The United States Now Feels Like it Qualifies as a Failed State

There are a lot of problems with the United States right now. Frankly, the list of problems is far greater than I could even begin to list here.

One thing that seems to be clearer than ever before: the government system is not working. In fact, American society in general does not appear to be working. But this failure has become especially glaringly obvious with our government. After all, we have a truly imbecilic president who got in there because people unjustly rewarded his false sense of entitlement, thus empowering it. He had absolutely no qualifications for getting into that position, and he has shown no serious leadership, much less genius, since he got in.

Yet, tens of millions of Americans are sticking to their guns - quite literally - in continuing to support what most even halfway reasonable and intellectually and morally honest people would describe as a complete shit show.

He has brought his family in on his ultimate scam, which is pretending to be some kind of responsible leader, even though, again, he has had no real success in convincing anyone with an ounce of integrity or honesty that he is anything remotely resembling a responsible leader.

Now, we seem to be getting an American political ruling class, with some families, like the Trumps, feeling that they can pretend to be responsible leaders, while doing everything possible in every action to prove that they are not. And that we, in fact, are a broken country.

George Packer of the Atlantic put it powerfully in a recent article, as he described the sense of almost numbness after watching Jared Kushner deliver a speech in response to the Covid-19 crisis:

“To watch this pale, slim-suited dilettante breeze into the middle of a deadly crisis, dispensing business-school jargon to cloud the massive failure of his father-in-law’s administration, is to see the collapse of a whole approach to governing. It turns out that scientific experts and other civil servants are not traitorous members of a “deep state”—they’re essential workers, and marginalizing them in favor of ideologues and sycophants is a threat to the nation’s health. It turns out that “nimble” companies can’t prepare for a catastrophe or distribute lifesaving goods—only a competent federal government can do that. It turns out that everything has a cost, and years of attacking government, squeezing it dry and draining its morale, inflict a heavy cost that the public has to pay in lives. All the programs defunded, stockpiles depleted, and plans scrapped meant that we had become a second-rate nation. Then came the virus and this strange defeat.”

This is indeed a defeat. The United States, if it once was still the leading superpower of the world, has now become closer to the punchline of a really unfunny joke. It is a sign of where we are now, compared with what we once were, not all that long ago.

We Are Living in a Failed State The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken. by George Packer Staff writer for The Atlantic. SPECIAL PREVIEW: JUNE 2020 ISSUE:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/?utm_source=atl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share&fbclid=IwAR1iWHf-x0mPEQ3cQ3-gX_cmd79OPq8gGkmbuzRFtnHstVXcfMt2A41fSPM