The United States is coming to an end. The question is how. Every government, every business, every person alive will be affected by the answer.

The unimaginable has become everyday in America. Buffoonish mobs desecrating the US Capitol building, tear gas and tanks on the streets of Washington, DC, running battles between protestors and militias, armed rebels attempting to kidnap sitting governors, uncertainty about the peaceful transition of power—reading about them in another country, you would think a civil war had already begun.

The United States is descending into the kind of sectarian conflict usually found in poor countries with histories of violence, not the world’s most enduring democracy and largest economy. The fall has been sudden.

A decade ago, American stability and global supremacy were a given. The memory of September 11 led to regular mass demonstrations of national unity. The United States was synonymous with the glory of democracy. No longer. Solidarity has dissolved. The American system has become a case study of paralysis. Political violence is on the rise.