[BLKNSLVR]

Agree and disagree.

The US has been on a downward spiral towards 'this' for a long time, but Trump literally self-selected to be the face of the intentional rapid acceleration of it.

Calling Trump a scapegoat is incredibly kind to his intentional destruction and, to still put it far too kindly, "vindictive nastiness in attempt to profit" (which, I think, also depressingly describes what has become of the US tech sector).

[chiefalchemist]

If the status quo system was doing their job(s) there would be no DJT in the WH. Full stop. Not once. Certainly not twice.

But rather than own their failure, they work - hard - the “OMG it’s all his fault” narrative (read: deflection and distraction) and it works. So well, they keep doing it.

But repetition of a lie doesn’t make it true. Concession to buy into a lie, also doesn’t make it true.

No doubt DJT has his flaws. But he’s still a scapegoat. Why? Because no one is asking “How did we get here?”

[BLKNSLVR]

That's a good point. Thanks for making it clearly.

Essentially the US cannot improve it's current direction unless it can have an honest discussion about how it got so bad in the first place, with all administrations under the spotlight for failing to address the decline.

Ironically, it's accelerating away from honesty.

[chiefalchemist]

Yes. In short, Trump didn’t just happen. Plenty of incompetence and negligence preceded him. The red carpet was rolled out. The engine was primed. If it wasn’t Trump it would have been someone else. That’s not his fault.

[testfoobar]

"How did we get here?" - No one really wants to ask this question. We've had decades of tax policy, trade policy, health policy that created tremendous wealth inequality.

In Q4 2016 (upon Trump's first election), the bottom 50% owned just $1 trillion out of $90 trillion.

The system failed them. Trump is a populist.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...