With all eyes firmly fixed on Europe's secessionist movements (most notably Scotland and Catalan), the growing tensions in America took a back seat for a moment. But, as Reuters reports [6], a recent poll found one-in-four Americans want their state to secede from The US with men more secessionist than women and the Southwest most aggrieved. By the evidence of the poll data as well as these anecdotal conversations, the sense of aggrievement is comprehensive, bipartisan, somewhat incoherent, but deeply felt.
Europe's secessionist movements have garnered all the attention recently...
[7]
But in the US, 'aggrievement' is on the rise...
[8]
As Reuters adds, [6]
Secession got more support from Republicans than Democrats, more from right- than left-leaning independents, more from younger than older people, more from lower- than higher-income brackets, more from high school than college grads. But there was a surprising amount of support in every group and region, especially the Rocky Mountain states, the Southwest and the old Confederacy, but also in places like Illinois and Kansas. And of the people who said they identified with the Tea Party, supporters of secession were actually in the majority, with 53 percent.
...
By the evidence of the poll data as well as these anecdotal conversations, the sense of aggrievement is comprehensive, bipartisan, somewhat incoherent, but deeply felt.
This should be more than disconcerting; it’s a situation that could get dangerous. As the Princeton political scientist Mark Beissinger has shown, separatist movements can take hold around contempt for incumbents and the status quo even when protesters have no ideology in common.
The United States hardly seems to be on the verge of fracture, and the small secession movements in a handful of American states today represent a tiny percentage of those polled by Reuters. But any country where 60 million people declare themselves to be sincerely aggrieved — especially one that is fractious by nature — is a country inviting either the sophistry of a demagogue or a serious movement for reform.
* * *
As Martin Armstrong warns [9],
"Civil unrest is coming to America sooner than you think. This will ignite old feelings of discontent across both religion and race in America."
...
The promises that you save for the future have collapsed into dust as interest rates have been driven lower making savings utterly worthless. There is no such thing as saving and living off your fixed income. The elderly are being driven back into the work force and the whole ideas that a generation believed in are vanishing before their eyes.
So it is no longer communists and dictators that are the targets. All governments are now the targets and when the economy turns down after 2015.75, the threat of civilization will be pulled apart by the self-interest of politicians clinging to power to the detriment of the people.
* * *
This should be no surprise, as we warned over 2 years ago that rising levels of government debt are a crucial determining factor in chaos and civil unrest... [10]
JPMorgan recently noted this study: [11]
The authors tested to see if results varied with ethnic fragmentation, inflation, penetration of mass media and the quality of government institutions; they did not. Results are also consistent across time, covering interwar and postwar periods.
The independent variable that did result in more unrest: higher levels of government debt in the first place.
