A right-wing dictatorship in the US by 2030: a Canadian study

In the canadian newspaper the globe and

Mail Thomas Homer-Dixon, who is a professor at Royal Roads University, wrote a long article to say that American democracy could collapse by 2025 and that, in another five years, the country could transform itself in a far-right dictatorship. Canada, he warns, should prepare itself.

“By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing severe political instability within it, with widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be ruled by a right-wing dictatorship. We shouldn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ridiculous or too horrible to imagine. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible cliché,” said Homer-Dixon, who calls himself a’ conflict ‘scholar. These are significant phrases, first of all for the authority of those who developed them and the newspaper that disseminated them. But also because, for Canada, the United States is both the main trading partner and the guarantors of its security. That Ottawa has to worry about a threat coming from their only neighbor - not just any neighbor, by the way: the first political, economic and military superpower - is in short a relevant fact.

Homer-Dixon - executive director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University - is a scholar of conflicts: wars, social conflicts, revolutions, ethnic violence, genocide. And he thinks that the political and social context in the United States is fraught with ‘warning signs’. He refers to the growing polarization which, especially in the years of Donald Trump’s presidency - although this is a pre-existing problem - is increasing the perceived distance between those parts of the population who have different ideas. And which, as a result, is making communication, understanding the point of view and mutual acceptance increasingly difficult. This radicalization of society was reflected in the two main parties, the Democratic and the Republican, going to “jam” that political system based on the compromise that made American primacy possible.

Fears of a growing ‘dysfunctionality’ of US democracy grew stronger after the assault on Congress on January 6, 2021, organized by supporters of outgoing President Trump to contest the outcome of the elections, won by Joe Biden. Democracy is founded on the peaceful transfer of power, an assumption that was questioned on that occasion. And not only by a group of extremists but - more importantly - even by the then head of state, who helped spread the idea that the vote had been manipulated and that he was the real winner.