The Troubled Future of the United States

I've been following with more than a little disquiet, the political scene in the United States. Well before the 2020 election, I thought that it might not be held or would result in full-scale political breakdown. I was only partially right. I'm not so hopeful about 2024. 

There's a new book, published today, by Stephen Marche, called The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future. This is from the book's description on Amazon.

On a small two-lane bridge in a rural county that loathes the federal government, the US Army uses lethal force to end a standoff with hard-right anti-government patriots. Inside an ordinary diner, a disaffected young man with a handgun takes aim at the American president stepping in for an impromptu photo-op, and a bullet splits the hyper-partisan country into violently opposed mourners and revelers. In New York City, a Category 2 hurricane plunges entire neighborhoods underwater and creates millions of refugees overnight—a blow that comes on the heels of a financial crash and years of catastrophic droughts— and tips America over the edge into ruin.

These nightmarish scenarios are just three of the five possibilities most likely to spark devastating chaos in the United States that are brought to life in The Next Civil War, a chilling and deeply researched work of speculative nonfiction. Drawing upon sophisticated predictive models and nearly two hundred interviews with experts—civil war scholars, military leaders, law enforcement officials, secret service agents, agricultural specialists, environmentalists, war historians, and political scientists—journalist Stephen Marche predicts the terrifying future collapse that so many of us do not want to see unfolding in front of our eyes. Marche has spoken with soldiers and counterinsurgency experts about what it would take to control the population of the United States, and the battle plans for the next civil war have already been drawn up. Not by novelists, but by colonels.

The Guardian has just published an article by the author, warning that the political situation in the US is dire. 

Two things are happening at the same time. Most of the American right have abandoned faith in government as such. Their politics is, increasingly, the politics of the gun. The American left is slower on the uptake, but they are starting to figure out that the system which they give the name of democracy is less deserving of the name every year.

An incipient illegitimacy crisis is under way, whoever is elected in 2022, or in 2024. According to a University of Virginia analysis of census projections, by 2040, 30% of the population will control 68% of the Senate. Eight states will contain half the population. The Senate malapportionment gives advantages overwhelmingly to white, non– college educated voters. In the near future, a Democratic candidate could win the popular vote by many millions of votes and still lose. Do the math: the federal system no longer represents the will of the American people.

If you thought the last few years were wild, just wait. I have very little hope that the US will avoid either a civil war or a turn into full authoritarianism (see Hungary). 

If you want to dive into more articles that will keep you up at night, read The Guardian's section on the far right. For example:

Extremist groups continue to ‘metastasize and recruit’ after Capitol attack, study finds. "The report says that while some groups were gripped with paranoia by the arrests, others began targeting local politics."

US could be under rightwing dictator by 2030, Canadian professor warns. "Canadian political scientist warns in op ed of Trumpist threat to American democracy and possible effect on northern neighbor."

America is now in fascism’s legal phase. "The history of racism in the US is fertile ground for fascism. Attacks on the courts, education, the right to vote and women’s rights are further steps on the path to toppling democracy."