United States

Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do (11/7/2024)

Pyromaniac-in-Chief – America goes MAGA to Burn it all Down (10/20/2024)

Haiti Today, America Tomorrow? When Democracies Die, Mobs Take Over By John Feffer (4/18/2024)

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." Mark Twain

We’re No. 137! The myth of America’s awesomeness

Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. .. In saying, ‘Our interests first, whatever happens to the others’, you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values.
Emmanuel Macron

As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term,... But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our constitution. [The US] is sleepwalking into dictatorship.
Oath and Honor review: Liz Cheney spells out the threat from Trump

In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. Gilens and Page

Centralization of power in the executive, politicization of the judiciary, attacks on independent media, the use of public office for private gain—the signs of democratic regression are well known. The only surprising thing is where they’ve turned up. As a Latin American friend put it ruefully, “We’ve seen this movie before, just never in English.” Foreign Affairs: Is Democracy Dying ?

America retains assets that most countries would envy, and those favorable conditions ensure that the United States will remain one of the world’s most important powers for many years to come. US policymakers will still enjoy greater freedom of action than virtually all their counterparts, but whether they use that latitude wisely or foolishly remains to be seen. Will they use these assets to secure the country’s future and to help address a growing array of serious global problems, or will they pursue an agenda that leaves the world and the United States less stable or prosperous than it is today? Unfortunately, odds on the latter outcome rose dramatically on November 5, 2024.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University.

Europeans understand, as it seems Americans do not, the intimate connection between a country’s domestic and foreign policies. They often trace America’s reckless conduct abroad to its refusal to put its own house in order. They’ve watched the United States unravel its flimsy safety net, fail to replace its decaying infrastructure, disempower most of its organized labor, diminish its schools, bring its national legislature to a standstill, and create the greatest degree of economic and social inequality in almost a century. They understand why Americans, who have ever less personal security and next to no social welfare system, are becoming more anxious and fearful. They understand as well why so many Americans have lost trust in a government that has done so little new for them over the past three decades or more, except for Obama’s endlessly embattled health care effort, which seems to most Europeans a pathetically modest proposal. Ann Jones

Nuclear weapons undo governments and undo anything that could be meant by democracy ... We had a choice: get rid of nuclear weapons or get rid of Congress and the citizens. We got rid of Congress and the citizens. Thermonuclear Monarchy, Choosing Between Democracy and Doom Elaine Scarry

I have some bad news for you: You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin. Lance Freeman

"...what separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive. Extractive states,...are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society and to maintain their own hold on power." (Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson)

In less than two years, the United States has lost the executive, legislative, judicial branches to corruption, while other checks – the media, the criminal justice system – remain badly damaged. That leaves one check: the people. That is why we fight. That is why we protest. That is why we vote. Because we, the people, are all we have left. Sarah Kendzior (10/2018)

Class conflict, again and again, would be evaded by deflecting violence outward to the frontier, and by projecting class resentments on to race The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin

"America stands on the brink of total annihilation and final fascist ascendancy. Odds are good they’ll succeed. Then the future will be worse than most imagine... Dismiss this warning at your peril. They’ll eventually come for you too.”— Walter Shaub

US Authoritarian Threat Index

"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology." Michael Parenti

"From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair." William Blum

In the 2019 Global Peace Ranking, the United States is listed [for safety] in 128th place. This represents a drop of four places from the previous year. The USA ranks lower than countries like Niger, Nicaragua, the Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Brazil, and El Salvador. The United States has fallen in rankings in every single report that the Global Peace Ranking has put out since 2016. Some of the reasons for this drop include a decrease in life satisfaction and a growing wealth gap.
The 25 Safest Countries In The World

"TeleSur" - An international poll found that the United States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world peace today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan, with no one else even close. (1/17/2015) or (10/21/2014)

"There's a very committed effort to convert the US into something resembling a Third World society, where a few people have enormous wealth and a lot of others have no security." Noam Chomsky Videos

...what we are now seeing are the obvious characteristics of the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason; the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture -- a troika that was for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; and the political and economic marginalization of our culture. Of course, the Dark Ages were not uniformly monochromatic, as recent scholarship has demonstrated; but then, neither is present-day America. The point is that in both cases "dark" is the operative word. Morris Berman

The best part of the Constitution is the Preamble, which specified the goals of the document, but to my knowledge, Courts don’t seem to recognize it. It begins “We the People”, not we the States or we the corporations.

States are not people, but they vote in the Electoral College, people don’t. That’s why the US gets Presidents without the popular vote. States each have two Senators, which is why North Dakota’s Senate representation is equal to California’s which has many times the population. Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court with a majority of radical ‘conservatives’ has become unbalanced as well.

The Republican Party, like the Confederacy, strongly favors States rights, since it is a minority party with an unpopular agenda. Instead it relies on Supreme Court decisions to allow voter suppression, big dark money, and gerrymandering to create maps that in some States insure one party rule.

For all practical purposes only two political parties are allowed in the US, which is sure to produce polarization. Minor parties are sometimes offered as spoilers used to elect the minority party that most people don’t want.

In many ways, political opposition has been suppressed. Unions have been all but wiped out, protests made illegal. In some States it is legal to run down protesters.

Culture, media, and politics have a symbiotic relationship.

Religion is the oldest media and predominates in the most backward countries, keeps women in their place, and are authoritarian enemies of democracy and science.

Private media has rolled up into large corporate chains, is inexpensive in rural areas where population is light and tends to be Christian radio or far right talk radio. Information is like other US commodities. You get what you pay for. Who pays tells the story and gets the loudest voice.

Elections favor celebrities with strong name recognition, backed by big money, and expensive media, which increases the likely hood that a demagogue will come to power.

In other countries, a minority ruling party, usually far right, conservative, and self serving is armed and difficult to remove. In Syria government is willing to make war on their own people.

Scholars have determined that the US is not a democracy. The Constitution is inherently unbalanced. Monied interests usually get their way, wealth inequality inevitably soars.

The reason the US elects disastrous Presidents without the popular vote is because States vote, not people. Two Senators are allocated for each State which consequently results in a Supreme Court that rules for right wing Republicans overturning the Voting Rights Act, let States immediately go back to voter suppression. Gerrymandering allowed maps to be drawn that disenfranchised GOP opposition, overturning campaign finance law and Citizens United opened a flood of corrupting money into politics.

Although the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits “questioning the debt”, Republicans use the ‘debt ceiling’ to extort spending reductions for the most vulnerable which could cause US default with severe consequences.

The Supreme Court was intended to maintain high moral principals when the mob does not, and protect the well-being of the people when shaping the law. It doesn’t. It put thousands of lives at risk when it allowed States to deny Medicaid, overturned Roe against the advice of every Medical association, made guns a public health issue, put the President above the law. It has attacked democracy for decades, allowing big money into politics, overturned the Voting Rights Act, allowed gerrymandering, defered to the imperial Presidency. It saw no problem with torture, pointless forever war, secret prisons, Guantanamo, renditions, or assaults on civil liberties including universal surveillance. The FISA Court was created to cover up torture and secret law. It saw no need to keep checks and balances in good repair. It doesn’t respect privacy and with a Catholic majority seems quite willing to enable a theocracy. Highly religious countries are the most backward.

The House still represents the people somewhat, but huge money from lobbying inclines it to respond to special interests. Social programs are poor including healthcare, child care, elder care, housing… Tax dodgers, especially wealthy ones, usually win. In spite of stern warnings, there is not much action on climate, a win for fossil fuel interests. Money is not speech, it corrupts. In 2013, Jimmy Carter commented that the US has no functioning democracy.

The Senate, like SCOTUS, heavily represents rural Republican States, not the majority of the people. So the Senate is where most legislation goes to die.

The Electoral College should have kept bad actors from the Presidency, but it didn’t. It would be irrelevant if the National Popular Vote becomes law. The President can become a dictator much more powerful than the king we overthrew.

Two parties, not part of the Constitution, have polarized governance pretty much along the same lines as the Civil War, democracy vs fascism. Ranked Choice Voting could break the two party monopoly.

When the Constitution was written, the Post Office was mass media and was subsidized, but it has been manipulated to suppress mail-in voting. Commercial interests have bought off media to the extent that fascist propaganda is a threat, misinformation pollutes information streams, foreign interests can manipulate public opinion, newspapers are being consolidated and downsized by private equity. Deregulation Capitalism is out of control.

Red states compete for lowest taxes, worst labor laws, most stingy social programs, lax environment, fewest regulations, most corporate welfare, which propels a beggar thy neighbor, race to the bottom and keeps most people down.

Republican States are poorer, more polluted, have stricter voting rights, looser gun laws, more aggressive policing, harsher abortion regulation, poorer healthcare, worse virus response, lower education levels, higher religiosity, and worse right-wing government. GOP claims they don't like government, which explains why they are bad at it. They want to take control by any means necessary, whether by manipulating voting law, or by violent intimidation, or insurrection. Wealth disparities soar with toxic side effects, but even though it is the root of many US problems the GOP doesn’t worry about it. Progressive taxes like we had after WWII are a proven method of keeping inequality down. Government is only as good as the decisions it makes. Republicans have become a far right party, They have become a danger to the republic by mounting a fascist insurrection, which continues with efforts to change voting laws. Their followers do not vote in their own self interest ... unless they are wealthy party loyalists. Right wing government is almost never good because it tends to a vanishingly small number of decision makers.

The US, if it is to restore good government, badly needs change, ideally a Constitution revised by non-partisan, expert, high minded individuals. As a result of the 2024 election, that is not even remotely likely to happen, so the future looks bleak.

An Article V Constitutional Convention would be a good idea because it badly needs an overhaul. Republicans, motivated by ALEC, are working to convene one and to see that States have control, not people. There are some very wealthy Republican backers and it could be a threat like Project 2025.

To our great shame, America now has

• the highest poverty rate, both generally and for children;
• the greatest inequality of incomes;
• the lowest social mobility;
• the lowest score on the UN’s index of “material well-being of children”;
• the worst score on the UN’s Gender Inequality Index;
• the highest expenditure on health care as a percentage of GDP, yet all this money accompanied by the highest infant mortality rate, the highest prevalence of mental health problems, the highest obesity rate, the highest percentage of people going without health care due to cost, the highest consumption of antidepressants per capita, and the shortest life expectancy at birth;
• the next-to-lowest score for student performance in math and middling performance in science and reading;
• the highest homicide rate;
• the largest prison population in absolute terms and per capita;
• the highest carbon dioxide emissions and the highest water consumption per capita;
• the lowest score on Yale’s Environmental Performance Index (except for Belgium) and the largest ecological footprint per capita (except for Denmark);
• the lowest spending on international development and humanitarian assistance as a percentage of national income (except for Japan and Italy);
• the highest military spending both in total and as a percentage of GDP; and
• the largest international arms sales.

Our politicians are constantly invoking America’s superiority and exceptionalism. True, the data is piling up to confirm that we’re Number One, but in exactly the way we don’t want to be—at the bottom. From James Gustave Speth in Orion Magazine. (5/2012)

Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision (8/29/2023)

Better than Bulgaria but not as nice as Cuba: how did the US become such an awful place to live? (9/21/2022)

America has been Poisoned - Where's the Antidote? (9/8/2022)

America is steeped in violence. And the roots of that violence go deep (6/1/2022) Guardian

How the events of last January 6 put the existence of the United States in question (Timothy Snyder)

Robert Kagan offers a terrifying treatise on Trump and the future of the nation (9/25/2021)

Is the United States headed for civil war? (8/26/2022) Washington Post

The second American civil war is already happening (5/11/2022) Robert Reich

Is the US headed for another Civil War? (9/16/2021)

This Is No Way to Rule a Country (8/9/2021)

The Strange, Sad Death of America’s Political Imagination (7/2/2021)

Top Ten Signs the US is the most Corrupt nation in the World (02/22/2018 Edn.) Juan Cole

Some Suggestions to Fix US Government (7/17/2024)

When Trump’s Next Coup Happens, the Republican Party Will Fully Support It (5/6/2021)

On January 6th, the U.S. Became a Foreign Country (3/17/2021)

The American Century Ends Early (2/18/2021)

While America Was Sleeping (1/26/2021)

The US is having a close brush with fascism, eerily reminiscent of 1933 Germany. Just as in 1929, wealth inequality is extreme, the stock market soars, people line up for food, pandemic testing, unemployment benefits, and deaths of despair rise. In the face of all this, oddly enough people are buying guns. Mass shootings are a regular occurrence. Government is paralyzed.

A disgruntled billionaire, backed by Russia, with a cult-like following aspires to be a dictator, has already done serious damage to government replacing experts with sycophants, dodging oversight, packing the Courts, benefiting the wealthy, pandering to evangelicals and white nationalists. He lies a lot.

Dictionaries define Fascism as government by corporations, more broadly it is government by wealthy. Without antitrust enforcement, many industries have rolled up into monopolies, wealth inequality has soared. The stock market does great as people line up for food, pandemic testing, unemployment benefits, pandemic deaths are rising as are deaths of despair. In the face of all this, oddly enough people are buying guns. Seems we are an empire in decline.

In 2020 narrowly avoided a Fascist insurrection, but the GOP didn't concede. In States they control, Republicans are changing voting law to be sure they can win.

Propaganda enables right wing government. Talk radio, Fox News and most other media are from large conglomerates no longer constrained by anti-trust or the Fair Use doctrine, and almost always reflecting oligarchs opinions. Fox News, supermarket tabloids, and others are easily corrupted by advertising so we get ‘alternate reality’ from much of media.

Labor has been suppressed so that it no longer has the power that it had in the 1930s.

Republicans never liked the New Deal, attempted to overthrow FDR, over decades they brought on extreme wealth inequality, and the result: the US government does not respond to the will of the people. The President can become a dictator, the Congress is paralyzed, SCOTUS leans right, election integrity questionable, democracy weak. The GOP nearly destroyed the republic. The creaky old Constitution needs an overhaul. Ranked Choice Voting could break the two party monopoly and end polarization.

Republicans may have caused the loss of WWII, they brought on extreme wealth inequality, and the result: the US government responds to the funders, not to the people, which is to say it is quite corrupt. Since Reagan, the middle class has collapsed.

President Biden proposed big changes, just as FDR did. Social programs would get funded, infrastructure restored, climate warnings heeded, massive relief has already been delivered, fair taxes on the wealthy should pay, that’s where the money is.

No one is exceptional, but the US has taken on the burden of security for the world at great cost with poor results

In a number of ways democracy is weaker, so we are vulnerable to a right wing takeover.

Our greatest challenges are transnational. Our politics is incapable of coping with the them

During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope. Evil Geniuses, the Unmaking of America, Kurt Anderson

"...We fought wars that should never have been fought. We allowed giant banks and predatory corporations to plunder the nation’s wealth and resources without regard for the damage done to the economy, the environment or the people. We neglected the nation’s physical infrastructure to the point where bridges were collapsing, water systems were failing, and the historic city of New Orleans was submerged in a catastrophic flood that shocked not just the nation but the world." Bob Herbert, Losing Our Way

The United States is backsliding into autocracy under Trump, scholars warn https://t.co/S26VACV58r

— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) September 19, 2020

Should America Be Worried About Political Violence? And What Can We Do to Prevent It? (9/16/2019) Rachel Kleinfeld

147 seditious Republican traitors voted against our democracy on January 6#NeverForget pic.twitter.com/MqTkpJdy0B

— 𝖠𝗆𝖻𝖾𝗋 #𝖦𝗎𝗇𝖲𝖺𝖿𝖾𝗍𝗒𝖭𝗈𝗐 (@AnIllicitWriter) May 1, 2021

The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why. (7/2/2020)

America Is a Tinderbox (5/29/2020)

We Are Living in a Failed State (6/2020) The Atlantic

READ NEW OP-ED:
WE DONE BROKE AMERICA
AMERICA is broken. There are no checks and balances. Constitutional rights are fungible. Judiciary is becoming tribalized. The executive has become militarized. And the legislature has become polarized & paralyzedhttps://t.co/KtRZ5pUnQ5 05

— Tomthunkit™ (@TomthunkitsMind) June 27, 2020

Pulitzer winner Chris Hedges: These "are the good times — compared to what's coming next" (4/28/2020)

Bernie Sanders: The Foundations of American Society Are Failing Us (4/19/2020)

Has COVID-19 Exposed America as a Failed State or Are We Just in Another Constitutional Crisis? (5/28/2020)

The America We Need

It is striking that each decision Republicans make to enable Trump is taken as a passing, media-cycle political drama and not a consistent, chillingly effective project to dismantle American democracy.

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) February 8, 2020

Challenges to American democracy are testing the stability of its constitutional system and threatening to undermine political rights and civil liberties worldwide. As part of this year’s report, Freedom House offers a special assessment of the state of democracy in the United States midway through the term of President Donald Trump. While democracy in America remains robust by global standards, it has weakened significantly over the past eight years, and the current president’s ongoing attacks on the rule of law, fact-based journalism, and other principles and norms of democracy threaten further decline. Freedom in the World 2019. (Freedom HOuse)

American exceptionalism translates into the widespread belief that the US. has nothing to learn from Canada and Western European democracies: not even from their solutions to issues that arise for every country, such as health care, education, immigration, prisons, and security in old age – issues about which most Americans are dissatisfied with our American solutions but still refuse to learn from Canadian or Western European solutions. Upheaval, Turning Points for Nations in Crisis : Jared Diamond

Is US politics beyond the point of repair? Our foreign "allies" ponder if we can come back from Trump. Let that sink in. - BBC News - 'Trump impeachment trial: Is US politics beyond the point of repair?' https://t.co/HsG0sZE7S0 #SundayThoughts

— John Lundin 🌊 (@johnlundin) February 9, 2020

The United States does not guarantee the availability of affordable housing to its citizens, as do most developed nations. It does not guarantee reliable access to health care, as does virtually every other developed nation. The cost of a college education in the United States is among the highest in the developed world. And beyond the threadbare nature of the American safety net, the government has pulled back from investment in infrastructure, education and basic scientific research, the building blocks of future prosperity. It is not surprising many Americans have lost confidence in the government as a vehicle for achieving the things that we cannot achieve alone. New York Times Editorial.

"If you wonder why the United States is the only country in the industrialized world not to have a national health care program, if you're asking why we pay the highest price in the world for prescription drugs, or why we spend more money on the military than the rest of the world combined, you are talking about campaign finance. You are talking about the unbelievable power that big-money interests have over every legislative decision." Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt)

Beyond that, our trend toward oligarchy — rule by the few — is also looking more and more like kakistocracy — rule by the worst, or at least the most unscrupulous. The corruption isn’t subtle; on the contrary, it’s cruder than almost anyone imagined. It also runs deep, and it has infected our politics, quite literally up to its highest levels. Paul Krugman

"I fear something major could happen, like a hospital stay, and I would need a loan to pay the bill." https://t.co/xM5ttc5Sx9 #expats #childcare #Medicare4All

— Common Dreams (@commondreams) September 5, 2019

in the United States deepening polarization has, among other things, weakened democratic debate and increased the confidence of far right movements." World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2018

The writing on the wall is that agreements made with the United States are not worth the paper on which they are written, because the current American president can — anytime, without due cause — call them into question without offering a realistic alternative. DW Editorial

The U.S. seems headed inexorably towards its denouement, reminding me of the narrator’s refrain in the classic French movie, La Haine, or Hate, in which a young man tells a joke about a man who fell from a skyscraper, reassuring himself as he passes each floor: “So far, so good:” The Dow of Inequality: Counting the Casualties of America’s Class War

"The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling...I hope we shall...crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." Thomas Jefferson

As I read Perilous Partners, I was continually reminded of the saying “Show me your friends, and I shall tell you who you are.” This book is extremely important precisely because it shows the reader who the friends of the U.S. government are. In doing so, it also sheds light on the nature and character of those who constitute that government. Upon reflection, it becomes clear that what is needed is not a new framework to guide policy makers but rather a fundamental rethinking of the scope and scale of power that the U.S.political elite currently wield in foreign affairs. (from a review of Perilous Partners: The Benefits and Pitfalls of America's Alliances with Authoritarian Regimes)

"Tell Trump you didn't learn from Hitler. You can't fight on two fronts. You can't take on radical Islam and China. You will end up in the bunker, like Hitler." Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic in discussion with Steve Bannon.

Communities of any size, from the local to the national level, can start initiatives that dramatically enhance their own economic well-being. Perhaps the most dramatic example in the past century was the revival of the nations of Western Europe after World War II, taking them from destitution to the highest living standards in the world through the principles of social democracy - combining self-interest with civic values. Working though their trade unions, cooperatives, and multiparty systems, the citizens of Western Europe responded to the rebound fo their economies by raising their expectations. During the decade after 1945, these countries embraced their citizens' demands for universal health care, decent pensions, cheap and accessible public transit, tuition-free university education, at least one month of annual paid vacation, free child care, paid family sick leave, and maternity leave - to name only a few of the amenities fostered by this collaboration between local and national.

Sixty seven years after 1945, however, the United States - the victor in World War II and long touted as the richest nation in the world - offers none of these civilized services for all of its people. Not one. We do not have a multiparty system in which smaller parties with pioneering agendas can be part of governing coalitions. Instead, we have a winner-take-all two-party dictatorship, its voting blocs broken into gerrymandered districts largely dominated by one party or the other. We have the weakest, most obstructionist labor laws among industrialized nations, which have led to the lowest percentage of labor union members in the Western world. A much smaller segment of our economy is devoted to consumer cooperatives. In short, the institutional flaws of our government have allowed powerful corporate interests to drive the American standard of living downward for the past thirty-nine years." Ralph Nader: the Seventeen Solutions

The United States is the 118th safest country in the world.

118.

Down from 65th last year.

We fell 53 places in 1 year.

The overwhelming majority of countries are now safer than the US.

Idk how else to say this.

The United States is a dangerous shithole.

— Sergio (@ResisterSiano) September 3, 2019

Trump, Zuckerberg & Pals Are Breaking America (10/29/2019)

Trump Fast-Forwards American Decline (6/28/2019)

Ralph Nader: American Society Is in Rapid Decay (5/31/2019)

Seven Deadly Symptoms of Our Current Malaise (12/31/2018)

Vladimir Putin uses speech to herald end of US hegemony (10/19/2018)

Trump’s America: Reckless, Alone and Ridiculed (9/26/2018)

Michael Klare, Trump's Grand Strategy (7/24/2018)

Does the Trump-Putin Summit Mark the End of the American Dream? (7/15/2018)

Under Trump, “America First” Really Is Turning Out to Be America Alone (6/8/2018)

Top 10 Signs the U.S. Is the Most Corrupt Nation in the World (2/22/2018)

Trump turning US into 'world champion of extreme inequality', UN envoy warns (12/15/2017)

Susan Rice: When America No Longer Is a Global Force for Good (12/20/2017)

The Long March of America’s Oligarchy (12/6/2017)

Why America May Go To Hell (11/20/2017)

Thom Hartmann: The America I Knew Has Almost Disappeared (10/15/2017)

America Held Hostage (9/28/2017)

The Myth of American Exceptionalism (7/27/2017)

The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940 (4/28/2017)

Donald Trump is not the problem – he’s the symptom (1/20/2017)

U.S. Upheaval Begins (1/20/2017)

"Western European nations granted themselves important accommodations such as affordable universal healthcare, tuition-free higher education, bountiful private pensions, powerful job protection laws, four weeks or more paid vacations, accommodating public transit, paid family sick leave, paid maternity leave, and free child care. People in the United States today, with the exception of some of those protected by labor unions, have permitted the wealthy class to deny them these benefits, allowing their taxes, for example, to be spent on what is, by far, the world's biggest military budget and an ultra-invasive national surveillance system that allows the government to violate their privacy. People in Europe insist that their taxes be spent to enrich the health, education and well-being of the entire population, not just those with extreme wealth. so there is less grumbling." Ralph Nader: Breaking Through Power p15

No matter how severe the U.S.’ decline becomes, neocons and the Tea Party continue to espouse their belief in “American exceptionalism.” But in many respects, the U.S. of 2015 is far from exceptional. The U.S. is not exceptional when it comes to civil liberties (no country in the world incarcerates, per capita, more of its people than the U.S.) or healthcare (WHO ranks the U.S. #37 in terms of healthcare). Nor is the U.S. a leader in terms of life expectancy: according to the WHO, overall life expectancy in the U.S. in 2013 was 79 compared to 83 in Switzerland and Japan, 82 in Spain, France, Italy, Sweden and Canada and 81 in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Austria and Finland." Alternet 3/25/2015)

“ in the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States. ” Robert Jarvis

"TeleSur" - An international poll found that the United States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world peace today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan, with no one else even close. (1/17/2015) or (10/21/2014)

A rich country with millions of poor people. A country that prides itself on being the land of opportunity, but in which a child’s prospects are more dependent on the income and education of his or her parents than in other advanced countries. A country that believes in fair play, but in which the richest often pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than those less well off. A country in which children every day pledge allegiance to the flag, asserting that there is “justice for all,” but in which, increasingly, there is only justice for those who can afford it. These are the contradictions that the United States is gradually and painfully struggling to come to terms with as it begins to comprehend the enormity of the inequalities that mark its society—inequities that are greater than in any other advanced country. Joseph Stiglitz

"...Systemic risk in the financial system can be remedied by the taxpayer, but no one will come to the rescue if the environment is destroyed. That it must be destroyed is close to an institutional imperative. Business leaders who are conducting propaganda campaigns to convince the population that anthropogenic global warming is a liberal hoax understand full well how grave is the threat, but they must maximize short-term profit and market share. If they don't, someone else will. This vicious cycle could well turn out to be lethal. To see how grave the danger is, simply have a look at the new Congress in the U.S., propelled into power by business funding and propaganda. Almost all are climate deniers. They have already begun to cut funding for measures that might mitigate environmental catastrophe. Worse, some are true believers; for example, the new head of a subcommittee on the environment who explained that global warming cannot be a problem because God promised Noah that there will not be another flood." Noam Chomsky

And today, JFK's great concerns seem more relevant than ever: the dangers of nuclear proliferation, the notion that empire is inconsistent with a republic and that corporate domination of our democracy at home is the partner of imperial policies abroad. He understood the perils to our Constitution from a national-security state and mistrusted zealots and ideologues. He thought other nations ought to fight their own civil wars and choose their own governments and not ask the U.S. to do it for them. Yet the world he imagined and fought for has receded so far below the horizon that it's no longer even part of the permissible narrative inside the Beltway or in the mainstream press. Critics who endeavor to debate the survival of American democracy within the national-security state risk marginalization as crackpots and kooks. His greatest, most heroic aspirations for a peaceful, demilitarized foreign policy are the forbidden­ debates of the modern political era. RFK Jr in the December 5th, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

"What does seem clearer today is that the rise of the national security state and the triumphalism of the corporate sector (along with the much publicized growth of great wealth and striking inequality in the country) has been accompanied by a decided diminution in the power of the government to function domestically and of the imperial state to impose its will anywhere on Earth. " Tom Engelhardt

"The Betrayal of the American Dream" is the story of how a small number of people in power have deliberately put in place policies that have enriched themselves while cutting the ground out from underneath America’s greatest asset — its middle class. (Barlett and Steele)

Facing the challenges of a world on edge - from Japan to the Greater Middle East, from a shaky global economic system to weather that has become anything but entertainment - the United States looks increasingly incapable of coping. It no longer invests in its young, plans effectively for the future, or sets off on new paths. It literally can't do. And this is not just a domestic crisis, but part of imperial decline. The United State of Fear: Tom Englehardt p 185

Any vision for America going forward must be articulated as part of a global vision. As this global recession has so forcefully reminded us, we all intertwined. The world today faces at least six key economic challenges, some of which are interrelated. Their persistence and depth is testimony to the difficulties that our economic and political system has in addressing problems at the global scale. We simply don't have effective institutions to help identify the problems and formulate a vision of how they might be resolved, let alone to take appropriate concrete actions. (Joseph E. Stiglitz from his book, Freefall, pg 188)

Fifty years ago, Harry Truman replaced the old republic with a national-security state whose sole purpose Is to wage perpetual wars, hot, cold, and tepid. Exact date of replacement? February 27, 1947. Place: White House Cabinet Room. Cast: Truman, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, a handful of congressional leaders. Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that he could have his militarized economy only if he first "scared the hell out of the American people” that the Russians were coming. Truman obliged. The perpetual war began. Representative government of, by, and for the people Is now a faded memory. Only corporate America enjoys representation by the Congresses and presidents that it pays for In an arrangement where no one Is entirely accountable because those who have bought the government also own the media. Now, with the revolt of the Praetorian Guard at the Pentagon, we are entering a new and dangerous phase, Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn International courts, We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders, to the United Nations but do not pay our dues. We complain of terrorism, yet our empire is now the greatest terrorist of all. We bomb, invade, subvert other states. Although We the People of the United States are the sole source of legitimate authority in this land, we are no longer represented In Congress Assembled. Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcer, the imperial military machine. We the unrepresented People of the United States are as much victims of this militarized government as the Panamanians, Iraqis, or Somalians. We have allowed our institutions to be taken over In the name of a globalized American empire that is totally alien In concept to an our founders had in mind. I suspect that it is far too !late in the day for us to restore the republic that we lost a half-century ago. from Gore Vidal's book Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.

What stands out is nearly every index [of social well-being] the United States is rated at the bottom among developed countries." Steven Hill: Europe's Promise

Why Corruption Matters (11/28/2016)

The Death of the American Dream (5/8/2016)

Beached America (2/18/2016)

Deconstructing America's 'Deep State' (2/12/2016)

2015: The Year of Lying Dangerously (12/23/2015)

Confidence in U.S. Institutions Still Below Historical Norms (2015 Gallup Poll)

Things That Can and Cannot Be Said: A Conversation Between John Cusack and Arundhati Roy (11/16/2015)

The New American Order: 1% Elections, The Privatization of the State, a Fourth Branch of Government, and the Demobilization of "We the People" (3/15/2015)

“The Iranian Threat” Who Is the Gravest Danger to World Peace? (8/20/2015)

Just How ‘Socially Advanced’ Is the U.S.? You Might Be Surprised (4/10/2015)

7 of the Biggest Reasons America Is Screwed, Why the wealthy and the right always prevail (3/25/2015)

The US is Number one -- But in What ? (10/13/2014)

The Hidden Government Group Linking JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra And 9/11: (Oct 5, 2014)

America's Real Foreign Policy (7/1/2014)

Study concludes US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy (4/14/2014)

Human Rights Watch: the US (2013)

Thug State U.S.A. (2/20/2014)

the World Is Terrified of America -- We're the Biggest Threat (2/5/2014)

Womp! This Country Was Named The Greatest Threat To World Peace (1/23/2014)

Washington Has Discredited America (12/19/2013)

Top 10 Ways the US Is the Most Corrupt Country in the World (12/03/2013)

Aldous Huxley: The Prophet Of Our Brave New Digital Dystopia (11/23/2013)

The Happiest Country on Earth (10/24/2013)

The American Exceptionalism Sweepstakes (9/26/2013)

Taking Exception to Exceptionalism (9/18/2013)

Current Political System Incapable of Meeting Social, Economic, Environmental Challenges (Gar Alperovitz 8/2/2013)

How to Be a Rogue Superpower: A Manual for the Twenty-First Century (7/18/2013)

Let's Be Brazil (6/24/2013)

Two Centers of Unaccountable Power in America (6/13/2013)

American Exceptionalism: Alibi of a Nation (Mike Lofgren 6/11/2013)

How to Destroy the Future (6/4/2013)

Infrastructure Report Card: D+ (3/2013)

How much of the U.S. will be habitable in 50 Years ? (12/11/2012)

State of the Union: James Howard Kunstler (2/11/2013)

Why It's Legal When the US Does it: Noam Chomsky (2/3/2013)

sOROS: tHERE wILL bE rIOTS oN THE sTREETS OF aMERICA (1/25/2012)

8 Striking Parallels between the U.S. and the Roman Empire (12/26/2012)

A Hostile Takeover of our Country (10/26/2012)

Broken Shards of my heart: The US in Decline (6/9/2012)

Last Words to an america in decline (5/6/2012)

The US Has Gone Mad

America 2.0: From Private Greed To Public Service

America's Exploding Pipe Dream (10/29/2011)

America's Lost Decade (9/17/2011)

America's Tragic Decline ...(8/8/2011)

American Exceptionalism's Hypocrisy (6/5/2011)

Senator Al Franken At Netroots (6/18/2011) video about 20 minutes.

9 Countries That Do It Better: Why Does Europe Take Better Care Of Its People Than America ?(6/15/2011)

As the Country Falls Apart, It's Time for Our Revolution (11/10/2010)

US Is Becoming an "Underdeveloping Nation" (9/22/2010)

...we have 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of the population.... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.... We should cease to talk about vague and -- for the Far East -- unreal objectives, such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. George Kennan in his 1948 Biography (pages 104-105)

America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer (7/15/2010) See  the page on empire.

Oliver Stone: The US Has Launched Military Interventions and Political Coups Fifty-Five Times in Latin America (6/26/2010)

The American Century is so Over (5/27/2010)

The Grim Truth (4/8/2010)

The Economic Elite vs The People of the United States.

"There is a feeling today among too many Americans that we might not make it. Not that the end is near, or that doom is around the corner, but that a distinctly American feeling of inevitability, of greatness—culturally, economically, politically—is gone. That we have become Britain. Or Rome. Or Greece. A generation ago Ronald Reagan rallied the nation to deny a similar charge: Jimmy Carter’s worry that our nation had fallen into a state of “malaise.” I was one of those so rallied, and I still believe that Reagan was right. But the feeling I am talking about today is different: not that we, as a people , have lost anything of our potential, but that we, as a republic , have. That our capacity for governing—the product, in part, of a Constitution we have revered for more than two centuries—has come to an end. That the thing that we were once most proud of—this, our republic—is the one thing that we have all learned to ignore. Government is an embarrassment. It has lost the capacity to make the most essential decisions. And slowly it begins to dawn upon us: a ship that can’t be steered is a ship that will sink." Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It: Lawrence Lessig (links).

No One is exceptional.

United States wealth inequality fell from the 1930s and 1940s; due to drastic policy changes that were part of the New Deal. These policies included the introduction of progressive income and estate taxation, and greater financial regulation.

Republican policy was largely responsible for sinking the middle class (most of us), a process that has accelerated until today. Top wealth share grew threefold from 7% in 1978 (Reagan) to 77% in 2017. The declining wealth share of the bottom 90% is the result of plummeting middle-class savings, as their mortgage, consumer credit, and student debt have greatly increased. (See World Inequality Report 2018)

In a vicious cycle, rich people (Republicans) have lobbied government to reduce their own taxes for decades resulting in starved public services, a shrinking middle class, and extreme inequality. Elections have been rigged for the affluent, media consolidated, politics polarized, billionaires now run government. Democracy badly weakened.

With reduced revenue, the US runs large deficits. Social programs, education, and research have been downsized. Infrastructure is crumbling. Social mobility has declined, A few rich people are surrounded by the poor. Guns are everywhere. Everyone is less safe. The rich migrate to gated communities or even New Zealand.

A more extreme wealth inequality has had a clear political price. It polarized politics. Partisan politics produced a Supreme Court that nullified campaign finance laws, allowed big money into elections with Citizens United, vetoed the Voting Rights Act allowing voter suppression in Republican States.

* Studies show that Congress does not do what people, when polled, would prefer. Instead it usually accedes to the wishes of the wealthy funders, who mostly do not agree with the wishes of the general population. This is written into law in the form of a budget, which reflects priorities, but not the ones most people would support. Congress is no longer accountable to the people, instead it does the wishes of the funders.

The US is a wholly owned subsidiary of trans-national corporations and it has become an oligarchy. Some dictionarys define that as Fascism.

In recent discussion of the US budget, partisans, meeting in secret without any public oversight do not agree on much of anything. The result was across the board cuts in Federal spending, a further weakening of the economy, and largely accelerated our race to the bottom. For decades Republicans have done their best to cut social programs (entitlements), while putting even more resources into 'defense', and serving their corporate masters with tax cuts for the wealthy. Trump has doubled down on this policy.

The partisan Supreme Court's Citizens United decision solidified this fact: Every Congressman who favors an agenda for people will be facing deep-pocketed 'conservative' opposition. In addition, where Republicans control State legislatures, they have been gerrymandering, systematically making it more difficult to vote: requiring photo id's, restricting early voting, making it more difficult for students to vote, plus their more standard techniques of hacking voting machines, engaging in dirty tricks, voter caging, welcoming Russian interference in elections. Oligarchs provide R's funding. They have been successful, the Republican wrecking crew will take over again.

The healthiest industry in the US is for weaponry as a result of the runaway 'defense' budget and the immense profits from war. Since every Congressional district has jobs dependent on war profiteering, there is always an incentive to increase 'defense' spending. There is no particularly credible threat to account for all this weaponry. it generates considerable ill-will around the world, but it is (pay attention Republicans) an immense, extremely unproductive, GOVERNMENT JOBS PROGRAM. The NRA is a front group for a powerful arms industry. What we get for all this spending on weaponry is an out-of-control military-industrial complex, an intrusive government that is strangling civil liberties, and endless war on a world-wide battlefield for empire.

As a result of Republicans dislike of government, all things public are deteriorating and private entities perform former government tasks...but with no accountability, and often in secrecy. (privatized activity is often cloaked in non-disclosure agreements.)

Many of our cities are rotting, our infrastructure is in bad shape, our social safety net is shredded, our rails in sad disrepair, many market choices for automobiles...but no public option.

Government is dysfunctional because many of our elected Republican representatives don't like it and gleefully sabotage it. However, it is the only institution that is capable of addressing the challenges we are facing. Republican brinksmanship is a major cause of the dysfunction.

* Leading economists tell us that austerity is a bad idea, and that it will further weaken the economy. Republicans, partisan ideologues, know that a bad economy could win them elections, so they have cut at all levels of government and done nothing about massive unemployment. They only do that when not in office. Deficits don't matter when they gain control. The important result for them is that the other side fails, not that the country thrives. The GOP puts Party before country.

For their lobbying expenses, corporations benefit from very little tax burden (which they are attempting to completely shed), a military that protects their interests at public expense, a safety net that assures, if they are large, they cannot fail (taxpayers will pick up the tab). The massive military expenses preclude civilization at home. Evidence of this is everywhere: crumbling infrastructure, college debt, blighted cities, unemployment, but those are mostly covered up by corporate media.

Corporations fund the Tea Party to buy political gridlock. The message is designed to promote the corporate agenda: lower taxes, privatization, deregulation, shrinken benefits, labor suppression, and paralysed government. The message is carefully crafted so that people do not realize they are losing their prospects, their wealth, and their freedom. The predator must first fool, then paralyse its prey...but the poisonous propaganda is paid for by the very deep-pocketed.

* The middle class has been sinking since Reagan took office. Workers bargaining rights have been systematically eroded and the minimum wage has lost much of its value. Republicans are intent on destroying any kind of social safety net including Social Security (not much of a problem really), healthcare, sick-time, vacations. pensions, as the great extraction proceeds.

The postal service in the late 1700s, was the only media, and because its important role was recognized, it was written into the Constitution and subsidized for news and opinion. Today it is on death watch.

US corporate media ; has a strong influence on culture, politics, citizenship, and education. What it does is sell product but its entertainment always has a message that includes hidden advertising, sanitized history, celebrity gossip that disguises corporate advertising, Right-wing demagogues on talk radio promote a regressive agenda that can only lead to an imperial state defending an empire that robs the people and is on track to destroy the planet.

The Republican party is the party of the 1%. Most people, when voting GOP, are voting against their own self interest.

* Probably the best indicator that someone is a Republican is whether they are regular church attendees. To have beliefs based on faith, lessons of history, informed opinion, or evidence become irrelevant. This is how the Republican agenda can be conveyed by misinformation. Don't be surprised that religion is not just an unholy GOP ally, but is, itself, a large industry and a leading purveyor of misinformation. "Religion uses empire, and empire uses religion." (Selina O'Grady)

* Science tells us that global warming is man-made, that the population has exceeded the planets' carrying capacity, and that further additions to carbon emmissions can doom the planet. Republicans, ever ready to claim science a scam, are oblivious.

What's the Matter With Republicans ? They oppose measures to provide a social safety net and in many ways foster divisiveness using religious bigotry, dirty election tactics, racism, homophobia, and the big red scare (often an excuse to suppress labor organizing). While demonstrating xenophobia they also oppose measures to protect civil liberties with the possible exception of the Second Amendment.

* Like other empires, the US no longer responds to its people. To  pay for  the empire, there can be no social programs like healthcare or social security. Union busting, offshoring jobs, and now robotics assures declining wages, but has the side-effect of weak demand...the real reason why the US economy will not recover.

The Republican Party, along with corporate media have sponsored the world's largest military to guard corporate interests, most notably the interests of oil companies, but many others as well. After losing the 'big red scare' which was justification for the world's largest military, Republicans had to find another reason to maintain the military-industrial complex, so they engineered a culture war with the Muslim world. They don't much care who is armed, after all arms are profitable. We now have an arrms race of Americans against their militarized police.

R's are completely oblivious of global challenges. They spurn international law, and attempts to reach international consensus...unless, of course, it is to the advantage of Corporate multinationals. They are tireless in their efforts to undermine the UN. Bear in mind that global problems need to be addressed by global institutions.

Republicans are willfully ignorant about climate change because it might reduce their funders right to pollute. They have a lot in common with Jim Jones.

Republican so called 'conservative' values are about money, not the environment and certainly not people. Their agenda is more about accumulating money than working for the public good. Their economic agenda is counterproductive. Their attitude toward government makes failure a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Republicans are driving a very bad bargain: "we are in the process of destroying a great many things which are real— soil, water, energy, resources, other species, our health — for the sake of something that exists chiefly in our imagination: money." from DeclineOfTheEmpire.com

Recent studies show that Congress responds to the preferences of the wealthy, not the people. The Federal budget is about the reverse of what people, when polled, would want. We have reached new extremes of income inequality and, according to scholar Thomas Piketty, it tends to get worse. The U.S. is now an oligopoly, not a democracy.

None of this is accidental, it is the result of policy. Lawrence Lessig's book, Republic, Lost (free pdf) documents that we have a government that is responsive to the funders, not the people. The Supreme Court has been treasonous in facilitating this fascist coup.

The Court has sided with corporate interests consistently for a long time: It decided that corporations are people, that money is speech, and that the only motive for corporations is profit. A person whose only motive is profit is a sociopath, and so it is with corporations that have set us on a (geologically) fast path to destruction.

Elections clearly are for sale now, media is Corporate, Congress is dysfunctional, the Supreme Court is partisan, the military-industrial complex is powerful, and covert agencies are out of control, the empire is unsustainable, there is no reason to think that the system will self-correct barring massive and unlikely structural change.

No one is exceptional, not even countries.

The Citizens United and McKutcheon rulings will complete our transition to an oligarchy.
Universal surveillance will make Orwell's vision look tame. The environment will collapse.

The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society

Five Myths About America

American Public Vastly Overestimates Amount of U.S. Foreign Aid (11/29/2010)

History

Republicans, like the Bush family, were supporters and financiers of Nazi Germany. They nearly accomplished a coup during the Roosevelt administration and they continue to promote policies that lead to fascism: defined as rule by corporations.

History of the National Security State

Shunning Howard Zinn's History

Ignorance

US media, particularly broadcasters, see no obligation to serve the public. Since concentrated media controls almost all information, the US is mostly run by corporations. They have demonstrated the ability to create storms of misinformation that trigger protest mobs. Because most of the economy is corporate, they also can buy the Congress. That is, by definition, Fascism.

About Republican Misinformation.

The Republican Scam all but makes the US ungovernable. Congress is money driven, so decisions are often not the right ones.

Religion is an important tool for Republicans to keep real issues out of the public mind.

Media is key to keeping people ignorant. It is largely responsible for our failed democracy, dysfunctional government, schools. If people are reminded of any history, they would know we are on a rapid path to the bottom and environmental destruction.

Divisiveness

The Culture War

Race

Religion

War on Drugs

Sex

Military/Industrial Complex

The US was the last advanced country standing after WW II. As a result, for a while, it became the leading supplier of product to the world and its currency became the most important. It was predictable that this status would not last in the long run. But its misguided concept of itself as exceptional or a superpower is no longer defensible, it has continued to fund the military at levels that exceed the rest of the world's combined. There is no credible risk to justify that magnitude of expense. Democracy will not be spread with guns and bombs, and it no longer exists in the U.S.

In short, the US has become an empire, it's President a strong-man head of State increasingly unaccountable, the Congress a quaint, (and corrupt) irrelevant appendage of dysfunctional government, and a foreign policy that mostly works at the point of a gun, its industry has migrated to low wage countries, its economy has visibly weakened, the currency is facing competition and corporate war profiteers are running the show, it is controlled by a corporate elite so by definition is fascist. We lost WWII.

Its government is corrupt. It has all but bankrupted itself. It no longer serves its people. (See the agenda) It is dysfunctional. Although it will maintain itself by force if necessary, its legitimacy is now questionable.

I’ve decided, contrary to popular opinion, that the Constitution is not working: the President can become a dictator, the Congress is paralyzed, the Supreme Court leans right. Right wing government is never good.

The Forecast is very bleak.

Reform may be possible, but is highly unlikely.

Follow the links to get an idea. Use feedback to comment or fill in the gaps.

Video

Broken Government, How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches, by John W. Dean.

Requiem For the American Dream (important: available on Netflix.)

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia

Bibliography

The Conspiracy to End America, Five Ways My Old Party is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy by Stuart Stevens

Democracy Awakening, Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson

End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin

The Bill of Obligations, The Ten Habits of Good Citizens by Richard Haass

OURS WAS THE SHINING FUTURE: The Story of the American Dream, by David Leonhardt

How Civil Wars Start By Barbara F. Walter

The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future by Stephan Marche

The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market by Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science, and Erik M. Conway

The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin

The Myth of American Exceptionalism by Godfrey Hodgson

After the Fall, Being American in the World We've Made by Ben Rhodes

The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy and the Decline of U.S. Primacy by Stephen M. Walt

Unmaking the presidency by Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes

America in Retreat, The Decline of US Leadership from WW2 to Covid-19 by Michael Pembroke

Shadow Network by Anne Nelson

Hiding in plain sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America, Sarah Kendzior

Dark Money: Jane Mayer

EVIL GENIUSES, The Unmaking of America: A Recent History By Kurt Andersen

The Land of Flickering Lights, Restoring America in an age of Broken Politics, Michael Bennet

Tailspin, The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall - and those fighting to reverse it: Steven Brill

10 Steps to Repair American Democracy: A More Perfect Union by Steven Hill

Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer

Upheaval, Turning Points for Nations in Crisis: Jared Diamond

The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II by John W. Dower Paperback – April 11, 2017

Perilous Partners: The Benefits and Pitfalls of America's Alliances with Authoritarian Regimes)

World Inequality Report 2018

America, the Farewell Tour: Chris Hedges

War on peace : the end of diplomacy and the decline of American influence. Ronan Farrow.

In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power: Alfred W. McCoy

Exceptional America, What Divides Americans from the World and from Each Other: Mugambi Jouet

Beyond the Age of Innocence, Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World: Kishore Mahbubani

Losing our way : an intimate portrait of a troubled America: Bob Herbert.

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It: Lawrence Lessig (links)

Manufacturing Hysteria: A History of Scapegoating, Surveillance, and Secrecy in Modern America: Jay Feldman

Wealth inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data: Emmanual Saez and Gabriel Zucman

Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism: Sheldon S. Wolin

Presidential Puppetry: Andrew Kreig

Thermonuclear Monarchy, Choosing Between Democracy and Doom Elaine Scarry

Failed States, Noam Chomsky

America Right or Wrong,An Anatomy of American Nationalism: by Anatol Lieven

The Age of Great Expectations and the Great Void, History After “the End of History”: Andrew Bacevich

Who Stole the American Dream: Hedrick Smith

Hostile Takeover, How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government - and How We Take It Back: David Sirota

Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It: Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman

National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear: David Rothkopf

Failed States: Noam Chomsky

Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America: Charles H. Ferguson

Overseas Interventions of the United States (Wikipedia)

Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United: Zeyphyr Teachout.

Thieves of State, Why Corruption Threatens Global Security: Sarah Chayes

While America Sleeps: Russ Feingold

Why Nations Fail: Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

This Town: Mark Liebovitch

The Betrayal of the American Dream: Donald L Barlett and James B. Steele

America, What Went Wrong: Donald Barlett and james B Steele

Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent: Edward Luce

Pity the Billionaire: Thomas Frank

Dream of a Nation: Tyson Miller

America Besieged: Michael Parenti

Ill Fares the Land: Tony Judt

Dark Ages America, the Final Phase of Empire: Morris Berman

Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War: Joe Bageant (an excerpt)

Who Rules the World ? Noam Chomsky

Anti-intellectualism in American Life: Richard Hofstadter.

Zero-Sum World: Gideon Rachman

Every Nation for Itself: Ian Bremmer

No One's World: Charles Kupchan

The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power: George Soros

100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World: John Tirman.

A People's History of American Empire: Howard Zinn

A Man Without A Country: Kurt Vonnegut

Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government: Robert Higgs (free on-line)

That Used To Be Us, How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Get It Back: Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

See Books for additional Bibliography