The elites aren't totally clueless. They know that America isn't a peaceful, functioning WIN-WIN democracy, and that politics are likely to get increasingly more violent and chaotic with Impeachment and the '20 Presidential election. Regardless of which party wins the election next November, millions of Americans will be in a heightened state of rage. The arch-establishment Carnegie Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations have both issued warnings: Democracy is Dying, Impeachment will spark political violence - get ready for it. The only question is, how do elites intend to play out the management of conflict this time? WIN-WIN, WIN-LOSE OR LOSE-LOSE?

WIN-WIN - CONFLICT IS NORMAL: The Containment Strategy

It seems that elites view every crisis as an opportunity for gain and consolidation, whether it be by routine political clashes, civil conflict, or wars. Some have always come out further on top.

Episodic political violence has long been a fact of life in America, and in recent times it has been taking a myriad of forms from mass murders in churches to a shooting of Republican lawmakers practicing for a softball game. In 2010, polling found at least ten percent of Americans -- spread evenly across both parties -- then expressed a desire for violence against political opponents and want to overthrow the U.S. government. That anger, alienation and acts of hostility toward governing institutions and outgroup aggression have only intensified. Impeachment, we are told, will be "the spark" that now sets off a wildfire of civil conflict.

Even before the current impeachment inquest started, a Rasmussen poll found that 31 percent of probable U.S. voters surveyed in June 2018 thought “it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years.” [https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politic...

That foreboding and expectation of civil conlict is backed up by an influential group of conflict theorists and experts at elite think tanks who have been broadcasting alarm about this for years, and it's showing up in the corporate press. They are now advising institutions and policymakers to prepare for more political killings, public violence, and domestic terror attacks.

Take, for instance, the following warning in October from the Carnegie Institute, titled, "A Short Primer on Preventing Political Violence." It's a model of certain kind of conflict management thinking - with a few simple steps, conflict can be contained. Back to WIN-WIN: Build a few firewalls, let it burn itself out. The analysis begins with an incomplete, but realistic enough, assessment of the current state of politics in America: https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/10/04/short-primer-on-preventing-poli...

"Violence is more likely where it has happened before. It begins with polarization followed by the dehumanization of opponents. Opportunistic politicians test the system, seeing how people react to violent language to determine the potential costs. Based on such risk factors, the 2018 Fragile States Index ranked the United States among the top five “most worsened countries” for political stability, alongside Yemen and Venezuela."
[ . . . ]
"We have the tinder for political violence. Impeachment could provide the spark."

The Carnegie essay was thought significant enough that The Washington Post ("Democracy Dies in Darkness") co-published the paper along with the Institute as an October 4 Op-ed. The author, Rachel Kleinfeld, is senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. She was the founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project.
Kleinfled goes on to observe:

America’s history of political violence spans our civil war, decades of lynchings and the assassinations of a president, presidential candidate and national community leaders in the 1960s and 1970s. The United States is also extraordinarily polarized. As for dehumanization, scholars Nathan Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason found last year that 20 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats believe that if members of the other party “are going to behave badly, they should be treated like animals.”

Kalmoe and Mason’s recent research is even more concerning. While 87 percent of Americans believe political violence is never okay, according to their surveys, 3 percent believed that if violence advanced partisan goals, it was very justified, and an additional 5 percent felt such violence was moderately justifiable. Thus, a vanguard of likely perpetrators exists (in nearly equal amounts in both parties, though violence is greater among the far right), surrounded by a larger community willing to excuse and normalize their violence.

All this is pretty realistic as far as it goes, but the message is simply shelter in place and ride it out. The establishment knows as well as we do that this country is in the midst of a systemic breakdown of norms and the legitimacy of social and political institutions is in question. We are told that Impeachment is the sort of ill-advised act of "opportunistic politicians" that trigger wider political violence. But, the prescription is put in place mechanisms to protect potential victims, let law enforcement do its work, and the matter will be resolved. The DOW will continue its march upward, undisturbed. The conflict may reach Stage 7, but no further. No sweat.

That's one possible outcome, of course. No need to change much. Hunker down and it will be made to deescalate and go away. Another American Century when it's all over. Eventual WIN-WIN. But, what if regardless of who becomes the next President, public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system has been so severely damaged by what millions see as a "coup" to overthrow Trump, while an opposing army of partisan Democrats continues to blame "Russian interference" on the GOP and pursues revanche against Russia? Then, we move down the political conflict ladder to a sustained WIN-LOSE, and a declining baseline of democracy. One more step toward LOSE-LOSE - longer-term active conflict, 8 and 9, and a hop to another ladder of escalating warfare.

According to extensive studies of civil breakdown, civil wars like other conflicts proceed by steps. Triggering events set them off, and it is difficult to predict what exactly will do it in each case. What the models do predict is that a highly charged polarized population that has dehumanized its enemies can explode into group warfare. In America, that would most likely be a low-intensity war drawing from the ranks of millions of heavily-armed Americans with levels of measurable aggression and tolerance for violence-- a group that makes up about ten percent of the population, across all political identities. The same social science research shows something else. Not only do these aggressive types hate political opponents, they also often express a desire for violent overthrow of the existing government. And, this rising potential for violence and insurrection in America has been known and written about for years. As Nathan Kalmoe originally wrote in 2015: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/12/11/a-surprisi... [Editor’s note: This article, originally posted Dec. 11, 2015, was reposted in light of the [Congressional] shootings in Alexandria, Va.(2017)]

In recent weeks, Americans have witnessed several acts of apparently political violence: Black Lives Matter activists were shot in Minneapolis, three people were killed at a Planned Parenthood clinic shooting in Colorado Springs, and 14 were killed in an attack in San Bernardino.

It is common and, perhaps, understandable to assume that these attacks stem from particular groups that endorse political violence and are therefore more prone to violent acts.
In fact, support for violent political action is more common than many might think.
In 2010, I fielded two national surveys that asked respondents their opinions about the following statements:

• “When politicians are damaging the country, citizens should send threats to scare them straight.”

• “The worst politicians should get a brick through the window to make them stop hurting the country.”

• “Sometimes the only way to stop bad government is with physical force.”

• “Some of the problems citizens have with government could be fixed with a few well-aimed bullets.”

• “Citizens upset by government should never use violence to express their feelings.”
Although most people opposed violence, a significant minority (ranging from 5 percent to 14 percent) agreed with each violent option, and 10 percent to 18 percent expressed indifference about violence in politics. This implies that millions of ordinary Americans endorse the general idea of violence in politics.

Interestingly, these violent attitudes did not depend on standard political and demographic characteristics. For example, Republicans and Democrats were indistinguishable in their support for political violence, and liberals and conservatives were, too.

Prediction of tipping points in group behavior within polarized societies is difficult because alongside this 15 percent or so of "aggressives" mobilizable into active participants in civil hostilities, are the "passives," political partisans who research shows are, because of their psychological aversion to violence, are demobilized by violent political rhetoric. Kalmoe, N. (2019). Mobilizing Voters with Aggressive Metaphors. Political Science Research and Methods, 7(3), 411-429. doi:10.1017/psrm.2017.36

Two recent national survey experiments by Kalmoe reveal "the hidden role of aggression in non-violent political behavior." The metaphors of war and violence in politics, so prevalent on Fox News and MSNBC, mobilizes aggressive persons but turns off non-aggressive personality types to further participation. The result is that movements and leaders tend to become increasingly extreme and politics more polarized over time, but violent rhetoric, alone, seems to cancel itself out to a degree. The trigger point for mass violent insurrection is usually a dramatic event of some type that stirs up strongly felt feelings of group injustice. The bottom line is that violent "language mobilizes strong partisans with aggressive personalities but demobilizes strong partisans low in aggression." This dynamic helps to explain the driving out of the middle and the increasingly aggressive nature of American politics and political leadership. Eventually, something real and emotional sparks accumulating frustrated group aggressions, igniting mass violence, but that point is difficult to predict.

WIN-LOSE - Civil Conflict and Diminished Democracy: the Decline of Western Democracy into Contested Authoritarian Regimes

The result of intensified polarization, paralysis, and breakdown in governmental authority is an outcome that experts in regime change working for the State Department and CIA term a "contested authoritarian regime". That is a "hybrid" or "diminished" form of democracy, a regime with formal elections but without democracy, as described by an influential 2002 study of post-Cold War governments. [Steven Livitsky, Lucan A. Way, "Elections Without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism", Journal of Democracy Volume 13, Number 2 April 2002]

The "contested authoritarian" regime was found in the review of the literature by Livitsky and Way to be the most common form of government in the post-Cold War era, more numerous than either outright dictatorships or actual democracies. It is defined as "mixed regimes as partial or "diminished" forms of democracy, or as undergoing prolonged transitions . . ." In competitive authoritarian regimes, Livitsky found the formal shell of democratic institutions is present, but the states aren't democratic. The authors observed,

Unlike single-party or military dictatorships, post–Cold War regimes in Cambodia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere were competitive in that opposition forces used democratic institutions to contest vigorously – and, on occasion, successfully – for power. Nevertheless, they were not democratic. Electoral manipulation, unfair media access, abuse of state resources, and varying degrees of harassment and violence skewed the playing field in favor of incumbents. In other words, competition was real but unfair. We characterize such regimes as competitive authoritarian. Competitive authoritarian regimes proliferated after the Cold War.

Livitsky and Way correctly point out what they call a "democratizing bias" in most of this academic literature on the subject of political transformations, democracitization and governance. This bias is shown in measures and terminology of democratization such as "Freedom House’s “'Partly Free.' . . . Such characterizations imply that these cases are moving in a democratic direction." As this influential research indicated, and subsequent events have shown, the movement is definitely not in the direction of greater democracy.

The frame of reference has recently been turned upside down. Indicators of political instability and state failure that were up until a decade ago applied strictly to post-communist states and developing countries ate now showing that the old established democracies are falling into civil strife and various forms of authoritarianism. The establishment has taken notice, and is preparing to reestablish what they see as law and order, steps which can only worsen the broad slide into fascism. That is not widely viewed as an optimum outcome, but some elites can live with it.

No institution more stolidly symbolizes the smug, stodgy core of the west than the Council on Foreign Relations and its house organ, Foreign Affairs. Nonetheless, this paragon of establishment power is expressing what appears to be real nervousness, if not surprise. We don't want to alarm the Members of the Club, but something really threatens to change the status quo, and that is unusual, gentlemen. “'Centralization of power in the executive, politicization of the judiciary, attacks on independent media, the use of public office for private gain—the signs of democratic regression are well known. The only surprising thing is where they’ve turned up,' writes Editor Gideon Rose in his introduction to the May/June (2018) issue of Foreign Affairs. 'As a Latin American friend put it ruefully, ‘We’ve seen this movie before, just never in English.’' The issue’s lead package, “Is Democracy Dying?,” puts the country’s current troubles into historical and international perspective.

Indeed, established democracies can and do move backwards, and can be made to do so, as many have become increasingly authoritarian in recent years. This is acknowledged by the CFR. In an article in the same issue, "The Age of Insecurity: Can Democracy Save Itself?", Ronald Engelhart observes:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-04-16/age-insecurity

Over the past decade, many marginally democratic countries have become increasingly authoritarian. And authoritarian, xenophobic populist movements have grown strong enough to threaten democracy’s long-term health in several rich, established democracies, including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

However, this is misleading. It is not authoritarianism from below -- given the unfortunate name "populism" as fascism is a better understood and more accurate term for it -- that primarily drives de-democratizing sprint toward civil war and authoritarian regimes with the facade of elections in America and the western countries. The move away from social democracy and embrace of fascism is driven by more than animus toward immigrants and lingering white racism, as has been suggested. It is instead the product of mass anxieties in an economic system that is increasingly unjust, unstable, fanned by oligarchy-owned mass media propaganda intended to mobilize strong underlying feelings of frustrated aggression and convert it into fanatical allegiance to cult-like political figures leading contested states mobilizing for intensified civil and foreign wars. That is precisely what we are seeing in Boris Johnson's UK and post-Impeachment America.

Stage 9 LOSE-LOSE - Post-Post-Cold War outcomes of increasingly authoritarian permanent warfare states.

It was the 20th Century commonplace that states that failed to recover from losses in wars spawned revolutions and ended up as Totalitarian regimes. That was the case in Russia (1917), Germany (1933), and China (1948). Failure in peace can also have the consequence of decline in democracy and a rise in authoritarianism, often followed by a resumption of foreign war. So far, that is the post-Cold War pattern of the 21st Century. The U.S. is an example of a failing democracy that did not successfully demobilize after the Cold War, and increasingly beset by internal social and economic divisions, political deadlock, and violent polarization, government has collapsed into a highly competitive authoritarian regime. Even before Impeachment, America already had fallen into a "dual sovereignty" with the executive undermined by elements of the security services allied with a political opposition seeking mobilization of its base and a return to power by appeal to revanchist Cold War revival. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration is trying to mobilize by increasingly violent appeals to armed partisan loyalists. Both sides accuse each other of unconstitutional violation of law and treasonous conspiracy with foreign enemies.

Meanwhile, with Boris Johnson's Brexit assured, Scotland is poised to leave Britain, the BBC Director-General Baron Hall of Birkenhead has called on social media giants to purge critics from the internet. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/14/bbc-staff-express-fear-of-...

This is likely to play out in the coming days and months the way it has historically in other failing or failed democracies: a progression of civil conflict from suppression, insurrection, civil war, ultimately escalating into international conflict and World War. That outcome is a real risk, and the definition of LOSE-LOSE. No wonder the elites have lost their illusions of control over a happy, docile democracy. If this conflict proves to be less manageable than they assume, they are about to lose a lot more than their illusions.