The U.S. may be on the verge of collapse due to right-wing threats on democracy, according to a recent New York Times piece that called to intensify “war games” for scenarios concerning the 2024 presidential elections such as “insurrection, secession, insurgency and civil war” in order to avert “political decay” of the country.
A Thursday New York Times essay, titled “We Need to Think the Unthinkable About Our Country,” begins by deeming the U.S. perhaps “even more alarmingly fractious and divided” one year after the January 6 Capitol riot.
“Regrettably, the right has sustained its support for [former President] Donald Trump and continued its assault on American democratic norms,” it continues.
The essay was penned by Jonathan Stevenson, a former National Security Council staffer in the Obama administration, and Steven Simon, a former staffer in the State Department and on the National Security Council in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations.
Speculating that the next presidential election “will almost inevitably be viciously (perhaps violently) contested,” the authors warn of a “politically existential” threat to the country due to right-wing preparations for a potential 2024 “power grab.”
Hellbound and Down 