US Politics..., page-5

The threat to US democracy is certainly still real, these are some of the reasons:

Apart from the minority watched PBS there is no honest national broadcaster providing reliable and national and international news
Large part of the population relying on the pap fed to them by the 'for profit at any moral cost' Murdoch's Fox News and the like.
So giving rise to anti-intellectualism combined with mindless and pointlessly contadictory slogans gaining currency Pro Life?, Pro God?, Pro guns?.

No increase in 'real' wages for nearly 40years.
Decline in educational standards. Some questioning if it is still safe for children to go to school, with some NRA fools saying arm teachers.

Deliberate export of jobs by the likes of the recently defeated Perdue in Georgia. Destruction of trade by idiotic and random tariffs and protectionism.
Constant pressure to put short term profit for the tax benefited wealthy few before good commercial citizenship - e.g. Boeing's 737.

Most can't afford any health cover. Those who do have cover become fodder for bankruptcy in a most expensive and inefective health system.

Minimal and unreliable social security. Increasing poverty and declining living standards and a serious decrease in life expectancy.

Vast increase in casualisation of work force, previously reinforced by migration, most of the population now in the new Precariat.

Those sort of fractures in a heavily armed population with no tradition of social cohesion won't be welded quickly.

As John Keegan wrote in his book on the US Civil War - most Americans hadn't experienced government until conscription - and with the wealthy buying exemption from service in the Union army - that set a pattern for avoidance of the responsibility of civil governance and civic duties.

That harsh first exposure to the hand of government is the likely reason the US is the only industrialised country not to develop a socialist party of any size.

Little chance that the US will recover without a radical change in attitudes and political will.

The radical but honest AOC and the Squad with Bernie's followers may be the only hope.

Meanwhile, we should seek to support Kamala Harris who will need to be strong and lucky.