Reference News Network reported on July 4 that the British "Times" website published on July 2, "Why is the United States so chaotic? ” article by Adam Smith, professor of American politics and political history at Oxford University, the full excerpt is as follows:
America has never been more divided and restless. In the age of Twitter, Trump, and “cancel culture,” all the evidence points to America may be heading for irreparable disintegration.
The geographic "sorting" of Americans -- Democrats based in cities and coastal states, Republicans in rural areas -- means it's entirely possible that Biden voters never met in the last presidential election Anyone who supports Trump and vice versa. Information sources are no longer shared. The Internet has created silos of information, and partisan followers in those silos hold different facts. Both sides believe that if the other wins, everything they hold dear will be destroyed. Some political scientists have dubbed this phenomenon a "cold civil war": two camps representing different worldviews, mired in deep distrust, locked in a deadlock.
Perhaps the harsh truth is that America has always been a divided nation under the same banner. Although Americans all adored their revolution, they never agreed on what revolution meant.
Climate activists demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 30. (Reuters)
These battles are made worse because the rules of the game — the process by which elections are decided — have never been determined. To this day, the United States does not have a constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. Nor is there any nonpartisan agency established at the state or federal level to divide districts or decide how votes are counted.
Your right to unionize, how easy it is to vote, and your access to health care depends on which state you live in. As of last month, so does your right to an abortion.
The United States has been dividing for 20 or 30 years, but now it is accelerating. So how serious is the current crisis?
The most worrying scenario is the collapse of confidence in the legitimacy of the government. The Senate, Supreme Court, and Presidential Electoral College are anti-majority by design. These systems enable an organized minority to impose their will on others. A NPR poll released this week found that 58 percent of Americans have no confidence in the Supreme Court, while a University of Chicago poll found that more than a quarter of American voters believe there may be soon It is necessary to "take up arms against the government". If the government is no longer recognized by the governed, its prospects are bleak.
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