Giving Compass' Take:

· Flora Bagenal at News Deeply analyzes the results from the 2018 Fragile State Index that claims the U.S. is the forth most-worsened country compared to 2017. Bagenal explains that Trump’s presidency reflects the political instability of the U.S. and the current deadlock that is likely to affect the upcoming midterm elections.

· Is the Trump administration promoting political extremism? How will the results of the midterm elections reshape the political landscape in America? 

· Learn how the ‘Trump effect' is hurting the school choice movement. 

The United States may be one of the most economically secure countries in the world, but in this year’s Fragile States Index (FSI), it is the fourth most-worsened country compared to 2017. The results are a reflection of trends on the ground, including a rise in political extremism as well as gridlocking among national leaders, increased social unrest, police violence and an increased risk of terrorism.

To calculate a country’s overall fragility, the FSI, created by the Fund for Peace, gives each state a score on 10 for 12 social, economic, cohesion and political indicators. Over the past 10 years, no country’s average scores for cohesion indicators (factionalized elites; security apparatus; and group grievance) have performed as badly as the United States. That puts the U.S. ahead of several war-torn countries including Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Since 2008, the U.S. Group Grievance score increased from 3.2 to 6.1, and its Factionalized Elites score rose from 2.0 to 5.8.

While America has been becoming increasingly more fragile over the past 10 years, according to the FSI, the pace has quickened since President Donald Trump took office. During former President Barack Obama’s last year in the White House it was the 13th-worsened country, according to the index. The U.S. fluctuated between the 158th and 159th spot in the global ranking through both of Obama’s terms, but ranked 154th this year.

Read the full article about the Trump effect by Flora Bagenal at News Deeply.