The US Now
The United States is now in Stage 5 and has not yet crossed the line into Stage 6 (the civil-war stage). Will
populism and fighting between extremists go past the point of no return? Judging by the indicators the honest
answer is that it is too close to call. Hardly anyone expects that the US will cross the line to have a civil
war/revolution, though it could. Because the United States has a long tradition of working out disagreements
within the system, precedent favors making changes within the system. In its 244-year history it has had only one
civil war, several rather peaceful revolutions, and many serious conflicts, so it has shown great capacity to bend
without breaking. Of course, it was our ancestors who bent and compromised enough to work things out without
abandoning the system, and now it is the responsibility of existing decision makers to interact with the system that
our founding fathers gave us.
The recent elections showed how split the country is—almost 50/50 along seemingly irreconcilable lines.
Figuratively speaking the population 50 years ago used to look like this—i.e., the majority of each party were
moderates and the extremists were less extreme.
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Now it looks like this—i.e., with a greater concentration and number of people at the extremes.
Such changes are typical of progressing toward greater conflict as they reflect more people being at the extremes
and the number of moderates shrinking. When moderates are in the minority and extremists are in the majority
in each party there is a self-reinforcing pull to greater polarization and increased conflict. As previously
described, after there are regime changes (such as Biden winning the presidency), those who were united in their
desire to depose the incumbent common enemy fight each other for power after they defeat the incumbent and
come to power. So, we should expect that the Democrats and the Republicans will fight among themselves for
power as well as with those in the opposite parties. Since the extremists in each party appear to outnumber the
moderates, the dynamic I am describing pulls the parties to greater extremes because if they don’t themselves lean
in that direction they could be defeated in primary elections by greater extremists. A modern-day example of that
dynamic is the possibility that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer could be unseated by a Democrat who is
more left than he is. That would be a straw in the wind.
History has shown us that greater polarization equals either a) greater risk of political gridlock, which reduces
the chances of revolutionary changes that rectify the problems, or b) some form of civil war.
With a moderate/establishment president (Biden) and the Senate likely to be in Republican hands, it now appears
most likely that neither side will be able to dominate the other and fighting for changes will most likely continue
within the system. That is likely to force either gridlock or compromise. Greater gridlock could lead to more
unethical fighting that the other side will find intolerable and reply to in kind, while compromise would require
moderates to split from the extremists in their parties. For these reasons it would be unwise to be confident about
whether the cycle will or will not progress to Stage 6. However, because that would be a very big deal, it will
be important to watch the markers closely. In my opinion they will be best reflected in the 18 factors
previously mentioned, though they can also be reflected by other markers.
To reiterate, some of the most important markers I am looking at are: