The United States may move from non dominated system to civil war

The United States fell below the "democratic threshold"
For a long time, the United States has been proud that it is the longest lasting "democracy" country in the world. Of course, there has always been a debate: since there was a lack of universal suffrage in the past in the United States (slavery, Jim Crow law, systematic exclusion of minorities from voting, etc.), can the history of the United States until recently be regarded as the history of a "democratic country" in the contemporary sense of the word "democracy"?

Even if we ignore all this, a global data series called "regime" has deprived the United States of its long-standing title of "democracy". This data series funded by the CIA is often cited. It measures other countries in a quantitative way from "complete dictatorship" to "complete democracy".

The "regime" data series is one of the three data series widely used in the field of American political science and poll research. It is maintained by the political instability working group established and funded by the CIA.

A recent analysis of the "regime" data series by the center for system peace in the United States shows that the United States is now a country with no dominant system, sometimes referred to as a "non liberal democratic country" or a "mixed regime country" (partly "democratic" and partly "authoritarian"). Quantitatively speaking, a non dominated country is in the middle of a digital ruler, one end of which is "complete dictatorship" and the other end is "complete democracy".

According to the research results of the center: "on the scale of 'regime', the United States dropped below the 'democratic threshold' (+ 6 points) in 2020 and is considered to be a non dominated system country. It also lost the title of the world's oldest continuous' democratic 'country... Further degradation of the authority of' Democracy 'in the United States will lead to' adverse regime change '."

Two factors to build a model of political unrest

On this scale of 21 points, complete authoritarian countries score - 10 and complete "democratic" countries score + 10. Interestingly, this data series shows that "fully authoritarian countries" and "fully democratic countries" are more stable than non dominated countries in the middle. In the long run, building "non liberal democracies" or "mixed regime countries" does not seem to be a good idea unless they evolve into more purely "democratic" or "authoritarian" regimes.

The "regime" data series could have predicted an attempted riot or attempted coup at the US Capitol in early 2021. The Republican Party of the United States has shown that its ultimate goal is to achieve permanent one party rule. The Republican Party has long cherished such an attempt, but now its ambition is more obvious than ever. Meanwhile, for some radical Republicans and far right organizations, the civil war has begun.

Barbara Walter, a political scientist and former member of the working group on political instability, said that the working group has conducted model research on many social, political, economic and religious indicators, but two indicators are particularly prominent.

She said: "The working group built a model of political unrest. We included many variables that we considered important, such as poverty, income inequality and ethnic diversity. It was found that only two factors were important: the first and most important factor was whether a country was a country with no supporting system. The second factor was whether their population began to split into multiple ethnic groups and religions Religious or ethnic groups, whether these groups seek power to exclude other groups. Obviously, these two factors have appeared in the United States. "
Nearly half of the people believe that civil war will break out

Although many Americans did not use the quantitative methods of Walter and the working group, they came to the same or similar conclusions. A survey conducted by the University of Maryland published by the Washington Post last week found that a third of Americans believe that violence against the government may be justified.
Last December, the Political Research Institute of the Kennedy School of government at Harvard University released the 42nd Harvard youth poll, which found that more than half of young Americans aged 18 to 29 believed that American democracy was threatened. More than a third believe that in their lifetime, there will be a second civil war in the United States.