A strong majority Americans believe that the United States is in the beginning of a societal collapse, according to a newly released Axios-Ipsos poll.
The survey, which sampled 1,000 U.S. adults, found that 4 in 5 Americans believe their country is on the decline. The study was released in the midst of the political fallout from the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building, which ended with the death of five people including a plain-clothes police officer.
While disheartening, it’s easy to see why many Americans would feel this way. In just the first few weeks of the new year, left-wing partisans have done everything possible to amplify existing political tensions. Even with President Trump having less than a week remaining in his term, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her acolytes felt it was deeply important to impeach the president for a second time. According to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, there’s simply no way the process will be complete before Trump is scheduled to leave office anyway. Democrats did this to smack conservative voters.
Exacerbating this is the way the mainstream media has been reporting on the events of the past week. CNN host Chris Cuomo defended the violence typically seen at Black Lives Matter demonstrations, saying protests have no obligation to be peaceful. This same host condemned what happened at the Capitol building in the harshest of terms. It’s simple: violence is only justified when one political side is doing it.
There are a lot of historical lessons we should be taking in right now — because divisions like this have resulted in terrifying conclusions since the dawn of civilization.
In many ways, the Roman Republic was the first “America.” Stretching across the Mediterranean, the state was unrivaled at the time in terms of military might, economic prowess, and even a patriotic population. Over time, the political divisions between the patricians (think of modern day establishment elites) and the plebs (everyone else) allowed depots like Julius Caesar to eradicate existing social traditions, and replace them with a powerful central authority. Overnight, a republic became an empire — and the freedoms that sustained the state in the first place would slowly erode over the centuries. The civil wars that ensued as a result quite literally tore the citizenry apart.
This should not be America’s fate, but it will be if there is no honest attempt for healing. President-Elect Joe Biden says he wants unity, but this is very hard to believe when he shares the political tent with the likes of AOC, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, and every other Democrat vowing revenge against Trump supporters.
We don’t want to believe the poll we’re seeing, but we wish it was harder to.
