US Society and Statehood Approaching 250th Anniversary in Deep Division, Analyst Says

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/. US society and statehood have approached their 250th anniversary in a state of deep division and disagreement on key political issues, Alexandra Voitolovskaya, a senior researcher in the US Foreign and Domestic Policy Sector at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations under the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in a column she contributed to TASS.

She said that in the United States, July 4, "the 250th anniversary" of the signing of the Declaration of Independence of 1776, is celebrated on a grand scale.

"Independence Day on July 4 in the United States marks the liberation from the authoritarian monarchical power of the British Crown and is based on the fundamental principle of the declaration: ‘All people are created equal.’ But 250 years later, despite the success in expanding civil rights, Americans paradoxically do not feel so, and the state machine operates in isolation from the needs of society," the analyst said.

Reasons for the split

According to her estimates, Americans are now "dissatisfied with both the constant desire of the 47th president [of the United States Donald Trump] to expand domestic political powers to the detriment of the legislative and judicial branches of government, and US foreign policy."

When he came to the White House, Trump promised "to end all wars," the column says. "In reality, in the two years, the Republican administration launched a war against Iran to change the regime, conducted a military operation in Venezuela, which ended with the arrest of President Nicolas Maduro, an operation in the Strait of Hormuz, and also carried out air strikes against Yemeni Houthis, targets in Somalia, Nigeria, Syria, and Iraq, while conducting naval operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean."

Voitolovskaya said that the anniversary "was not without a high-profile scandal. Jeffrey Epstein's case of sexual exploitation of minors, his connections with the global elite, and the patronage of government structures has become the subject of an acute bipartisan struggle."

"In this context, the celebrations scheduled for July 4 look like ‘a feast in time of plague." A large-scale state fair, the largest fireworks show, a sailing regatta, an air show, numerous concerts and receptions raise reasonable questions from voters about the appropriateness of their financing from the budget," the expert states.