US Analysis: The (Dis-)United States of America

The USA is deeply divided.

Even as it was learning about the recent Supreme Court decisions on abortion, gun rights, and environmental protection, citizens were also watching the ‘January 6th’ hearings explore more of how Trump had urged an inflamed crowd – which, allegedly, he knew to be armed – to march down to the Capitol to ‘stop the steal’; but also to ‘fight like hell’ for what they wanted. And, allegedly, he would have accompanied them, if his security agents had not prevented him.

Then, on 4 July, a gunman carried out another mass shooting, in which six died and many more were wounded. In a nation where the Small Arms Survey estimated that there are 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, it almost looks as if the USA is equipping itself (both ideologically and in terms of armaments) for a new civil war.