From Consensus to Conflict: America’s Dangerous Political Spiral

The assassination of Charlie Kirk reopens a darkish chapter in American political life: the normalization of violence as a political software. What is hanging shouldn’t be solely the tragedy itself, however the parabola that has led the United States from being a society of “non-politics” to at least one marked by polarization and hatred.

In the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, Republicans and Democrats had been usually accused of being virtually the identical celebration. Both competed for the centrist voter, and their positions overlapped on many essential points. Figures corresponding to George H. W. Bush, Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole and even Bill Clinton might have been imagined on the alternative ticket with out shaking the system. The recreation was about moderation, about attracting the suburban center class, not about radical visions.

It is price remembering that in those self same years Europe was dwelling by extra intense ideological ferment. The political spectrum right here nonetheless included sturdy communist or socialist events, whereas within the U.S. such choices had been primarily absent. American politics, for many years, appeared to be the land of compromise — generally even to the purpose of boredom.

Today, the panorama couldn’t be extra totally different. Political debate has radicalized, and confrontation has changed into hostility. The assault on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, confirmed pictures extra typical of nations the place democracy is fragile or contested.  In June 2025, a Democratic congresswoman was shot and killed in Minneapolis collectively along with her husband, whereas one other lawmaker was severely injured in the identical assault. The present president Donald Trump survived an assassination try through the marketing campaign, and now Kirk’s killing provides a brand new chapter to this spiral of violence.

This transformation shouldn’t be solely an American drawback. The United States stays a central actor within the international order, and its inner divisions reverberate worldwide. The lack of ability to maintain rivalry inside the bounds of peaceable competitors undermines the credibility of democracy itself and provides a harmful instance to different nations the place establishments are weaker.

How can the U.S. emerge from this local weather of hatred and violence? The reply can’t lie in repression alone, nor within the phantasm of returning to the consensus politics of the previous. It requires rebuilding belief in establishments, restoring the worth of compromise, and recognizing the legitimacy of political opponents. Without this cultural shift, each election dangers turning into not only a contest of concepts, however a battle for survival — with penalties that reach far past America’s borders.

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Marco Bastiani is the founding father of Florence Daily News, launched in 2011. He has labored as a journalist since 1998, and was a political editor at Il Giornale della Toscana. He later held senior roles in communications for private and non-private establishments. He lives in Florence, loves the ocean and Greece, and has two kids.

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