In our in-class debate, there were two very different sides on Team 1 and 2. Team 1 was more concerned about the external threats of emerging economies, while Team 2 was worried about the increasing fractionalization of the US government.
Though I may be a bit biased, I fully agree with Team 1. The US government has withstood worse domestic struggles and political strife and made it out just fine. Domestic politics rarely have strong bearing on the international level unless serious violations are occurring, and while the US political situation is far from ideal at the moment, it will certainly not plunge the US into the Dark Ages if things do not go as expected. We have a sophisticated (if somewhat broken...) political system to account for these types of things, and the reality is that almost all nations have internal political strife.
I agree with my teammates that the fact that we can have this type of discourse is a sign of a functional democracy. We have the resources to deal with a less-than-ideal political climate, however, "the rise of the rest" is something new in our history that we haven't prepared for. Underscoring this threat would be a mistake.
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