the end of the day, power rules and tests of power are the ways one learns who rules. Sometimes that happens within a framework of rules that are respected. In those cases, fights for power occur in a mutually agreed-upon and productive way that supports the internal order. But they can also happen in unproductive, no-holds-barred ways that can lead to the violent disruption of both the leadership and the internal order. While I think that the odds of the US devolving into a Stage 6 (civil-war-type) dynamic within the next 10 years are only around 30 percent, that is a dangerously high risk
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