[nostrademons]

I remember reading an interesting premise about 5 years ago, that the U.S. was rotting from the bottom up and it just took longer for higher social classes to recognize it. If you were poor and black the U.S. was always a failed state. If you were a factory worker you started noticing it in the 1970s, and then it accelerated with Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound " in the 90s. The former middle class started realizing it with the financial crisis in '09, which knocked many of them out of the middle class. In the last couple years many of my friends (who went to an elite college and all have professional jobs) have started realizing it. Coronavirus probably finally exposed the wealthy to it.

I think it's actually going to get worse before it gets better. Right now we're just a failing state, give it a year or two and we're likely to be a failed state. Then we get to see what emerges from the ashes, but the process of getting there probably won't be pretty.