Yves here. This is yet another post that points to a real issue but uses it to keep Trump Derangement Syndrome upset at 11. Mind you, we think Trump’s power grabs and trampling of laws and institutions are horrific. And the lack of leadership (not just in government but across institutions), the widening political and social fissures, and breakdowns in routine operations on many fronts do merit the label of early state collapse.
But to act as if Trump the sole or main perpetrator of the loss of norms like respect for the rule of law, at least some gestures in the direction of fairness and concern for the welfare of the poor, the opportunity for social mobility, a desire for excellence in many fields of research, is nuts. Yours truly called the US a banana republic with nukes in 2007, before Paul Krugman independently took up that coinage.
Look at all of the signs of rot that well predate Trump: tolerance of open corruptions (payoffs to former Presidents, see Reagan’s Japan speech as a early example; insider trading by Congresscritters). Looting of the public purse on a mass scale via the global financial crisis resulting in bailouts, no punishment of the perps, no meaningful reforms, and little in the way of relief for ordinary citizens. The end of habeas corpus under Obama. Hands off treatment of pet parasites from the military-industrial-surveillance complex to student debt (witness how top US bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren never never never advocated for making student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy). The fall in educational attainment and literacy levels. The rise in deaths of despair, and now, even falling life expectancy.
And while Trump’s blunderbuss foreign policy moves, like noisemaking about annexing Greenland and Canada, are cringemaking, it’s not as if the US does not have a long history of soft acquisitions via regime changing, going back at least to Mohammed Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953. Trump is much more of a difference in degree than in kind.
So while monocausal explanations for complex phenomena like how rot in America took hold and evolved will always be unduly simplistic, neoliberalism does get you a fair bit of the way there, particularly in creating an oligarchy that does not care much about how the US fares as long as they get theirs. Another big accelerant was the the way the unipolar moment when the USSR fell went to our head and (among other things) looks to have gutted our ability to conduct at least passable foreign policy analysis and negotiations.
By Jesse MacKinnon, a high school history teacher running for Congress in California’s 10th District. He is challenging a sitting Democratic incumbent in the primary because of congressional Democrats’ unwillingness to meaningfully oppose the Trump administration. Originally published at Common Dreams
The United States has entered a phase that resembles the early stages of state failure. What once seemed impossible in a country with vast resources and robust democratic traditions now appears increasingly plausible.
The signs are evident. A government that has turned inward and become both self-protective and vindictive. An economy that is straining under a combination of political hubris and international estrangement. A population facing widening inequality and the fraying of social bonds. Historical examples of state collapse reveal that such trajectories, once set in motion, become difficult to reverse. For centrist Democrats who have long believed in the resilience of American institutions, it is essential to understand the historical precedents and the structural forces at play.
State failure is not typically marked by a single event. It is a process that begins with the corrosion of political legitimacy and ends in the disintegration of central authority. In the United States, this erosion of legitimacy can be seen in the deliberate politicization of the civil service and the Justice Department, the relentless attacks on the press and civil society, and the hollowing out of regulatory agencies through mass firings and loyalty tests. Historical parallels can be found in the final years of the Roman Republic, where the Senate’s inability to manage domestic discontent and external pressures created a vacuum for strongmen like Julius Caesar to exploit. In a more modern example, Weimar Germany’s democratic institutions were systematically undermined by the combined effects of economic crisis and political extremism, leading to the Nazi seizure of power.
The United States has survived grave challenges before, but its survival has always depended on a functioning state that could reconcile competing interests and adapt to new circumstances. Today, that state is being systematically dismantled.
Economically, the United States is facing a self-inflicted crisis. The decision to impose sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike has triggered a trade war that has cut the country off from vital imports and provoked retaliatory measures. The stock market crash of 2025 is a direct consequence of these policies. Historically, protectionism in the face of global integration has often led to economic collapse. Argentina in the 1940s under Juan Perón embraced similar trade isolation and industrial autarky, leading to decades of stagnation. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930, though a different context, was a catalyst for the downward spiral of the global economy in the Great Depression.
The military and security apparatus in the United States has also been turned inward. This is a hallmark of states on the brink of collapse. The administration’s decision to conduct loyalty tests for federal employees, to dismiss or sideline those deemed “insufficiently loyal,” and to demand public fealty to the president’s personal narrative mirrors the tactics employed by autocratic regimes throughout history. In the final years of the Soviet Union, a similar pattern emerged: The KGB was weaponized to target internal dissent as the economy faltered and the central government lost its grip on reality.
Domestically, the climate is one of deepening polarization and mounting distrust. The forced departure of civil servants, the targeting of universities and independent journalists, and the use of the Justice Department as an instrument of political retribution have weakened the structures that once mediated conflict and enabled compromise. In 1970s Chile, President Salvador Allende’s government was destabilized by economic sabotage and political violence. While the American situation is not identical, the deliberate undermining of democratic norms and the conflation of personal power with national interest are consistent with patterns seen in states that have tipped into authoritarian rule.
Internationally, the administration’s decision to pursue annexationist policies—expressed in rhetorical claims to Canada and Greenland and actual negotiations over resource extraction in Ukraine—has isolated the United States from its historical allies and weakened its standing in the world. Such expansionist fantasies do not typically succeed in a world defined by interdependence. They more often result in international sanctions, economic isolation, and domestic overreach. This was the fate of Benito Mussolini’s Italy when it attempted to carve out an empire in North Africa, only to find itself diplomatically and economically encircled.
The cumulative effect of these policies is a government that no longer serves as an impartial arbiter of competing interests but as a factional tool of the leader and his inner circle. The normal functions of governance—delivering basic services, maintaining order, managing foreign policy—are subsumed under the political imperative of loyalty and control. This is the point at which states enter the final stage of failure. In 1990s Yugoslavia, the central government’s failure to mediate ethnic and regional disputes led directly to the violent fragmentation of the state. In the American context, this dynamic is playing out along lines of political affiliation, class, and race. The militarization of border policy, the collective punishment of protest movements, and the repeated targeting of minority communities reveal a state that is no longer willing or able to accommodate the diversity of its population.
The question of when collapse occurs is not easily answered. Historical examples show that once a state has entered the spiral of delegitimization, economic contraction, and political repression, collapse can follow within a few years. The Soviet Union’s dissolution took less than three years from the final economic crisis of 1988 to the official end in 1991. Yugoslavia’s collapse began with constitutional disputes in the late 1980s and culminated in violent disintegration by the early 1990s.
The timeline for collapse in the United States is likely to be similarly short if current trends continue. The economy, already battered by tariffs and retaliatory measures, will see further contraction as foreign investment dries up and domestic confidence evaporates. Political violence, already simmering, will become more organized as the state’s capacity to maintain a monopoly on violence wanes.
For those who have long believed that the American system is immune to these forces, it is time to reconsider that assumption. The United States has survived grave challenges before, but its survival has always depended on a functioning state that could reconcile competing interests and adapt to new circumstances. Today, that state is being systematically dismantled. The institutions that once checked presidential power are being turned into instruments of that power. The economy, once buoyed by global integration, is being sacrificed to nationalist fantasies. The courts and the press, once the guardians of democratic accountability, are being brought to heel or driven into irrelevance.
There is still room to change course. Historically, states have a narrow window to reverse the downward spiral once it begins. In some cases, a determined opposition or a political realignment can restore legitimacy and rebuild the social contract. In others, collapse proceeds until the state is no longer recognizable and must be rebuilt from the rubble. The examples of Spain in the 1930s, where collapse was narrowly averted but civil war followed, and of Greece in the 1940s, where foreign intervention postponed state failure, show that external shocks and internal realignments can interrupt the cycle of collapse, though at a high human cost.
What lies ahead for the United States is not yet written in stone. But the pattern is clear and the examples from history are stark. State failure is not a single moment but a cascade of failures that begins with the corruption of political institutions and ends with the disintegration of social order. The evidence is already present in the hollowing out of the federal government, the weaponization of law enforcement, the trade isolation, and the embrace of expansionist policies that have no place in the modern world. If these trends are not reversed, the United States will become another entry in the long history of states that lost their way and collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions.
“There is still room to change course.”
What does a positive course change look like 5 – 30 years from now?
“There is still room to change course.” That is a laugher. IMO, we’ve entered the era of failed states. For one, it’s partly a consequence of the wealth gap running out of control. Throw in the three headed hydra of existential crisis, Nukes, Pandemics, and Climate Collapse. For the US, which has neglected/eliminated public infrastructure and has a pollution habit that should have been addressed many years ago, and it begins to look like societal collapse.
I’m stumped at what a positive course change would look like. Pretty sure we missed the exit already. Pretty sure global collaboration would be required, and that’s the biggest laugher of all.
None of the examples were empires, and they follow a different logic from small, ethnically homogeneous states. Note that his example of Spain led to a civil war. Very reassuring (/snark) if that is a positive example.
To change course, the way power (and thus policy) follows money would need to change, but of course, power has money that it uses to prevent change.
As has been said, if peaceful change is impossible, revolution (and civil war) is inevitable.
The guy is running for political office; of course hopium is a given in such an essay. “We’re doomed…vote for me”; he’ll be keeping his teaching gig.
>What does a positive course change look like 5 – 30 years from now?
Step one is an “isolationist” USA, no entanglement with anyone. But the I-word is so taboo (because media and “elites” label every rogue foreign leader as the next Adolph H-man); and because the I-word = cutting off Israeli MIC aid.
If the electorate can’t even get to step 1, we won’t even see step 2…we’re going to slam into the brick wall at 88 mph.
No slamming into a brick wall at 88mph in my opinion. The collapse, as big events usually are, will be more like bankruptcy, slowly and then all at once. To paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith, geopolitics vouchsafes us few dramatic turning points.
Over the next thirty years or so, USS America will lumber from iceberg to iceberg, colliding with them and taking on water but managing to stay afloat. Meanwhile passengers will mutiny: Those from blue states will agitate for a change of crew or jump ship completely (risking civil war) while steerage peons will make attempts on the lives of said crew. Punishments for such attempts will be swift, cruel, and public—but to no avail. USS America, once the pride of her people and of the world, will sink beneath the waves forever, taking many with her.
Usually, long term predictions are difficult. This one is easy. Historical precedents of empires falling are many, and remember, the intelligentsia in 1700s France was smelling revolution in the air forty years before the fall of the Bastille.
I am not alone in predicting America’s fall. From my reading, it seems I am in good company. So the only question now is, When?
If by the grace of God we are gifted thirty years I’d wager most of that will be in some sort of regional feudalism aided by being a “nation” in isolation.
Yves’s devastating critique at the top was a great read. But I’m surprised that article didn’t put you back to sleep, RvW. ;)
“There is still room to change course”, said Captain Edward John Smith.
Perhaps someone with better knowledge of the end of the Roman Republic can chime in, but I think that then, as now, the Senate’s reaction to a difficult situation was to increasingly step aside and cede their authority to the emperor.
Perhaps the primary reason for the collapse of the Roman Republic was previous century of increasing criminality, violence, and sheer carnage that led to the ending of most of the ruling elite along with most of the manpower for the armies of the various factions. People just wanted the fighting and the chaos to end.
And the Roman Republic had been a kleptocratic usurious plutocracy (and look at a map of the 2nd century Mediterranean–it had long been an empire in fact) quite awhile before its transformation into official empire. And it murdered its reformers.
I just finished reading “The Storm Before The Storm” by Mike Duncan. If you’re looking for “someone with better knowledge”, then I highly recommend Mike Duncan.
I would also recommend another Mike – Parenti’s “A People’s History of Ancient Rome” is excellent and really drives home the greed and cruelty of the Roman oligarchy and their opposition to all reform and badly needed wealth and land distribution. The “strongmen” weren’t really that different from the optimate Senators that murdered reformers and opponents in broad daylight.
It depends on how far before Julius Caesar you want to go, but in the late 2nd century BC, the Roman elites didn’t step aside at all, and their response to the Gracchi brothers’ attempts at reform and redistributing wealth was to murder them and their supporters and throw their bodies into the river.
I 2nd JCC’s book recommendation – an excellent source.
I 3rd that recommendation; I hadn’t realized just how horrid the Roman Republic was. Not really an exemplar for modeling your democratic system on, if you want democracy. Although Rome’s foreign adventurism is one that must make Washington wet themselves with admiration.
And Caesar was, politically and, I think, literally, too, a descendant of the Gracchi. His enemies and rivals were the leaders of the Roman elite, partisans of Sulla and so forth. Elite fears of a Caesar makes me wonder who their Roman predecesdors were.
I’m sure this is a simplification, but I always think of the crucial aspect in the fall of the Republic was the creation of armies that were loyal to their generals over and above the state itself. Absent that — and I don’t think I’ve seen it, I get the impression our generals are as useless as anyone else in power — I don’t know how far those parallels will get you. But then, I haven’t read that Mike Duncan book either.
Robert Harris’ trilogy, Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator, gives a pretty good impression of what life was like at the time of the collapse of the Republic. Incidentally, he quite explicitly relates it to the collapse of the US, especially after 9/11.
“But to act as if Trump the sole or main perpetrator of the loss of norms like respect for the rule of law, at least some gestures in the direction of fairness and concern for the welfare of the poor, the opportunity for social mobility, a desire for excellence in many fields of research, is nuts.”
Thank you for this. I get frustrated that so many people seem to think that if we just replaced Trump or vote for Democrats that the problem will be solved. As for the article:
” this erosion of legitimacy can be seen in the deliberate politicization of the civil service and the Justice Department, the relentless attacks on the press and civil society […] [emphasis added].
So far (but give it time) the use of the Justice Department to go after enemies was directed at Trump by Biden, and I have not yet seen Trump do the same. This shows the author is already out in la la land. The other thing I see is a glorious lack of exactly what the author intends to do about this if elected. I think this plays into what I said above about too many people thinking that replacing Trump or electing Democrats to power will magically make things OK again. I need only recall the record of the Biden administration to know that this is complete nonsense.
Every journey begins with the first step. One well-meaning Congressional representative will accomplish very little, but perhaps the author, if elected to Congress, can begin a groundswell to demand and then implement meaningful change. It is a very tall order, no doubt.
And it does seem that newly elected can quickly fall in line (AOC).
There are a few exceptions, such as Supreme Court Justice David Souter, who became more liberal as time passed.
But the young Vietnam War protester John Kerry morphed into a war supporting politician/statesman,
The money in USA politics helps retain the status quo.
Electing this high school history teacher, or even a slew of others like him, seems unlikely to effect change.
It may take a serious economic crisis that hits the PMC hard before real change occurs.
The person who wrote this essay is a Dem, running to replace a Dem, because the sitting Dem isn’t making any real effort to “oppose Trump.” That means nothing will change, because the Dem Party is part of problem. This is getting old. I get fund-raising emails from the Dems and their apparatchiks, and I can tell you they stand for nothing. A good test is to ask two questions: “Are you against the Genocide?” (Watch them squirm on that one.) And, “Are you for Med4All?” Simple “yes” or “no” answers will very likely not be forthcoming.
Heh, so you’re saying Democrats won’t admit to whether they possess a functioning moral compass or not? Fun times!
Just to pile on to the Dem bashing, if there was a moment when “there is still time to change course” that moment passed with Barack Obama. Elected in the fallout from a spectacular neoliberal economic failure and from a spectacular neoconservative foreign policy failure, Obama was elected with a Senate and House majority and a country more than ready for Hope and Change. Instead Obama doubled down on neoliberalism by rewarding the crooked banksters and expanded our wasteful and murderous wars in the Middle East. Millions of foreclosures, millions of dead, and tens of millions of refugees later, any hope for change was completely lost.
But Obama’s work wasn’t done. He ensured the Democratic Party would remain a guardian against progressives by nixing Keith Ellison’s chance at leading the DNC, and later making sure Bernie Sanders learned to mind his manners if he was to remain in politics.
Obama had his crisis and his opportunity to save us from disaster. Instead he made his pact with the devil and the country has been on a fast track to destruction ever since.
A play could be written where Obama stands up to and jails the banksters/becomes a real champion for everyman, and where we would be now. Lots of storylines from that.
If I remember correctly, in 2008 Obama received more Wall St money than any candidate up to that time.
Given that fact, I’d say he accomplished the job he was hired to do.
That he helped pave the way for Trump is icing on the gravy for the Overclass.
Given that the author is addressing “centrist democrats,” I wouldn’t expect much of a statement of intentions. He probably believes in the “magical nonsense,” or at least enough to get elected, which looks like his ultimate goal.
I totally agree. Did he even explain how Trump got elected twice?
And he tries out the tired liberal whining about turning inward instead of embracing international trade. As if Americans are just a bunch of ignorant hicks who are afraid to try the sushi
If that’s all he’s got then he’s not worth the time of day
All that, plus the 2025 stock market crash the author mentions must be the shortest on record. Not that I believe that the DJIA is the measure of all things, and yes, there are lots of financial shenanigans done to keep stock values artificially inflated, but the market is up for the year. I don’t check my 401K much, and didn’t at all around the time of the “crash”, but when I checked a couple days ago at the insistence of mt better half, I was rather amazed at how high it had climbed.
Hard to take people seriously for whom Trump is the cynosure of all things, for better or worse.
There is still room to change course. Historically, states have a narrow window to reverse the downward spiral once it begins. In some cases, a determined opposition or a political realignment can restore legitimacy and rebuild the social contract. In others, collapse proceeds until the state is no longer recognizable and must be rebuilt from the rubble.
This certainly applies to obama in 2008
Please do not think this a rude post, but that’s a headline that begs for a one word grunt. Duh!
Maybe, but the vast majority of ‘merkans out there that I talk to either blindly believe every lie the Orange Conman says, or they think that a “blue wave” will come in the next election and our problems will vanish. The discourse dictatorship reinforces the “divide and distract” rule every single day. Even some very informed and intelligent people WANTED to believe the DT’s transparent BS.
To be crude: the oligarchy have the plebs fighting among themselves while they loot, pillage and destroy the place. It looks like they know the jig is up, the kleptocracy and asset-stripping is shifting into high gear.
I don’t know if the number of refugees can also be used as an indicator of the process of state failure but here in Portugal the number of US immigrants leaving the USA not because of economic reasons but in search of a better/safer place to live just keeps on increasing. They are mostly refugees with money that don’t sea a safe future in the USA in the present and near future.
for my money, you’re not getting the cream of the crop, rather those are primarily people who cashed in on the policies of the current century and are running from any responsibility for it, like the sprinter segment of the van lifers, a fully fitted version of which costs an awful lot.
No arguments there, just wonder if the change over the years can be seen as an indicator.
Thank you, both.
I would say that this is generally, but not always, the case in Mauritius. It also applies to the Europeans coming.
It’s more mixed with / from Latin and Slavic Europe.
Let’s see…Roman republic: Rome continued to dominate the world for hundreds of years. USSR: Russia now reborn and winning a vicious conflict in Ukraine. The US itself
The United States has survived grave challenges before, but its survival has always depended on a functioning state that could reconcile competing interests and adapt to new circumstances.
Actually it depended on the tremendous violence of the Civil War and yet our Phoenix also rose from the ashes. So here’s suggesting the pearl clutching premise is wrong. History is a cycle, not Armageddon. As the intro says the Dem opposition depend on hyperbole to fuel their lesser evil argument and justify evil that is at least lesser. It’s the collapse of their branch of the elites they really fear. The rest of us are just bit players.
For all of our problems this is still a very wealthy country and a long way from another Great Depression. The historic moment that has really arrived is our ability to destroy the planet itself. This should concentrate the mind.
Wealthy? Who controls all the consolidated and accumulated wealth?
Yeah, but for millions, it is a LONG-TERM Great Depression. Just because we might be relatively financially secure, does not mean the majority of ‘merkans are. Look at the declining health outcomes, declining living standards, skyrocketing consumer debt etc.
To some, your comment might appear smug, callous, or even tinged with a bit of Schadenfreude.
But then again, that is part of American culture. “I got mine Jack, keep your hands off of my stack”, “If you aint rich in “merka, you are stupid, lazy or both”
My parents came along during the actual Great Depression so I do know something about it–maybe more than you.
And while I’m not poor myself you’d be surprised how un-wealthy my lifestyle is. On the other hand I’m surrounded by people in this town who are upper middle class and clearly not hurting. It’s not just the billionaires who are still doing well.
And there are people in this town who are not of that category and yet they have things like Social Security and Medicare to keep them going. Those who think revolution is around the corner don’t understand that the bulk of the country will have to be a lot more desperate for that to happen. Even during the Great Depression we didn’t have one.
You came close in the Great Depression. Who knows what would have happened with FDR and the New Deal.
And you very narrowly missed a coup, if not a revolution, against FDR with Smedley Butler….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
The Great Depression ushered in Rooseveltian reforms that was, if I may say so, quite revolutionary.
Don’t take it personal, it’s US culture.
More than me? You have no idea and you miss the point, this aint about you or me.
Anecdotes are fine, but look at the national statistics, even look at the FRED stats.
I never said anything about a revolution. I’m glad everything is peachy where you live.
Neither France nor Russia was in desperate straits when their revioutions took place. Quite the contrary, life was quite comfortable for the population middle and up (this was definitelybtrue for Russia in 1905 and the war and the home front were not going too badly even in 1917. What did happen were that their political and docial institutions lost credibility, vultures were circling around for opprtunity to disrupt politics and seize power, and violent disturbances among the relatively small segments of the populations gave them the opportunity to be exploited. The first two steps may already have taken place here.
Neither France nor Russia was in desperate straits when their revioutions took place.
Err, what? France was massively in debt, partly as a result of its support of the rebels in North America, and at the time of the march on Versailles was in the midst of one of its periodic famines.
Russia was fairly unstable since the Russio_Japanese War of 1904–1905 which had resulted in some semblance of a constitutional monarchy, the country was laced with various revolutionary or reform movements, and by 1917 had taken horrible losses in the war. I’m not sure about the food situation.
If not in desperate straits, neither country was in anything like good shape.
The March 1917 revolution was caused by bread riots in Petrograd.
I can´t judge local pecularities but I agree on the big picture re: “revolution”.
The level of desperation and how far it´s spread is indeed important.
This is it not the first time cars are burning and people take to the streets for a good cause against law enforcement and armed men.
Did Chicago 68 end in a revolution…
Of course one can – or actually should – argue over the use of the term “revolution” (as Lovell points out).
It might help to not look at only the grand scheme.
The big changes are usually in the day-to-day fights which are overlooked. And there a lot positive can happen – whether or not the flag over government buildings is replaced.
One of the most effective ways of elites to destroy hope is by always only categorizing in big terms.
It´s either everything or nothing. It´s revolution or dictatorship. It´s either downfall or glory.
That´s bullshit.
It just leaves people inactive since they are so overwhelmed by the scale that they see no sense it doing anything since that little wouldn´t matter.
That´s the devil´s trick.
Lets not fall for it. In either case, revolution and demise of nations.
p.s. In fact the way historic scholarship is designed it automatically overwhelms readers and eclipses hope to be able to achieve anything. It´s a secret ally of elites. Which is why they so much like to control and quote it.
Carolinian is quite right and doesn’t strike me as smug.
We are NOT libs here, so our smugness rating is basically nil.
Thanks. My comment further down was intended as a reply to this but skynet burped. But to (I hope) make my point more clearly, yes I agree that those past empires had a lot of power way past the point a lot of historians claim they “fell”. The UK was exhausted by WW2 and within a decade or so had become just an island off mainland Europe. Yet its “soft power” was argubly only lost in the last 10 years.
Whether via “institutional norms” or “soft power”, I agree that “failed or breaking” Empires can punch above their weight long after any apparent major diminution of them as an Empire/country (unless they get Carthaged).
The thing that puzzles me about the USA is that the soft power is eroding daily: is this an exception to the rule (American Exceptionalism at work) that soft power/norms are the last things to go? Or has the internal erosion of the state that has been going on for 40 years that Yves refers to disguised that the USA has already failed and it’s following the traditional path of decline, just not in quite the same way as previous empires? In other words, the loss of soft power might (IMHO), as in other examples, be an indicator that the fat lady has been singing already. However, I offer no firm opinion either way.
I’ve long resisted giddy expectations of revolution, but time travels faster in 2025. It used to happen at the speed of the pony express; much of it now happens at the speed of electrons.
Who needs soft power when you have the hard power of the US military – the greatest military in the history of the world. Their words, not mine.
Great is a vague term.
For this US military a more accurate, maybe reflecting root cause, term is most “expensive” military in the world in terms of vast profit to the money launderers versus security+ to the ignored masses needing defense from them.
+Poking the nuclear armed bear!
“History is a cycle, not Armageddon.”
First of all, you’re not smug, Carolinian. I’m poor myself materially, and I can empathize with Johnny’s sensitivity in a society as fixated on one-who-dies-with-the-most-toys-wins culture. One feels out of place.
But I did want to tease you about your claim that history was cyclical, not teleological. Personally, I think it wanders. And your closing remark, which I loudly second, does seem a bit telelogical, for the human race at least.
Spain in the 1930s and Greece in the 1940s are the “hopeful” counterexamples where state collapse was averted!? Yikes. What exactly is this guy’s worldview?
This glib phrase worries me: “The economy, once buoyed by global integration, is being sacrificed to nationalist fantasies.” As Yves indicates in her brief but able introduction, there are a lot of ways to unpack the reality of how we got here, but how would MacKinnon unpack “buoy” or “nationalist” or “fantasy”? There may not be enough to criticize, but there is plenty to feed doubt and worry about where the author is headed.
That was quite the handwave. Greece in the 40s was fighting a civil war and any foreign intervention was to keep the communists from winning. It succeeded. Then a couple decades later, lest those filthy commies get any ideas again, the US helped with a military junta that imposed martial law for several years, a feature of which was people being snatched from the streets.
This guy’s worldview is firmly capitalist, and that is what will cause this country’s undoing, not the carnival barker temporarily and nominally in charge.
Side note: I met quite a few long lost relatives and their friends on my latest trip to Greece. It became pretty clear after talking a little politics that most of them had pretty strong communist leanings, which I found refreshing after all the Western sponsored repression in Greece over the years. One woman I met was a former student of Varoufakis and she thought he was a bit too bougie and not nearly leftist enough for her tastes.
Alexander Mercouris, who strikes mamy Americans here as rather “conservative,” is the son of a political refugee from one of those regimes in Greece. You didn’t need to be a commie to run afoul of those colonels.
The legacy of that brutal civil war is still coming to light. Just yesterday I read how they found bodies of executed prisoners under a public park near Thessaloniki-
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/bodies-executed-civil-war-era-prisoners-uncovered-greek-122615080
Excuse my english, tried to translate this quote from Greek:
“The Civil War never ended because the blood never goes away, and whatever they say, is invested under all the current controversies on all other issues.”
– Renos Apostolidis.
Renos was a prolific writer who documented the civil war while doing his service in the Greek army . He swore not to fire a single bullet and only to document what was going on. He published a book after that, called Pyramid 67. This one is on my reading list for the summer.
Unimpressed. The words “capitalism”, “socialism”, “billionaire” or “[trade] union” do not appear. “Oligarch” only appears in Yves’ intro. Challenging Trumpism or the path to a failed state without noticing the elephants in the room is analogous to the democrats’ campaign of “we ain’t Trump”. Primarying geriatric or Blue dog democrats without identifying the economic roots of the rot is like campaigning with the slogan “we ain’t Chuck” or “we ain’t Nancy”.
Also the dissolution of the USSR or Yugoslavia had extreme ethnic and nationalist components based on geographic and demographics circumstances that simply don’t exist in the US. While there are cultural differences, there are no Quebecs or Ukraines in the US.
Trump is a demon. But blue state and city elites are also profoundly corrupt and self serving. The rot is far deeper and pervasive than Trump.
The oligarchs and plutocrats have amassed vast wealth and power, but their numbers are small. The middle and upper middle classes determine the fate of the nation ultimately, even as they are shrinking. Things have gotten as bad as they have because the middle classes has been mostly sitting on their thumbs and enjoying their middle class lifestyles even as things begin crumbling around them. For the American middle class things really aren’t that bad. They have a single family house, a nice car or two, some have vacation homes, they and their kids are well fed, and so on. The status quo is fine and they have no desire to rock the boat in any meaningful way.
“There are not many of the Shing.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Illusions
As is so often the case, Yves Smith’s headnote sums up the situation while offering insights that the author of the article itself is skirting. To wit: “Another big accelerant was the the way the unipolar moment when the USSR fell went to our head and (among other things) looks to have gutted our ability to conduct at least passable foreign policy analysis and negotiations.”
Like so many USonions, the author does moderately well, so long as economic / class analysis isn’t required. Why, one would become a flaming Marxist!
The analysis of the Mediterranean world, as ever, as flawed. The Italians weren’t detached from the “encircled” empire until 1943 and 1944, once the fascist regime had been overthrown and civil war broke out in most of Italy north of Rome. It was only then that Eritrea went to Ethiopia, Libya was thoroughly overrun by the Allies, and Somalia went to the British.
Yugoslavia is not a good test case: The destruction was pushed to serve German and U.S. interests. In fact, one might say that Yugoslavia is what happens as Germany decides that it is once again a world power. There have been dozens of articles here in Italy on what happened in Yugoslavia — in hindsight, Italians think that a united Yugoslavia would have served as a stabilizing influence. What Yugoslavia ended up as is one or three ethnic states that may be viable, and several others still in search of meaning. With some help from Bill Clinton in need of better poll numbers, NATO in search of a mission, and the willingness of northern European states like Germany to bomb the Irrational Slavs.
Greece in the 1940s? “Foreign intervention postponed state failure”? Or the Truman Doctrine meant war on the communists and partisans? Hmmm.
McKinnon is forthright, and I’ll give credit for that. Most Democrats are still hiding from problems.
Yet McKinnon also avoids the horrors war coming home, which is a result of the citation of Yves Smith I give just above. Or to use the deck from Spencer Ackerman’s “Boomerang Empire” in this morning’s Links:
As police and the National Guard escalate against anti-ICE protesters, the Department of Homeland Security bridges US violence abroad and US violence at home.
I think the collective West is getting itself ready for the dustbin of history.
I agree. The West has sacrificed its lead in many fronts in order for the red line to go up. Now it thinks it can control its citizens by pointing its mass surveillance state inwards as their standards of living decrease. The gig is up.
I don’t disagree but a major element of soft power and influence has gone. I looked up the top health economics/health services research/research tech global conferences that I used to attend.
The “flagship” in person USA annual/2-yearly conferences are either gone, or now mixed in person/online. This is NOT COVID. After the early COVID pandemic “online only” period, the in person conferences re-appeared for a while.
The 2025 keynote in person speakers at the one organisation conference that the USA health establishment likes most are all Canadian/US. (I’m wondering if those Canadians are dual nationals with USA?) The rest of the world has already decided they’re not going to the 2025 conferences held in USA. The European and Asian “little brother” conferences of these organisations meanwhile are where people are going. It is going to be a LONG time before a non-US resident with health datasets to present is going to even think about entering the USA. Worries about immigration making you reveal data were emerging pre Trump 2.0 but now a tipping point has been reached.
This is a good point. I am doing some biotech business development consulting and I am very reluctant to attend conferences in the US, even the biggest of them all, Bio.
I am not worried about data security. I am worried about placing myself in the hands of the Customs and Border forces, Homeland security etc. as a non-US citizen. I do not feel the rule of law protects me. Perhaps the rule of rich and white but not the rule of law.
I may yet have to attend but luckily all of the most likely licensees are in Europe so I can attend the European conferences.
I also feel this way about going to the UK under Starmer. I didn’t feel this under the previous tories.
Thanks. It is useful to get such a perspective. I totally agree that Starmer’s whole immigration thing is getting very worrying. However, the rot definitely started under the Tories. When I had to renew my UK passport under the Tories when they started getting going on anybody who might have an exit strategy and who wasn’t a millionaire, they insisted (though IIRC they have no rights under UK law) to physically see my Australian passport.
There was no way I was sending both passports through the post, registered or not. I spent £100 on a day return train ticket to the passport office to ensure that my Aussie passport never left my hands and they could just look at it, with my thumb placed strategically over part of a number.
It was at that point that I realised the Tories were not above breaking international law and revoking citizenship. Then they did it to the stupid girls who joined ISIS but had NO other citizenship to fall back on.
The simplest test of your sense of personal security is to ask yourself which countries do you think can do you the most harm if they possess your personal data: Russia, China, the UK or the USA?
I think that your ‘there’s still time’ graph might be amended to say that there may be time for the ruling class to course-correct and continue to lurch along. But our institutional and economic failures are part of a global triple or quadruple crisis parts of which–nature’s part–cannot be fixed now. We’re in the midst of a mass planetary die-off of species and cultures/erasure of knowledge, and by the 40s or so (Wallace-Wells’s The Uninhabitable Earth has to be taken on board to understand the scale and scope, IMO) places like North India are going to be experiencing calamitous flooding and some countries under water. The retreat into superstition, the crazy response to Covid, even the denial (the suburban liberal response) all owe at least in part to the fact that the human animal is panicking. It’s the ninth inning, and nature bats last; our institutions, in pretty Althusserian fashion (as I read him long ago) work to preserve themselves, not to guide useful change. IMO it may be more useful now to be focusing on local mutual aid efforts, food sovereignty. One-third of our vegetables come from CA. Not just our inner cities but the entire country is in many ways a food desert. We grow one percent of what we eat in the county where I live. The bad food/malboeuf stops coming and we are upgefuckt.
Just to add
We could start much earlier and it would take books, but the institutionalized rot and corruption has a long history. An off the top of the head summary:
COINTELPRO (FBI abuse of power, no one held to account)
Nixon/Kissinger carpet bomb SE Asia without informing Congress (nothing done, Nixon was threatened with impeachment on a relatively minor, unrelated issue)
Bush Jr./Cheney: willfully lied to Congress and the US people about matters of national security, resulting in the destruction of entire countries, thousands of US military killed/wounded, untold civilians killed, and looting the Treasury of trillions
The “largest financial crimes in US history, by orders of magnitude” (prof. W.K. Black) The notorious “Too Big To Fail Era” The financial oligarchy is deemed above the law by the USAG. No one held to account, millions lost homes in fraudulent foreclosures etc.
SCOTUS decision on the Citizens United case formalizes and institutionalizes unlimited political bribery. Democracy Inc. becomes a laughingstock but few noticed. Better to remain in denial and pretend we can “vote” for “change”.
and more recently: the Genocide of Palestine. Congress, almost to a person, supports violating its own laws (AECA etc.) to gift another country tens of billions in order to commit genocide. (while the US has no health care system)
Just a few of the biggies, I’m sure more books will be written about it in future
Obama refusing to pursue indictments against extraordinary renditions and crimes at Gitmo comes to mind – I guess we now know what he meant by “looking forward, not backward” – especially in view of people currently being sent to El Salvador and other choice locations…
“ In 1970s Chile, President Salvador Allende’s government was destabilized by economic sabotage and political violence.”
The passive voice here gives the game away. The main difference between what is happening here and what happened most everywhere else is that there is no US embassy in DC coordinating the collapse. The road to hell since WW2 has just been US foreign policy. What we are seeing here really is the disintegration of a system rather than exterior forces collapsing it.
The transition from industrial capitalism to wide acceptance of neoliberal financialised military Keynesian capitalism, as Hudson has extolled, is the cause of the failing of the USA which is shown by what we have observed at an accelerating rate. Nearly there! Specifying the structure determines the behaviour (go along to get along) as a study of the dynamics of the system will reveal.
Surprised to see Naked Capitalism going with such a blatant violation of Betteridge’s Law
Might want to read the intro from Yves. It’s from Common Dreams, an outlet that primarily caters to the “liberal” crowd and helps to “sheepdog” the disgruntled D faithful back into supporting a “blue wave” in the next “election”.
(aka supporting the partisan status-quo)
Yves’ intro to this piece is just what I was looking for this morning. My sister was very concerned, asking for my opinion of Trump’s current tyrannical crackdown in LA. So I sent this to her.
I also mentioned how convenient it is that Palantir stands ready to identify the rioters, as Laura Loomer is advocating.
Haha!
Me too!
(though I dont´t know if they´ll all get the light vernacular)
p.s. another handy summary of sorts for further use to try convice family members – on RU/UKR – was this one by Yves from June 4th in the Rob Urie thread:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06/rob-urie-what-do-the-western-drone-attacks-mean-for-us-russia-relations.html#comment-4225068
“(…)
1. The claim of 1990s resentment is false. Russia has had a 5x per capita increase in GDP under Putin. Resentment would be operative only if Russia were in poor shape economically.
Putin invaded to force Ukraine to the negotiating table, which worked, see the Istanbul draft agreement, which would have preserved territorial Ukraine. It was the West that broke that up. Russia under Putin has been trying hard to integrate more with the West. It was the revelation of the duplicity over the Minsk accords and the vicious rejection of Russian culture after the SMO started that finally made him and nearly all Russians give up on that.
2. Russia CORRECTLY regards this war as existential. What would the US do if Mexico, with Chinese support, started persecuting English-speakers, had to take 1 million refugees from a civil war, and had China arming and training a very large anti-US army in Mexico? Oh, and had China regularly taking about the need to regime change the US and even break it up?
(…)”
Just add to that some official sources for the statements and you can use in various ways for all kinds of discussion. (Considering that many folks believe official sources are saint and devine by nature by which one would also address the biggest issue of our current age of media workers/journalists – that officialdom equals truth.)
Thanks for that. I’ve come to realize that there are a large swathe of good progressives over whom Amy Goodman has the same sway as MSNBC does for mainstream dems. The old cultural habits form a very reason repellant barrier.
See how Bernie still has huge rallies, even while his goons drag out those daring to waive a Palestine flag
Not a party member nor supporter, I speak with die-hards in each wing and all of them, every last one, agree that we must get the money out of politics.
It’s a first step, a big one, but one that crosses party-lines and one that I believe the vast majority of Americans would support.
“By Jesse MacKinnon, a high school history teacher running for Congress in California’s 10th District.”
I wonder what he teaches. Presumably not history.
The term “failed state” fell out of the international lexicon a decade or so ago because it was thought to be patronising and neo-colonial. These days we say “fragile state,” or even “situations of fragility.” Even then, there’s a fundamental confusion over whether we mean “state” in the sense of “nation”, or “state” in the sense of the administrative apparatus supporting the government. As usual, this article talks about both at the same time.
A “failed state” in the first sense would mean that the US was threatened with breaking up as a country. I’m no expert, but I can’t see how this would happen. Examples of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are not relevant, since they were federations of republics with massive internal tensions, and with clear distinctions between rich and poor regions. The Croats and Slovenes also had Catholic-solidarity political and economic support from Austria and Germany. It’s hard to see how this would map onto the US.
A “failed state” in the second case would mean that the state was no longer able to provide essential services to the population: security, health, education, and could no longer function as a cohesive entity. I leave the natives among you to think about that.
But as far as I can see “failed state” in this case just means “I don’t like what’s going on.”
The armed “natives are getting restless” though.
From where I sit in the US, the state (or rather the private sector) is no longer able to provide adequate health services, adequate education, and the basic transportation and electricity infrastructure in a notorious state of disrepair. But, the “binmen” do come and collect the rubbish still. My wife says it might be time to flee the country once the garbage service stops, maybe that’s a good indication. Or maybe that will be too late.
If California begins to make moves to secede from the union, things will unravel fast. I’m hoping it will happen soon.
In 1860, many states did try to break away, and in the modern south, this is remembered somewhat fondly. Where there’s precedent and memory, there’s risk of recursion. Of course, there was a war to prevent the secession, meaning there was enough militant desire to preserve the union and defeat the slave oligarchy that the people–not without some protest in the north–were willing to fight and die for it.
Let’s say something similar happens in the near-term. The state or states breaking away would not be tainted by slavery’s odium nor would they be united by it. So I imagine we’re talking only the most viable states–Texas, for instance. Texas even has its own power grid. If Texas broke away, the question is: would people in the other states fight and die to keep it from doing so?
Do Americans today care about the union? Most Americans I know despise their government and invariably root for underdogs. I honestly doubt anyone would want to go kill thousands of Texans to prevent them from becoming independent.
So while the risk of this happening is generally low–not zero, given American history–I do think the likelihood of a successful secession is higher in the near-term than in 1860, were a state like Texas to make a serious break for it.
Sacre Bleu! It was foreign intervention which led to the very long, destructive 3-year civil war, in which the USA wanted to test their napalm bombs…
When younger, watching the ‘oaters’ on TV, the heroic cowboys wished to die with their boots on. The US is not yet a ‘failed state’, but it is one that is definetely deteroirating , but not yet in the morgue. In the interim, the US has a powerful military industrial complex, a concentration of wealth and power in a small number of oligarchs, and a deranged POTUS who considers “l’etat, c’est moi.” Revolutions often encounter counter revolutions, but how will the US evolve as it limps along as a crippled state. Half the population doesn’t seem to object to authoritarian rule, the other half has no historical conciouness, no organization, no platform, no courage, and no spokesmen. This condition could last for scores of years, if not hundreds, before this strange creature collapses on itself, as it miserably decays.
And for the USA to continue to move the way it does in the world, shows an abjectness of leadership across the globe – as much as people hope for better that will benefit the masses.
“What lies ahead for the United States is not yet written in stone.”
Yet, to me, the entire situation within the US seems extremely complex, puzzling, and full of delicious contradictions.
For example, Musa Al-Gharbi, in his recent essay “The Cultural Contradictions of the Anti-Woke,” made some insightful comments about the now prominent conservative critic Christopher Rufo (who I do agree with on some issues).
“…Rufo has come to view liberalism (of the classical variety) as a luxury that cannot be afforded at present. Somewhat paradoxically, he argues that conservatives should worry less about roles, norms, traditions, decorum, civility, or honesty and more with seizing and wielding power. Winning is what matters–dominating institutions and vanquishing your opponent.”
Does this Rufo 2025 sentiment not have a failed New Left ring of the 1960s to it?
Al-Gharbi, in the same essay, then goes own to directly address most of us symbolic left capitalists here at NC:
“From the beginning of the symbolic professions, our bids for power, status, and opportunity have been tied to claims about social justice…the high compensation, autonomy and prestige these professions enjoy has, from the outset, been intimately bound up with claims towards altruism, serving the common good and uplifting the “least among us.”
At the conclusion of his essay Al-Gharbi then returns to his critique of right-wing anti-woke radicals with
the comment:
“The anti-woke rely on Awokenings in order to make themselves relevant and many of the actions currently being undertaken in the name of preventing the next Great Awokemning may help hasten it instead.”
Yes, and I don’t think we are far from the end of this long and twisted road.
What do we even collectively stand for as a country @ present?
I expect collapse to be of the rather all of the sudden variety, but timing remains murky-stay tuned!
Thank you Mr. MacKinnon for stepping up and challenging the incumbent Democrat in your district. As we have seen over the past 50 years, voting blue no matter who does not work. There are some good Democrats out there, but Democratic leadership is utterly corrupt and owned by the oligarchy. Notice the utter silence from Obama, the Clintons, Pelosi, Schumer, etc. over the incompetent and unconstitutional actions of Trump and the Republicans. This shows how much in agreement they are with Trumpism. The only change they’re looking to make is one that involves them taking charge of a slightly less tyrannical system. We need more Jesse MacKinnons stepping up to clear out about 2/3 of elected Democrats that are a big part of the problem.
No Kings Day March on Saturday, Junes 14, in a town near you.
Unless one will be attending Trumps DC-based military P-raid.
The Big Papi has a competing DC confab, even selling tickets! Monetize It! ™.
Interesting times- keep a whether weather eye on LA LA Land Saturday night!
What was that Naomi Klein title— Shock Doctrine ?
well,lol….i suppose it really depends upon one’s life experience(and income/wealth).
from my perspective..informed by my country essentially making war upon me since i was 16(as ive alluded to and talked about here at NC for years), i reckon ive been living in a failed state since that time(i’ll be 56 in september).
my brother, otoh, never had my problems with authority, etc…and was able to muddle through college and land a corp(se) job…and to him, everything is fine….except that 300k per annum just aint enough, these days.
for him, the problems began with trump.
but i have noticed…even way out here in this far place…that as the rot creeps up the social ladder, more people suddenly notice that things are rather frelled, after all.
…but they still would much prefer an easily digested explanation and scapegoat(out here, it’s The Far Left!!!(with spittle)) than the much more complex and uncomfortable truth….and especially unpalatable is their own complicity, however removed or obscured
> Argentina in the 1940s under Juan Perón embraced similar trade isolation and industrial autarky, leading to decades of stagnation
Poor example. Argentina under Peron’s first period experienced an industrial boom and a massive increase in living standards for working people. It was the neoliberal/junta stripping of those accomplishments and entering debt bondage to the USA that led to Argentina becoming the basketcase it is today.
We have been “on the path to becoming a failed state” ever since Trump and Kissinger came down on the side of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, triggering the first OPEC oil boycott of the US. Our economy had been on a plateau for about seven years before that, but the oil boycott tipped us into a downward spiral that we have not been able to get out of ever since. We had twenty years of being masters of the world outside of the Soviets and Chinese being bottled up within their spheres of influence, but other countries were getting tired of our imperial overreach. But rather than back off and give up the Empire, we’ve doubled down on trying to stay on top, even if it means selling our seed corn to do it, dismembering our manufacturing capability, turning every available scrap of tangible material good or service into a financial asset that can be pumped and dumped, degrading public discourse into loud empty bullying, and sexualizing the next generation as soon as they can walk and talk so we turn them into a money-making asset also. The spying on citizens and violating their rights, the mass arrests and use of police and National Guard against citizens, the corruption and influence-peddling—we’ve seen these before in many eras, at least from the Wilson administration through LBJ and Nixon and onward. But the country had not been sapped of all its natural wealth and labor power in the previous cases. Since 1973 we’ve done everything possible to keep the Empire going, even if we have to destroy everything of value to the Empire’s citizens in the process. Unless an army of ten or twenty thousand Luigi Mangiones suddenly materializes, we are going to fail big and maybe take the rest of the world down with us, because like Israel we can’t stand the thought of a world without us in it. That’s the situation that Russia and China are looking at and trying desperately to figure out how to survive.
If he has been linked to before, I missed it. Worthwhile reading.
https://peterturchin.substack.com/
https://peterturchin.com/
yeah. we are aware of Peter.
its compelling, but has this Asimovian taint to it, that gives some of us pause.(Harry Seldon)(Second Foundation is my personal fave)
im sure Peter is aware of this.(given that all the Cool People seem to be here, under nommes de guerres…)
Well, just got an Amber Alert on our phones from the Sheriff’s Department telling us to stay inside, lock the doors because they’re tracking a murder suspect through our woods.
So, today, in our neck of the woods. Third world it is.
Many “third worlds” are safer than USA.
I suppose a reasonable definition of a “failed state” would be a state which fails to provide for the majority of its populace.
By such a definition, virtually every state associated with the US, including my own South Africa, would fit the bill.
As to Aurelian’s question whether a “failed state” requires disintegration, it seems to me that first comes the fail, then comes the disintegration. If the US ceases to be able to feed its population, I would not be surprised to see internecine conflict.