Collapse: The Slow Death of America

Try to think of the last time that American solved a problem. Pick something that you think is important to the health of the nation. Pick healthcare. Pick climate change. Pick income inequality or voting rights or the opioid epidemic that savaged communities across the country. Pick racism or the war on drugs or child hunger or veteran’s healthcare. Pick homelessness. Pick anything.

Now try to think of what has been done to solve that problem in the last say… 20 years. Can you think of a resolution? Has any major progress been made? Has anything been done at all? Let me help you if you’re still mulling it over, because the answer is simple: no. As a nation, America has failed to solve literally any major problem for the entirety of my adult life. It is not your imagination that things are getting worse.

America is dying the gradual death of a nation in retrograde, a slow-motion collapse that has been accelerated by the trauma of the Trump years and the coronavirus pandemic. Worse, a long-held national delusion about American greatness has blinded us to the reality of our decline. The cause is obvious, but most Americans seem reluctant to grapple with the consequences that are beginning to pile up. It’s impossible to deal with a problem if you can’t admit that it exists.

If you turn on the news, you see a constant stream of stories about mass shootings, partisan politics, and coronavirus deaths, but you might also spot a ticker in the corner telling you that the stock market is at a record high…