It really feels like the US is a failed state at this point, but it just hasn’t had full impact yet. Not really sure how all this destruction (in only half a year!) can be reversed in any meaningful timeframe in the future.
> Afghanistan is often described as a “failed state,” but, in light of the outright thievery on display, Chayes began to reassess the problem. This wasn’t a situation in which the Afghan government was earnestly trying, but failing, to serve its people. The government was actually succeeding, albeit at “another objective altogether”—the enrichment of its own members.
From https://archive.is/CBQFY .
Was it here or in the reviewed book about corruption where it's mentioned, how corruption endangers security, because guess what the civilians who are mad about the blatant corruption will do when they see an insurgent plant a roadside bomb targeting the corrupt government?
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said (and Timothy McVeigh quoted):
> In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.
Indeed. And as soon as the flow of foreign money propping the whole thing up was cut off, they vanished like melting snow across the border.
Corruption endangers security in all sorts of ways. This came up at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when it became apparent that maintenance money (and in some cases entire pieces of equipment) had been diverted, resulting in operational failure. The US Navy had a corruption scandal a while ago too ("Fat Leonard").
> to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal
Not even conviction, just straight up execution. The lesson of the BLM backlash was that, no, really the US public demanded that the police had the right to execute citizens in the street without accountability.
So I’m open to the possibility that lot of these types of feeling, in both directions depending on the political era, is more dictated by environment and media consumption choices and their versions of doom and gloom than reality
Do your friends know about the absolute immunity the Supreme Court invented for the president? Do they know about the illegal deportations that are accelerating? Do they know about the presidential order that aims to deport legal citizens of the USA (the end of birthright citizenship)? Do they know about the gutting of virtually all social programs?
If they don't, then they're ill informed, regardless of their feelings on the matter. If they do and still think all is well, then they are just as much a part of the problem as the ones doing this all.
We've already come close to Trump causing a war [0]. However, there is one aspect of the man (that's on display here) that gives me hope. He is a moron who can't take advice, and who appoints other morons (to make him look good?).
If it was Stalin, or Hitler, or Erdoğan or god help us Xi, the USA would be in real trouble. All of them are very competent leaders, who could take their countries in the direction they desired for a decade(s). Trump, well you just have to look at his popularity ratings, or the economy shrinking 0.5% in his first quarter. He could have poured money on the economy and had everyone getting high and merry on debt, while he took in billions in bribes via is cryptocurrencies. But nooooo, no one has a clue why he is perusing his economic policies, probably because there aren't much in the way of clues to be had.
It could have been so much worse. As it is, it looks like most countries have his measure and are working around him. I don't know what made me cringe more: Netanyahu showing Trump his letter of recommendation for the Nobel Peace price, or Trump lapping it up. Before that is was the European leaders showering gifts on him. It was disgusting. And it worked. Such is the art of politics, I guess. If you are dealing with pigs, it must appear to the pig that you enjoy rolling in their shit just as much as they do. All leaders except Putin that is. Putin played him for such a fool that even Trump picked up on it.
[0] https://theconversation.com/trumps-first-term-lies-at-the-he...