The US has become too unstable a beacon of democracy

livemint.com:

The rise of China as a world power and powerhouse of innovation despite an authoritarian political system presents a cognitive challenge to the liberal world order helmed by the US. However, the Western model appears to be creaking under the weight of its own imperfections even without the successful counterpoint posed by China. The US adopted an accentuated market-led growth pattern with the Ronald Reagan era of the 1980s.

This led to a hollowing out of its middle-class. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, from 1980 to 2007, the year before the housing crisis, incomes of the middle 60% of the US population increased by 47% while those of the top 1% quadrupled and next 19% increased by 75%. This led to a steep drop in the share of income enjoyed by America’s 20th to 80th percentile.

The middle-class is often the glue that holds a society together. When it has access to the basic needs of life—education, health and housing—it acts as a buffer between the rich and the poor, promotes social harmony, and generally serves as a force to protect humanitarian mores. However, today those in the middle of the income spectrum find it hard to pay for education, healthcare and housing.

While the incomes of US working-class households have been stagnant since the 1980s, medical costs have gone up by more than 2.5 times, and college educational expenses have increased almost six times. Employment opportunities are shrinking and volatile in a world of rapid automation. Over the past decade or so, social media has created upward visibility, whereby the masses are privy to lifestyles of the rich and famous, without upward mobility (i.e.