Putin has watered the seeds of civil discord, but things were already going to sprout anyway.

This whole rural populism vs. urban globalization has the potential to get even uglier with each election cycle, but I don't see it turning violent on a widespread scale; The geographic complexity of drawing boundaries (where does "urban" begin and "rural" end?) prevents the hillbillies from forming organized militias. I think it ends when the urbanites somehow find the right voice and message to finally convince the rural sticks-in-the-mud that it's not the 1950's anymore. Either that or enough of them finally die off because of their own decisions that they wise up and change their lifestyles. The latter takes too long, though, and I'd rather avoid it anyway.

I'm not too intimidated by potential vote hacking, especially now that we know to expect it every major election. Like my last paragraph suggests, I'm more concerned that we're going to tear ourselves apart ideologically while the wealthy effectively loot the country's economy. Would anyone (of credibility) deny that this is exactly what's happening right now? By the time we unify again, there won't be any table scraps left to party with.