ONE OF the unspoken issues between former United States president Donald Trump and his populists and Vice President Kamala Harris and the Establishment is the fate of the American Empire.
It is unspoken because, formally, there’s no such thing as an American Empire, but if you were to ask Iran, China and Russia they will argue that it very much does exist, and that it is an oppressive evil regime. Many American allies might even say the same.
But America’s empire is an informal one, and like many informal arrangements, it is called by other names. Some of these names include, for example, the “rules-based international order”, the “Free World” or the “liberal femocratic order”, but however it is called, the US government uses it to exert its interests.
The interests of this empire, which is more abstract and international, often clashes with America the nation, which sees itself not as an abstract set of ideas or an economic zone but a specific people with a specific identity.
At the core of all the political division and violence in America, this, I think, is the heart of the issue. America the informal empire is at war with America the nation-state, and it is a conflict that will likely lead to unpredictable outcomes.
Americans sense this on a certain level, which explains many of the heightened tension in recent months. In that sense, the election has been elevated beyond the level of just picking a politician.
As in many cases of political violence, it has turned into an existential struggle, and many Americans think so.
And if the people behind America’s informal empire feel that they have no more options, they might turn to more dangerous methods to strangle Trump and their enemies from gaining power, which is where a civil war scenario comes into place./PN
