The Royal Institute of International Affairs, commonly known as Chatham House, explored the possibility of a “national divorce” in the United States because of the Republicans and Democrats. This “national divorce” will be accentuated in the elections, with the author even claiming that the country is more divided today than it was during the Civil War in the 19th century. Considering its enormous influence in Anglo geopolitical decision-making, this is a major claim for the London-based think tank.
Bruce Stokes, an Associate Fellow of Chatham House, also posits that there are “two Americas,” perhaps three, due to Israel’s enormous bipartisan control of its Congress. He also questions if the US is “headed for a national divorce” since “there is a growing divide in US society and politics” that mirrors “old Civil War battle lines.”
Stokes claims there “is talk of another civil war brewing over the country’s future,” which is making the “increasingly Balkanized US […] even more inward-looking, preoccupied with internal divisions over immigration, race, inequality, and sexual and gender identity issues.”
He argues that his “self-absorption” translates into “isolationism and protectionism,” which comes at the “expense of the security and economic alliances” of the US. The associate fellow adds that “the emergent two Americas can also be seen across a range of divisive social issues that reflect deeper divisions than those that merely manifest themselves at the ballot box.”
The Chatham House article comes as Ukraine is practically defeated, which has made Europe increasingly divided. French President Emmanuel Macron wants to intervene directly, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz does not want his country to lose a third world war. At the same time, the Biden administration was quick to distance itself from the French president’s plans to intervene directly in Ukraine.
Macron’s bravado, despite Europe’s well-known economic issues and industrial struggle, could be because he is trying to foster support three months before the European Parliament elections or because he is now truly delusional. Nonetheless, in his most recent interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented almost cavalierly that Macron’s Russophobic stance is largely due to former French colonies in Africa that he controlled rebelling against him.
Beyond warning that Russia is also ready for a nuclear war if it is in an existential struggle, Putin declared that the “ball of vampires” was approaching its end, in a clear allusion to neocolonial financial globalism, which Macron and Biden serve.
Chatham House also argued that the “Balkanisation” of “two Americas” goes beyond preferences at the ballot box and, among its variety of selective statistics, there is even a great divide on the Israel-Hamas War, with 61% of liberal Democrats believing “Israel is going too far in its military operation against Hamas,” which only 8% of conservative Republicans agree with. It turns out that there is no shortage of those who disagree with Biden’s supposed distancing from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In fact, one of the persuasive pieces of evidence is that both parties in Congress are on the verge of abolishing TikTok’s presence in the US because the Netanyahu government argues that the Chinese social media platform has exacerbated criticism of Israel’s brutal massacre of Gazans, which many American youth abhor. It appears that the US is even extremely divided on Israel, perhaps more so than at any time in history, and this will influence the upcoming presidential election.
“The outcome of the 2024 US election is unlikely to resolve these differences. In fact, it may deepen them, whoever becomes president. Just as southerners never fully accepted the outcome of the civil war, Trump supporters who believe the 2020 election was stolen are unlikely to gracefully accept a loss in 2024, presaging more resentment and possible renewed violence. And if Trump wins, Biden supporters may attribute it to Republican election subversion, further alienating Democrats from their fellow Americans,” Stokes argues.
“America’s friends and allies need to understand that the United States has become a Disunited States. There are effectively two Americas – and they are at war. They are fighting over social, political and constitutional issues, and over what role the US should play in the world. The 2024 US election is just another battle in this war,” he concludes.
Biden would probably lose to former president Trump if the 2024 general election were held tomorrow as the current president trails in every major swing state and in national polls. Whether Trump will maintain this advantage until November remains to be seen, but what is beyond doubt is that the US is even more divided today than it was during the Civil War when hundreds of thousands of Americans died, yet Biden has his country distracted on external issues, such as the Ukraine war.
