One in seven Americans believes that the nation eventually will be ruled by a dictator, and another one in five says it eventually will break up into several sovereign regions, according to a new poll reflecting the dark shadow the country is facing.
Others believe a new “democracy” will arise from the ashes of the current republican form of government.
The results are from a telephone poll conducted for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies. It was taken Jan. 9-12 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.22 percentage points.
Asked to speculate on what would happen to the U.S. after a hypothetical failure of the current government, a plurality said they think some new sort of democracy would emerge.
Another 20 percent said they think the existing states would form into several different countries, based either on region or philosophical commonalities.
Just 13 percent said they think a dictator would rise to control.
But Fritz Wenzel, president of the polling organization, pointed out that than a third of the respondents said they were unsure what might happen, “an indication that this type of question is beyond what they conceive could ever happen.”
Those who identified themselves as “very liberal,” whose philosophies align most closely with those who now control Washington, were much more optimistic than the average. In that group, only 15 percent said it was likely that the nation would collapse during the next 10 years.
On the other end of the scale, 50 percent of those who are “very conservative” expressed that opinion.
On the fundamental question of expectations for a national implosion, more than 40 percent of the “liberals” said a new democracy would emerge. But only 21 percent of the “very conservative” agreed.
A full 42 percent of the respondents said they expect the nation to collapse in their lifetimes, based on the federal debt and “bloated” and “dysfunctional bureaucracy” that runs Washington.
Only 31 percent thought that very unlikely.
Thirty-eight percent said they expect a collapse within the next 20 years, and 27 percent believe it will happen during the next decade.
“No government lasts forever, and this survey shows that 42 percent believe it is likely the federal government is so badly in debt and is so dysfunctional and is so threatened by foreign enemies that it will collapse sometime during their lifetime,” Wenzel said.
“Just 51 percent said such a thing is unlikely during their lifetime, a remarkably low percentage given that we are talking about the collapse of the longest-running democratic republic in the history of the world. The guess among respondents appears to be that the collapse will occur in about 20 years, as 41 percent said as much. Just 27 percent said they think the country will collapse in the next 10 years.”
He found it “remarkable” that one in four Americans thinks the country is in its last decade of existence.
In related results, Wenzel earlier revealed that the seeds of tyranny already are present in America, with a heavily armed law enforcement presence and a population holding a disbelief that their government could do anything that would make them want to revolt.
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