The United States is not experiencing a sudden crisis, nor is it on the verge of an immediate systemic collapse. What it is experiencing instead is more subtle and more dangerous: the normalization of instability as a political condition.

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” — Will Durant, The Story of Civilization.

Events that would once have been treated as exceptional are now absorbed into the daily rhythm of governance, media, and public discourse. Each incident is debated, defended, or condemned, and then replaced by the next, leaving no durable resolution.

This pattern has produced a country that appears operational but increasingly lacks internal coherence. Institutions continue to function procedurally, yet their authority is widely contested. Political conflict no longer moves toward settlement; it perpetuates itself. In this environment, extremism does not merely arise at the margins. It becomes embedded in the system itself, feeding on institutional weakness and public exhaustion alike. In America, the far left is more entrenched, the far right as well, and moderates become stoic, helpless, a kind of non-entity.

Polarization Without Mediation

Polarization has always been part of American political life, but it was historically moderated by institutions capable of absorbing conflict and translating it into policy outcomes. Today, those mediating structures have eroded. Congress is paralyzed by performative obstruction. Courts are increasingly perceived through partisan filters. Trust in electoral processes and shared informational standards has declined to levels unseen in the modern era. As a result, disagreement no longer functions as competition within a shared framework; it becomes a contest over the framework’s legitimacy itself.

This matters because polarization is not inherently destabilizing. What destabilizes democracies is polarization without mediation. This is what’s........

© New Eastern Outlook