Ray Dalio warns of high risk of civil war in America within the next decade due to an elevated level of polarisation in the country.
The billionaire hedge fund manager who specializes in global macro strategy investing revealed his eye-raising comment in his new book, entitled, “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail.”
Ray Dalio’s latest book was described by book critics as a provocative read, particularly for those questioning where the arc of history for the American Empire resides.
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater also gives his view of where the economy will be heading next.
“Ray Dalio warns of high risk of civil war in America within the next decade due to an elevated level of polarisation in the country”
RAY DALIO
Ray Dalio warns high risk of civil war thesis is jam-packed with charts, showing long-run changes in major countries, often reaching back centuries
He defines the six stages of an internal order/disorder cycle and he estimates that there’s a 30% chance of civil war.
Ray Dalio notes that doubting the validity of an election could be a flashpoint.
He writes that when close elections are adjudicated and the losers respect the decisions, it is clear that the order is respected. But Ray Dalio adds that when power is fought over and grabbed, that signals the significant risk of a revolutionary change with all its attendant disorder,” he writes, adding that “a vast number of people – including high-ranking officials, have openly doubted the validity of recent elections, and have expressed a willingness to fight for their beliefs.”
So there is a belief or perception, which may or may not be true, throughout the cross-section of society and social hierarchy that the US elections were not valid.
Moreover, most Republicans, 70 percent to 80 percent don’t agree that Joe Biden won fair and square, and think that enough fraud occurred to tip the outcome, according to the New York Times.
“a vast number of people – including high-ranking officials, have openly doubted the validity of recent elections, and have expressed a willingness to fight for their beliefs”
RAY DALIO
The majority of one party doubting the legitimacy of the elections is alarmingly high. Some observers argue that this is nothing to worry about and play it down as partisan cheerleading or wishful thinking.
But it is the perception, what the electorate thinks and believes, that counts, and too many Republicans and high-ranking officials have publicly doubted the legitimacy of the 2020 US presidential elections to brush it off as insignificant.
So if we take that one side party view further, that the elections were illegitimate then you arrive at a dangerous polarisation.
Putting it in less delicate words, a significant percentage of the US electorate could be harboring the view that there was a Machiavellian unarmed insurrection on what they believed was the legitimate government.
“use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency”
– The Conversation
Here comes Ray Dalio warns high risk of civil war flashpoint
“21 million Americans say Biden is ‘illegitimate’ and Trump should be restored by violence, survey finds,” according to The Conversation.
“The threat from far-right insurrectionists is not over. For months, my colleagues and I at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats have been tracking insurrectionist sentiments in US adults, most recently in surveys in June. We have found that 47 million American adults – nearly 1 in 5 – agree with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” Of those, 21 million also agree that “use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency,” wrote The Conversation, dated 23 September 2021.
But the US is no banana republic, it controls 750 military bases in at least 80 countries with 119 bases in Germany and all over Europe. It is an Empire with a military that nobody wants to take on, it effectively occupies most of Europe and controls the largest stockpile, 5,750 active and inactive nuclear warheads capable of destroying the world many times over.
So what happens when the world’s Sheriff is fighting demons from within?
“Years of dumbing down the population have resulted in a population ill-equipped to keep governments in check” – The Wealth Training Company
Let’s take a few steps back to get the optics on how Ray Dalio warns high risk of civil war thesis could impact geopolitics
If adversaries view the US chasing its tail from within, if they see a divided and crumbling hegemonic power that is too weak to govern globally then you have a global power vacuum. When there is no tomcat on the block the mouse will play. A weakened hegemonic superpower could lead to geopolitical instability. We could see geopolitical miscalculations play out concerning China and Taiwan, Iran and Israel, Russia and Ukraine, and North Korea.
Any of these hot spots could flare up and that could lead to proxy wars, a war fought between groups of smaller countries that each represent the interests of other larger powers, and may have help and support from these. Another least likely scenario, because it is too dangerous, is where heavyweight powers fight each other.
But back to domestic matters, Ray Dalio warns high risk of civil war as he points to various studies showing that Americans are currently in an emotionally charged divide between political parties.
In one recent survey noted by Dalio, 15% of Republicans and 20% of Democrats thought the country would be better if the opposing political party “just died.”
Others believe that Ray Dalio warns high risk of civil war thesis is unlikely to play out
So they argue that the Republic is already dead along with other western-style democracies.
Years of dumbing down the population have resulted in a population ill-equipped to keep governments in check. Instead, the upper echelon, the wealthiest companies, have captured both the market and the state in a privately funded dictatorship.
This school of thought believes democratic, free-market capitalism was replaced by corporate statism and that the public is being kept too docile to figure it out.
Time will tell.
