Democratic Discontent, Black Swans, Constitutional Conventions, Civil/Foreign Wars

[Feuer Frei!]

Could the United States radically change via another constitutional convention, experience a new civil war, split into multiple confederacies, and/or engage in a massive foreign war in order to preserve its cohesion? According to conventional thought, such possibilities are improbable. Nevertheless, while significant attention has been focused on recent riots in other parts of the world, some pollsters are measuring high levels of discontent here in the United States that might make such improbable events seem more plausible. Recently Paul Joseph Watson reported the following:
“Americans’ lack of confidence in their leadership is so fervent that they are now ‘pre-revolutionary,’ according to pollster Pat Caddell… A new Rasmussen poll shows that just 17 per cent of Americans believe that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed, an all time low. This dovetails with a record low for Congress’ approval rating, which stands at a paltry 6 per cent, while 46 per cent of Americans think most members of Congress are corrupt, with just 29% believing otherwise.”

When considering Americans’ skepticism about the legitimacy of their government, it is appropriate to question whether a “black swan” political-event (like one of the above) is in the making. Deriving its name from the surprising discovery of the first black version of a swan in Australia (after millenniums of the Old World believing all swans to be white), a black swan event is one that most people consider highly improbable, that is often associated with and catalytic for major paradigm shifts in the course of history, and that people tend to make retrospective explanations for so as to hide (often for the sake of maintaining peace of mind) its outlier status.

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