As someone inside the United States... I sort of agree with you, though not entirely. Where we are today is the culmination of decades of attacks on our institutions and public discourse. This is not majority will, but it is a failure of the majority to curb the attacks on our institutions. Collectively, we're to blame -- but at the same time, is it hard to understand why the majority of people in the U.S. haven't been able to push back given what people are up against?

The wealthiest folks have the resources to continually and almost casually undermine institutions, while it takes enormous effort for the larger public to push back. Most people are just trying to live their lives while the Murdochs, Kochs, and others can keep throwing money and bodies at corrupting the country. For every win against the anti-Democratic corruptions, there's two or five losses. They pile up.

But the fall of the U.S. has seemed inevitable for decades. As someone who is here and isn't likely to leave -- my family is here, too many people to muster out and I won't leave them behind -- this is going to suck pretty horribly for some time. If we're very lucky, this will be the wakeup call the U.S. needs and when the dust clears we may rebuild something better. If we're not... well, I don't want to dwell on that.