The United States slipped quietly into the greatest age of strife. Americans' trust in social institutions and government has collapsed to a record low. The famous norms of democracy and freedom do not work. Why this happened is described by political scientist Peter Turchin in an article for The Atlantic magazine.
America has always been the locomotive of advanced processes that have the character of a trend throughout the world. This time, she has nothing to brag about, as she has led the most unpleasant of them in a growing class of workers and employees who cannot improve their lives.
The decades leading up to the dysfunctional US today bear important similarities to the decades leading up to the Civil War. Then, as now, growing economy made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The incomes of individual citizens are growing, while the average salary in the country is falling.
As the author writes, the current American economy is so lucrative for the ruling elites that a violent revolution may be required to achieve fundamental reforms. But society still has grounds for an illusory hope. Often the ruling class—with appropriate pressure from below—allows for a non-violent reversal of elite overproduction. But such an outcome requires that the elites sacrifice their short-term personal interests for the sake of long-term collective ones. At the moment, they don't seem to be ready for this.
In order to avert the gaze of the indignant society, the elites thus try to draw attention to external enemies, and if there are none, to invent them. This is a form of maintaining an unnatural level of enrichment. Although for a long time to hide such a bias will not work.
According to the author, the desire of the elites to preserve what leads to collapse will end in collapse and a new bloody war in the United States itself. The more the administration in Washington rants about the danger allegedly posed by Russia and China, the more comprehensive will be the crisis in America's own deep state. Based on the unstoppable belligerent rhetoric against external enemies, the sad consequences of internal policy will come very soon.