Not sure I'm assuming the worst, but when you look back at any major event/atrocity, you see the buildup of certain milestones that often go back anywhere from 5-20+ years and I think that if we teleported to a civil war 5 years from now, this is one of many moments historians would be looking at. I think our next civil war would probably start with everything leading up to 9/11 and would include the subsequent war, debt, mortgage crash, more debt, trump, Covid, inflation, shit wages, overvalued stocks, political trials, more debt, default, etc. etc.
What you're talking about with bbq's and whatnot, I agree that it won't happen as long as life is still pretty good. Bbq's are a metaphor for living a good life, but take away those bbq's(i.e. jobs and the ability to care for one's family) and you're right there. Any type of economic depression and subsequent unemployment in the US, with what we already have under our belt, would be especially bad, imo. We would not unite through a common suffering. People would blame and attack as if their life depended on it. External instigators would have to do very little to fuel it, and you or I would have to do an impossible amount to overcome it.
It's why I ask, what would you do, if you really had to? It's like a bad marriage; the longer the relationship degrades, the less recoverable it becomes.