The rise of China as a world power and powerhouse of innovation despite an authoritarian political system presents a cognitive challenge to the liberal world order helmed by the US. However, the Western model appears to be creaking under the weight of its own imperfections even without the successful counterpoint posed by China.
The US adopted an accentuated market-led growth pattern with the Ronald Reagan era of the 1980s. This led to a hollowing out of its middle-class. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, from 1980 to 2007, the year before the housing crisis, incomes of the middle 60% of the US population increased by 47% while those of the top 1% quadrupled and next 19% increased by 75%. This led to a steep drop in the share of income enjoyed by America’s 20th to 80th percentile.
The middle-class is often the glue that holds a society together. When it has access to the basic needs of life—education, health and housing—it acts as a buffer between the rich and the poor, promotes social harmony, and generally serves as a force to protect humanitarian mores. However, today those in the middle of the income spectrum find it hard to pay for education, healthcare and housing. While the incomes of US working-class households have been stagnant since the 1980s, medical costs have gone up by more than 2.5 times, and college educational expenses have increased almost six times. Employment opportunities are shrinking and volatile in a world of rapid automation.
Over the past decade or so, social media has created upward visibility, whereby the masses are privy to lifestyles of the rich and famous, without upward mobility (i.e. any possibility of attaining those lifestyles). It has also created echo chambers of opinion that sharpen social divides. Thus, the middle classes no longer sit on a perch far above material concerns—in the world but not of it. They are no longer able to fulfil their vital role in nourishing their communities.
The 2008 presidential election had given the US its first African-American president. While Barack Obama emerged as a symbol of hope that America could finally move beyond its deep racial divides, the reality was that for many, his election represented an unacceptable secession of power to African-Americans. His election became a lightning rod channelling an old animosity into new hatred. A fault-line has also emerged from the slow but inexorable demographic shift of the US towards a non-Caucasian majority since 1950. In 2020, non-Hispanic Caucasians still formed the majority in the US, representing 59.7% of its population. Studies show that by 2045, this number will drop below 50%, making Caucasians a minority.
Further, immigration has emerged as a major concern. American workers at the bottom of the US pyramid have been losing out to immigrants from Asia and Latin America, who took over some of the country’s low-skilled jobs. This effect was especially pronounced in certain regions such as Florida, and evoked a heightened emotional reaction due to the phenomenon of illegal immigration.
Multiple transitions—economic, technological, political and demographic—make rich fodder for polarization. Donald Trump rode to power in 2016 on the basis of these deep cultural divides. By the end of his tenure, the polarities that his brand of politics had exploited, and done so much to deepen, had worsened. The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at University of Southern California has developed a polarization index based on data analysis of social media posts across a wide variety of contentious issues. Its analysis starting late 2020 shows that major disputes over voting integrity drove high levels of polarization in the final months of Trump’s tenure, a period marked by unprecedented civil unrest. However, polarization levels two years into the presidency of Joe Biden remain at roughly the same level as they were on account of widened schisms related to immigration, policing policy, racial equity and covid vaccines.
Such high levels of polarization do not make for a well-functioning democracy. The transfer of power after the 2020 US election was a highly contentious process in which many felt the fate of US democracy hung by a fine thread. The US Supreme Court’s decision not to hear cases involving election challenges filed by Trump and his allies in five states finally sealed the result. It is clear that the transition to a new government in 2024 could be equally fractious. The Department of Justice has filed a case against Trump in which it accuses the former US president of a conspiracy to defraud the country based on his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. There are legal cases in at least 17 states attempting to debar Trump from the ballot. Whatever be the result of these judicial proceedings, it is certain that political polarization in the US will only increase. Many Republicans who opposed Trump’s shenanigans after the 2020 poll have indicated they would switch over to his side based on their opposition to attempts to prevent him from running for office.
The US is a beacon of democracy for all around the world. Its political crisis does not augur well for democracies anywhere. In 2024, whatever result the US presidential election throws up, an orderly transition to the next government is of utmost importance for the liberal world order.
