Is Korea on the verge of psychological civil war?
Published: 03 Feb. 2025, 00:02

Choi Hoon
The author is the senior columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.
The long holiday has ended, and daily life has resumed, but the nation remains shrouded in uncertainty. With his indictment and detention by prosecutors, President Yoon Suk Yeol now faces a two-track legal battle: a Constitutional Court ruling on the legality of his declaration of martial law and emergency decrees and a criminal trial in the Central District Court for the charge of leading an insurrection under the Penal Code. The best course of action is to entrust these legal proceedings and their conclusions to the conscience and justice of the judiciary.
Yet, amid the turmoil, there are deeper, more fundamental signs of crisis that demand attention — warning signals that, if ignored, could push the country into a state of psychological civil war. Like a frog in gradually boiling water, failing to recognize these warning signs could prove disastrous.
Barbara Walter, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and her research team analyzed hundreds of cases of political instability worldwide, from World War II to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. In her book “How Civil Wars Start” (2022), she identifies patterns that lead nations to the brink of internal conflict. Alarmingly, the signs she describes closely resemble what is unfolding in Korea today.
“STOP THE STEAL”: Exploiting the fear of loss
On Jan. 6, 2021, Washington, D.C., was flooded with “STOP THE STEAL” signs as Trump supporters protested the election results, convinced that victory had been stolen from them. In Korea, protesters opposing President Yoon’s arrest and detention have adopted identical slogans, with banners reading “STOP THE STEAL,” “Verify Election Fraud” and “SAVE KOREA.”
![Protesters break into the window of the Seoul Western District Court in Mapo District, western Seoul, following the issuance of an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Jan. 19. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/03/70fcc867-1172-4606-b2fa-886459b00c28.jpg)
Protesters break into the window of the Seoul Western District Court in Mapo District, western Seoul, following the issuance of an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Jan. 19. [NEWS1]
Trump’s supporters proclaimed, “We love America too much to allow Biden to steal this election.” Some waved Bibles, while others wore shirts that read, “God, Guns, Trump.” One pastor declared, “God is raising an army of patriots.” Extremists called for the arrest of Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In Korea, we now hear similar cries: “Find the judge who detained the president!” In Washington, rioters stormed the Capitol armed with zip ties for hostages and loaded handguns. In Korea, military forces dispatched to the National Assembly carried zip ties as well.
A prominent right-wing YouTuber recently stated in an interview, “President Yoon sacrificed himself out of love for the people. We must respond with love.” The eerie parallels are unmistakable.
Psychologically, nothing is more intolerable than loss. People instinctively resent those they perceive as stealing what they believe is rightfully theirs. In the eyes of their supporters, both former President Moon Jae-in and President Yoon Suk Yeol took power through political maneuvering. Therefore, any attempt to remove a leader is framed as an attack by “antinational forces.”
Rhetoric invoking God, love and sacrifice fuels self-righteous justifications for political battle. “Patriots must unite and fight,” they declare. The call to resist loss is a universal precursor to civil war.
With early elections now a real possibility, Korean society has already split into two polarized factions, each entrenched like the opposite poles of a magnet. This is reflected in the razor-thin margins of recent public opinion polls, where supporters on both sides remain unmoved, regardless of events.
“Truth and Silence? People Prefer Outrage”: Social media, the modern Pandora’s box
After the 2020 U.S. presidential election, discontented Trump supporters flocked to Parler, an alternative social media platform, to share tactics for storming the Capitol, including routes, equipment lists and instructions.
Similarly, before the recent unrest at the Seoul Western District Court, Korean social media saw 55 posts explicitly threatening to kill the judge in charge of Yoon's case. These posts also included details about vulnerabilities in the court’s back entrance and even the license plate numbers of prosecution vehicles.
Social media platforms profit by keeping users engaged for as long as possible, generating revenue from ads. Once praised for fostering communication, likes and shares have now become accelerants for mob mentality and outrage.
A study by New York University showed that rage-filled tweets are 20 percent more likely to be retweeted, while another by the Pew Research Center showed that likes and shares double when a post fuels anger.
For populists and political outsiders seeking to seize power by mobilizing disillusioned younger voters, social media is an invaluable weapon. The growing success of Korean far-right YouTubers, who rake in tens of millions of won per month, is a direct reflection of how political extremism and social divisions are escalating.
Walter warns that social media is not just a pipeline of extremism — it is the modern Pandora’s box. At this critical juncture, traditional media outlets — newspapers and broadcast news — must reaffirm their role as guardians of truth, reinforcing fact-checking and resisting the temptation of sensationalism.
“Mask authoritarianism as democracy”
Whether it is martial law or impeachment, both sides justify their actions as necessary within a legal framework to protect the nation and its people.
President Yoon’s declaration of martial law was clearly outside legal parameters and an act of delusional recklessness. But in attempting to avoid legal accountability, he ultimately resorted to a bizarre farce, declaring, “Remove the lawmakers!”
Yet the Democratic Party, which spent months pushing for impeachment and special investigations, has shown no self-reflection on its own absolute majority “legislative dictatorship.”
Both ruling and opposition forces have succumbed to the temptation of authoritarianism, expanding their power through winner-takes-all governance, judicial takeovers and unchecked prosecutorial authority.
Walter’s research concludes that nations with partially democratic systems — where elections exist but power is not evenly distributed — are twice as likely to experience political instability as full dictatorships, and three times as likely as fully democratic governments.
The real danger lies in pseudo-democracies. If Korea fails to move toward a true democracy — where power is decentralized, checks and balances are upheld and the imperial presidency is dismantled — the nation will face an uncontrollable flood of crises.
It is time to open our eyes.
Translated using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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