Ethnic and Race Problems in a Federal State (Based on the Results of the U.S. Presidential Campaign of 2020)

The United States, originally formed as a haven for immigrants of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, has felt the inefficiency of its famous «melting pot»since the beginning of the XXI century. In this ethnically-and racially-conflicted state, one of the long-standing problems was considered to be the problem of African-Americans, who after World War II dispersed outside the southern states. This problem was only partially solved, and the policy of positive discrimination in favor of blacks in recent years has become increasingly critical. At the same time, the country, in which the proportion of white citizens is sharply decreasing and the number of Spanish-speaking people and people of Asian origin is increasing, is experiencing an increasing cultural, civilizational and geographical split. During the 2020 presidential campaign, the United States faced not only an epidemic of coronavirus infection, but also unprecedented protest activity, which was a test for the outdated mechanism of this federal state. The domestic political crisis might have been averted or mitigated if the United States had had a more centralized model of federalism, which would have strengthened administrative coordination and allowed ethno-racial egoism to be contained within certain limits.