As our republic marks its semiquincentennial, 2 in 5 people doubt it will endure as a single nation for another quarter millennium. The real threat is internal: can shared civic purpose, restraint on faction, and strategic clarity be recovered before the trajectory hardens?Recent polls also show that two-thirds of Democrats view socialism more favorably than capitalism, and a growing group on the Left already embraces communist currents. This reorientation puts grievance, redistribution, and identity ahead of the moral defense of the founding principles of liberty, responsibility, and integration. When a major party’s base treats group outcomes as the measure of justice, Madisonian faction, in my view, becomes politics’ organizing principle rather than a force to check.The shift is reshaping American foreign policy. The United States once anchored the West against destructive ideologies; it has officially entered an international system of transactional accommodation very similar to the Non-Aligned Movement. The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding brought sanctions relief and oil-revenue prospects while Tehran’s regional proxies and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were still striking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran gave up nothing and is still rewarded with preserving its nuclear capabilities, ballistic missiles, and suicide drones.