Crisis trends in the development of the American socio-political system: causes and consequences

The United States of America is living through today one of the most acute socio-political crises in its history. The United States is in a state of deep social, political and economic fracture, which affects political and economic efficiency, leads to significant social dysfunctions and delegitimization of the political system. The author argues that current crisis differs from other crises that the United States had faced in its history. There is a layering of several crises that accumulated over time and eventually merged into a single stream. Describing current crisis in the USA, the author proposes to use the concept of a polycrisis - a relatively rare phenomenon in the socio-political development of any country, implying a simultaneous violation of stability, a breakdown in several key areas for the state and the society. In the American case, the polycrisis consists of four main elements that affect the political and socio-economic spheres of the society: ideological polarization of the American society, multiple splits within the Democratic and Republican political parties, declining incomes of the middle class, and the constant increase in socio-economic inequality. The author comes to the conclusion that the current polycrisis will inevitably transform both the political system and the society. The only question is what direction this transformation takes. In a favorable scenario, new egalitarian forces will prevail, smoothing out the sharp edges of increased inequality, as well as restoring the centrist orientation of American politics. In a negative scenario, the United States will slide into ever greater chaos, which is fraught with social explosions and the undermining of American democracy.

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