ABD'nin 250. Yaş Gününde Derin Fay Hatları Yeniden Gündemde

On its 250th birthday, the US is still defined by its fault lines

On its 250th birthday, the US is still defined by its fault lines Expert comment jon.wallace 2 July 2026 The most urgent fault line in US politics is between those who believe in the system of government and those who do not. It is, in fact, the foundational US fault line being relitigated for modern times. For 250 years, the United States of America has been defined by its fault lines, which have bound the landmass and its people together and, at times, have driven them apart. It is a history of rupture and repair. The original fault line was between the thirteen American colonies and British imperial rule. The Declaration of Independence stated that ‘When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation’. For the American colonists, those causes emerged from British rule, which had brought a series of ‘abuses’ and ‘usurpations’ amounting to a form of ‘Tyranny’. Pursuing their unalienable rights to ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness’, required an altering of ‘their former Systems of Government’, and a setting of a new course. In the centuries that followed independence, the US wrestled with a set of homegrown fault lines. The Civil War erupted along the great dividing line between the North and South over slavery, nearly ripping the country apart in the 1860s. The most urgent fault line in US politics is between those who believe the current system of US democracy can provide rights, equity and prosperity for all, and those who do not. The American Industrial Revolution in the decades that followed created booming urban population centres, setting up an enduring tension between the US farming heartland and its cities. The social revolutions of the 1960s and 70s fractured the country along generational, gender and racial lines. Threaded throughout has been a series of disputes about economic distribution and equality, from ‘taxation without representation’ to the Great Depression, the Seattle anti-globalization protests of 1999 and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Today, as the US looks to celebrate its 250th anniversary, the most urgent fault line in US politics is between those who believe the current system of US democracy can provide rights, equity and prosperity for all, and those who do not. It is, in fact, the foundational US fault line being relitigated for modern times. A long unthinkable question is being asked by Americans: is it necessary again to dissolve the political bands which connect them? The new (old) fault line This fault line can be seen at play in the emergence of New York City mayor and self- described ‘democratic socialist’ Zohran Mamdani. It can be seen in the near daily reporting of outside political voices performing well in primaries running up to this year’s mid-term elections. Americans want new leadership. It can be seen in shifting views of wealth and anti-billionaire sentiment: Americans want affordability, and a majority now view billionaires as a threat to democracy. And it can be seen in the growing skepticism around artificial intelligence (AI), which has become the engine of US economic growth. More Americans now think AI will have a negative impact on society and are concerned about the personal dangers it poses. The fault line can also be discerned in a shift over the last decade from partisanship and polarization to radicalization: on 6 January 2021 citizens overtook the US capital to reject an election outcome they viewed as fraudulent. Politically motivated attacks have surged: In 2022 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked in his home. In 2024 and in 2026, attempts were made on the life of Donald Trump. In 2025, Melissa Hortman, a Democratic member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was assassinated with her husband. Charlie Kirk, a right-wing political activist, was also assassinated that year. Meanwhile US governmental departments have flagged the threat posed by the accelerationist movement, an ideology holding that the democratic state is so corrupt and irreparable that violent action must be taken against it to precipitate its replacement. This turn towards the use of violence is not isolated. As many a third of Americans polled agree that the US government is corrupt and it may soon be time to take up arms against it. Americans are increasingly considering bullets over ballots. A loss of faith Together, these fractures reflect a catastrophic loss of public trust in the US government from 49 per cent at the turn of this century to just 18 per cent as of 2025. Approval ratings of the executive, legislative and judicial approval ratings have also waivered. Related work Europe watches the next American revolution take shape Especially telling is that even as Americans believe their freedoms are under threat, Supreme Court favourability has reached historic lows. The Supreme Court this cycle eased some restrictions on campaign finance caps, limited the scope of the Voting Rights Act and affirmed the president’s right to remove members of independent governmental agencies. But it also allowed mail-in ballot rules to stand and upheld birthright citizenship. Americans searching for clarity from the Court will be left wanting. As political skepticism grows, the two party-system that has defined US politics for centuries is showing cracks. A record-level 45 per cent of Americans now identify as independent of a political party. This surge in independents has overlapped with a declining number of Americans strongly identifying as either Republican or Democratic. Both parties are feeling this heat. For Republicans, questions of party cohesion and direction have for the last decade been answered by US President Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement. But defections from former prominent faces of the party including Representative Marjorie Taylor Green and journalist Tucker Carlson are revealing.