The Atlantic Op Ed: Pandemic reveals US as failed state

[fromtia]

Sarah Palin was Donald Trumps John the Baptist. That's rather good.

[garbon]

The article also has that issue where a bunch of perfectly valid points are buried by OTT remarks to drive traffic/hate/people sharing it in forums. 

I'll admit I haven't read it because while I'm sure it has good points, if you start with a dishonest headline, your article will surely follow.

I don't know if it works differently in the US but here most writers have little control over the headline, which is chosen after they've filed by a sub-editor.

The author has at least a couple of books about the decline of America so...

[Admiral Yi]

The author is trying to combine erratic chief executive + culture wars + pandemic, which as many people have pointed out are valid points.  They just don't sum up to failed state.  Maybe the Flu Civil War?

[Sheilbh]

Or a state that failed?

[Oexmelin]

The rot is much more deep than "erratic leadership" or "culture wars".

[The Brain]

Sarah Palin was Donald Trumps John the Baptist. That's rather good.

Have you accepted Trump as your personal saviour?

[Malthus]

A "failing state" rather than a "failed state".

The damage that is being done now is that reasonable people are becoming convinced that the institutions that sustained American public life - not trust in any particular government, but rather, trust in the political system to be self-correcting, and that in a crisis individuals in society will bury their differences and pull together for the good of the nation as a whole - are no longer valid.

The state clearly hasn't disintegrated yet. But unless the rot is stopped somehow, it looks like it is on the road to doing so at some point I'm the future. How can a system of governance in which people no longer believe, or a society for which people are no longer willing to sacrifice, continue to sustain itself?

America has had terrible governments before, and survived just fine. What seems different now is a growing cynicism on all sides that the problems can be corrected by simply removing the terrible government. From this perspective, Trump appears more symptom than cause.

Of course all that talk about failure and disintegration seems absurd - America is economically and militarily more or less as powerful as it has ever been. Yet its political and social mechanisms appear ever less capable of mobilizing to face new challenges.

[Maximus]

A "failing state" rather than a "failed state".

I was going to say this.

And also, Trump is absolutely the symptom and not the cause. Getting rid of him is necessary, but insufficient for recovery.

[fromtia]

Have you accepted Trump as your personal saviour?

I think my former mother in law has, she used to be a devout catholic.

[The Minsky Moment]

A "failing state" rather than a "failed state".

This.  The metaphor I would use is the gated community. Americans are still willing to contribute to common goals and public goods but only if they see the benefit going to themselves and people they think of to be like themselves.  Not the "wrong people".  The problem of course is that nations can't really work that way and remain nations.  The ugliest part of Trump's nationalism, like similar nationalism before it, is not just the xenophobia against the outside world (which is bad) but the redefinition of categories of Americans as Others or lesser Americans.  The left and center is not entirely innocent in this, it's not like coastal liberals ever really mobilized to help Appalachian coal miners or the victims of the white collar opioid pushers. But like everything else bad and corrupt in America today, Trump and Trumpism has made it worse.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think failing state works for the reasons Grab On mentioned.  We're not on our way to becoming Somalia.  Mail gets delivered.  War lords don't shake you down when you drive through Nebraska.  Failing society maybe.

[Razgovory]

The US became a failed state before...

[viper37]

The article also has that issue where a bunch of perfectly valid points are buried by OTT remarks to drive traffic/hate/people sharing it in forums. 

I'll admit I haven't read it because while I'm sure it has good points, if you start with a dishonest headline, your article will surely follow.

generally speaking, the article is written, then the title is added, then it is modified by the publisher.
I doubt the Atlantic is any different than most medias on this.

A dishonest title often has no bearing on the quality (or not) of the article.

[viper37]

I don't think failing state works for the reasons Grab On mentioned.  We're not on our way to becoming Somalia.  Mail gets delivered.  War lords don't shake you down when you drive through Nebraska.  Failing society maybe.

TBH, we all dismissed China's casualties as that of a 3rd world country.  How would you compare the US casualties to China's?

[viper37]

The Fund for Peace characterizes a failed state as having the following characteristics:

   
• Loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein
• Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions
• Inability to provide public services
• Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community

Hard to argue against point 1, see the multiple armed protests and how people claim it their right to own any kind of rifle, no matter how many bullets it sprays per second as their God given right.  And vigilantes at the border aren't sanctionned.


Hard to argue against point 2, the US has been unable to form any kind of collective decision in this pandemic.

Partial opposition to point 3, but it's clear that medical services aren't given to the full extent of possibilities during this pandemic.  9000$ to get tested is a bit exagerated.

Definately true for point 4, unless you live in another dimension.  Or maybe the fact that you are living abroad has insulated you of all the "America first" rethoric by Republicans?

If we are to judge a failed State by these measures alone, than the US gets 3.5/4.  Maybe not yet, but soon to be a failed State, if nothing changes.