America is in danger of bloody conflicts over the election

As many as 61% of the U.S. population believe the country is on the verge of bloodshed over divisions ahead of the 3 November vote, opinion polls indicate.

The rejection of science

The United States has been a divided society from its very inception – conflicts have arisen between the ‘patriots’ (outlaws from the Crown) and ‘loyalists’ (those who fought for the British Crown); the North and the South; the slave owners and the abolitionists; the Republicans and the Democrats; the conservatives and the liberals, etc. However, in the past two decades, these divisions have become deeper and wider. Ideologies have taken over almost every aspect of life, so not only does a portion of the conservatives dispute the fight against racism and discrimination, but also rejects medical science (they are against vaccination), and even the most fundamental scientific postulates (they believe the Earth is flat and that there is no climate change); at the same time, a portion of the liberals are becoming more aggressive in their attempts to change the conservatives’ views.

Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election has resulted in the regrouping of the U.S. racists and conservatives, who were afraid of the first African American taking the helm of the U.S. Many extremists, armed to the teeth more often than not, have started to set up militias such as The Oath Keepers or The Three Percenters, meet in secret, and rattle their weapons, claiming that they want to protect America. The unexpected triumph of Donald Trump in 2016 encouraged them, so they have gone out into the streets, organizing patrols and issuing threats. This has become more evident since the mass protests against racism started as a result of the brutal murder of George Floyd in May.

Delighted by Trump’s claims such as that he would ‘make America great again’ (as if the United States had at any point lost territories or power), or that illegal immigrants from Mexico are rapists and murderers, or that he would stop the influx of Muslims to the U.S., members of all these right-wing militias have come out from the underground and started to get ready for a showdown in the event of Trump’s defeat, i.e. the alleged election theft.

A cause for concern

The sharp divisions have resulted in 61 percent of Americans believing the country is on the verge of a new civil war, the survey by Engagious, the SLRG, and ROKK Solutions, published yesterday, has revealed. As many as 40 percent strongly believe that there will be a war, while 21 percent think that a bloody conflict in the U.S: is likely.

‘This is the single most frightening poll result that I’ve ever been associated with. The tensions are bubbling below the surface or just above for some time, and the divisions are being ruptured further by the coronavirus pandemic. So, what’s the consequence of that? How bad does this get? I have never seen anything like it. I studied history, and I’m trying to imagine how 50 years from now someone would explain what’s happening. It just seems like the country’s lost its mind,’ Rich Thau, President of Engagious, said in a statement.

‘This latest finding, while not anticipated, is yet another example of an extremely bifurcated population. Throughout the past seven months, our research has seen strong fragmentation in the public’s level of concerns ranging from public health to the economy to issues of social and political unrest,’ said Jon Last, President of the SLRG.

Alex Theodoridis, an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, studies social divisions.

‘A close, contested election in our hyper-polarized political climate could very well produce isolated incidents of partisan violence. My research, and work by others, shows that most partisans are willing to metaphorically dehumanize those from the other party and that this dehumanization predicts greater tolerance for partisan violence,’ he said for U.S.A Today.

Kurir.rs, Andrija Ivanović/ Photo: Profimedia