors, and even manipulates the lives of every human being on this earth. And if that seems far-fetched, it honestly isn’t, especially when you consider all the top minds of the world warning of AI’s impending destruction of our way of life. Yet regardless of terminology or personal beliefs, Episode 1 of The Rise of King Asilas captured an uncomfortable truth years before much of mainstream discourse was willing to confront it: a nation does not need armies on battlefields to tear itself apart. Sometimes the fracture begins in the minds of its people long before the first shot is ever fired.

Listen to Episode 1: