“The United States is in crisis.”
That’s the conclusion of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
The country “faces a multitude of concurrent, overlapping risks,” all of which are “exacerbated by increasing polarization,” the non-profit crisis-mapping group states in its September report.
Political polarization makes the country’s problems worse, for it fuels false narratives, pushing away possible solutions in favor of conflict, the report says.
ACLED, led by political geographer Clionadh Raleigh, compiled “Demonstrations and Political Violence in America: New Data for Summer 2020” as part of its U.S. Crisis Monitor project, a joint venture with the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University. The project’s stated goal is to provide “an evidence base from which to identify risks, hotspots and available resources to empower local communities in times of crisis.”
The project’s September data report concludes that the vast majority (93%) of the thousands of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests sparked by George Floyd’s death on May 25 have been peaceful, yet nearly half of Americans appear to believe the protests are driven by violence. One recent poll cited in the report found that 42% of respondents are convinced that protesters “are trying to incite violence or destroy property.'”
This disconnect chiefly is a result of disinformation and political polarization, according to ACLED. The new study points to reporting that has “documented organized disinformation campaigns aimed at spreading a ‘deliberate mischaracterization of groups or movements [involved in the protests].'”
ACLED, which identified more than 7,000 protests from May 26 through Aug. 22, also found that the law-enforcement response helped change the nature of some of the protests and further inflamed divisive narratives. This was especially the case when federal forces were involved.
The foremost example of this was in Portland, the report indicates.
“Prior to the deployment of PACT [the federal Protecting American Communities Task Force] at the start of July,” the report writes, “approximately 8% of demonstrations in Oregon were met with government intervention, and authorities infrequently used force against demonstrators. Since July, however, nearly 28% of demonstrations have been met with intervention and force by government personnel. In Portland specifically, under 24% of demonstrations were met with state force before July. Since July, this figure has risen to 40% of all demonstrations.”
The report, whose data is updated weekly, also addresses the risks posed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and armed “non-state actors.”
Its data indicates, ACLED warns, that the U.S. will likely face increasing violence in the run-up to the national elections.
“Without significant mitigation efforts,” the report states, “these risks will continue to intensify in the lead-up to the vote, threatening to boil over in November if election results are delayed, inconclusive or rejected as fraudulent.”
