My Take | America – a deeply flawed democracy lost at sea
- Neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic, and racially divided, the United States may be staring at a second civil war
Americans usually speak of their civil war with reverence. But many now fear they may experience a second one in their lifetime. In 2018, a poll found that nearly a third of Americans thought a second civil war could happen within five years. Their prediction may not be far off.
Think of what that means. In effect, one of the two dominant political parties in the United States is saying the last presidential election was stolen and that the current “president” is illegitimate. Even more ominously, 124 retired generals and admirals have signed an open letter challenging the legitimacy of the Biden presidency and warning that the US is in “deep peril” from a “full-blown assault on our constitutional rights”.
Calling itself “Flag Officers 4 America”, the open letter not only casts doubt on the result of the 2020 election, but Biden’s “mental and physical condition” as well as his signature policies, which are being likened to those of socialism.
A coming conflict, it warns, will be “like no other time since our founding in 1776” between “socialism and Marxism” and “constitutional freedom and liberty”.
Those who signed the letter included retired Army Brigadier General Donald Bolduc who is currently running for a US Senate seat for New Hampshire, former Army Lieutenant General William Boykin, who was deputy undersecretary of defence under president George W. Bush, and retired Vice Admiral John Poindexter, who was Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser during the Iran-Contra scandal.