How US radicalising and why that's dangerous for Ukraine
The American political system is increasingly losing its foundation of compromise. What once was a balance between two parties has now turned into two isolated realities.
The political center is disappearing: twenty years ago, both Democrats and Republicans had moderate wings; today, only the radical ones remain.
Social media, algorithms and cable news have created parallel information worlds with almost no shared facts.
Read more about America’s radicalisation in the article by Svitlana Kovalchuk, political scientist and Executive Director of YES: The disunited states of Trump: how Ukraine’s key ally is sinking into domestic crisis.
The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement of Donald Trump has completely reshaped the Republican Party. What used to be classical conservatism, based on market values and moral principles, has turned into an anti-system movement fueled by resentment – a mix of humiliation, fear and a thirst for revenge.
Traditional Republican values (markets, institutions, freedoms) have been replaced with emotional nationalism.
This is no longer an ideology but an identity: "us versus them."
It resembles court politics, power centered around a monarch. Trump erased the boundary between the party and his personal authority. MAGA turned politics into a battle for loyalty rather than for ideas.
At the same time, within the Democratic Party, there has been a growing desire to "return to the people" to move away from elitism and reconnect with the working class.
The Democrats, however, responded in the same way as their opponents: instead of discussion – moral uniformity; instead of compromise – the demand for the "right" position.
Thus, a mirror radicalisation is forming: both the left and the right no longer argue over solutions, only over righteousness.
The most dangerous consequence of this radicalisation is the erosion of trust in institutions.
As a result, democracy in the US relies less on procedures and more on emotions. This breeds symmetrical populism, where each camp sees itself as the sole bearer of truth.
Political camps in America have always alternated in dominance, but for the first time in two centuries, both have abandoned the political center simultaneously.
A new phenomenon has emerged in the US political system: a monarchy without a throne, power without a formal title, yet demanding absolute loyalty. Parties are no longer spaces of ideas but machines of allegiance.
Yet, this radicalisation began before Trump’s rise and will not end with him. It is the product of decades of social fragmentation, the breakdown of a shared language and the loss of trust.
For Ukraine, America is not merely a partner but a strategic pillar of the civilised world. Its internal stability determines not only the scale of aid but also the logic of global solidarity itself.
The Ukrainian issue, once a bipartisan consensus, now risks becoming a hostage to America’s internal divisions.
But there is also a paradoxical opportunity. Ukraine today embodies what America lacks – unity, shared purpose, and faith in institutions, even amid war.
We have become a laboratory of democracy under pressure, while the US is experiencing a crisis of democracy without an external enemy.
For Kyiv, this means a new role, not merely that of a recipient of aid, but a moral reminder to the West that democracy lives only when societies are willing to sacrifice for the common good.
Ukraine remains a test for the West: can it preserve itself by standing with those who fight for shared values even as its own values begin to erode?