By the end of this decade the United States may have fallen into a right-wing dictatorship. That is what political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon proposes in a commentary Globe and Mail, A Canadian newspaper.

Homer-Dixon warns against the idea that Donald Trump will run for re-election in 2024. That moment could become the ‘starting point’ of the ‘collapse of democracy in the United States’. Republican states, for example, will once again refuse to accept a Democratic election victory, which could lead to serious civil unrest.

“By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be ruled by a right-wing dictatorship,” Homer-Dixon wrote. “A terrible storm is coming from the south. Canada is not completely ready. For the past year, we have been looking at the navel, distracted by challenges like corona, reconciliation and climate change.”

As a scientist, Homer-Dixon has been writing about violent conflicts for more than 40 years. For example, he examines how communities are destroyed as a result of genocide.

‘We should not rule out these possibilities,’ he says, ‘because they are so crazy or unimaginably horrible’. For example, he says the notion that “Trump will be president in 2014” would have been ridiculous to everyone. “But today we live in a world where these absurdities continue to be realized and normalized.”