Except this is also how the "democracy" that is modern day Russia was created. Everything that's happened in the U.S. since ~2012 that has been driving us to the brink of collapse by furthering the divide between left and right has been eerily similar.
Psychological Inoculation and Astroturfing: Preparing for exploitation of U.S. secession movements
A lot of people don't know this, bc it's not exactly clear what they were doing there, but coincidentally the Heritage Foundation also seemed to play a role in the creation of the first free market in the earliest days of post-soviet Russia.