Well, the descent of the US into irrelevance and complete dysfunction continues apace. Poor Joe, most of his great plans are now on the rocks, or are soon to be. Despite his own descent--into madness, by all reports--Trumpaloni continues to exert a very serious influence on the American political situation. 602,000 Americans have died from covid; the stats of alcoholism, opioid use, and suicide are thru the roof; brutality of the cops is even greater than it was before George Floyd; 'unexplained' massacres now occur on a daily basis; citizens exploit each other, and treat each other like dirt; and in general, the misery of Americans is probably at an all-time high. In addition, the government has no coherent foreign policy; it continues to float without any direction, while Russia and China certainly know what they are doing.
All of this is well-earned karma; Americans are getting exactly what they deserve. They embraced this way of life--radical individualism, every man for himself, hustle your way to fame and fortune, cheer the government on in its imperial wars, believe we can do no wrong, and so on--with great enthusiasm. Now it has turned around to bite us in the ass. We are being punished for our callousness, our cruelty, but the word 'punishment' doesn't really apply, because it assumes the punishee knows what s/he did wrong. Americans don't; they don't connect the dots, partly thanks to gov't propaganda, and partly because they are quite stupid. All of these signs of collapse, such as daily massacres, are 'external', as tho they fell from the skies. Suicides, opioid use, alcoholism--these are supposedly individual problems, as tho there is no pattern to them. There is no awareness that all of the factors I mentioned are all of a piece, and that piece is the American Way of Life. Even our most astute critics (or most of them) never realize this, never manage to point this out. And in addition, this blindness is part of the collapse as well.
So we shall either limp along to our oblivion, a la Biden, or--if Trumpalumpi makes a successful return in 2024--rush toward it, like lemmings to the sea. But avoiding it is no longer an option. We cannot, and we shall not, escape our fate.
-mb
