In living rooms and at professional development workshops, on opinion pages and the halls of Congress, the people of the world’s only superpower are attacking one another. Fueled by disinformation, our representatives, party leaders, pundits, clergy, and other hyper-partisans have driven division so deeply into our collective psyche that many people — maybe most people — believe our political institutions’ actions are nearly lost.
It’s no wonder that veteran risk assessors Ian Bremmer and Cliff Kupchan rank “The United States vs. itself” as the world’s top risk in the Eurasia Group’s “2024 Risk Report.” As the 2024 presidential campaign takes shape, Donald Trump continues to attack every freedom-supporting institution in American life: elections, the press, and the courts. He has told his followers, “I am your retribution.” He continues lying about the 2020 election while insisting others also lie. His team will damage Americans’ abilities to tell truth from fiction.
If he wins, he will focus the entire American government on his opponents, real and imagined. Liz Cheney and the Republicans who once worked for him have already been targeted. If he loses, he will use any and every tool — legal or illegal — to attack everything. His followers will attempt to procedurally and violently disrupt elections in different parts of the country, refining the 2020-21 playbook.
Either way, chaos will be the means and the goal.
“The United States vs. itself” is real and present. We are the world’s least functional, most divided, and most vulnerable democracy. The road through 2024 will require all of us as citizens to adopt a new civic attitude of critical thinking, patience, presence, and courage. The future of our democratic republic requires it.
This is an edited-down version of my piece “Road through 2024 will require critical thinking, courage” in The Centre Daily Times.
Peter Walks for Democracy 