There have been three iterations of America's flirtation with national suicide. The first was centered around the oligarchs of the slaveocracy. It took a Civil War and collapse of forty percent of the country try to bring us back from the brink on thar one.

The second iteration, the Gilded Age, began at the end of the Civil War and ended with the Great Depression. It took FDR, the New Deal, and WWII to pulls us out of that one.

We're currently in the third iteration. It started after WWII with the Cold War and the rise of the Military Industrial Complex, but really kicked into gear with Reagan and the administrations that followed. Sadly I don't see us pulling back this time, I think that we're going to have to go through the shitstorm, much like Germany under Hitler, and hope we learn and come out better on the other side.

This is the inherent flaw of capitalism, the rich get rich enough to buy the government, and destroy everything in their greed and lust for power and money. Capitalism can work, but it needs strong, immovable guardrails along with a strong safety net. The first place to start is publicly financed elections, but that's a topic for another post

Also, don't forget how the MIC and CIA have operated
since the assassination of JFK.

I knew it was going to happen, but didn't think it would be in my lifetime. We are at a crossroads with fascism on one side and democratic socialism on the other. It's up to our kids, now.

That Trump was ever ALLOWED by any conceivable American to "achieve" any office whatsoever speaks totally to accountable power. That he is the cartoonish worst, with the sole relief he is implacably aging out, speaks to all filters whether ruthlessly Mammon entitled, justice or revenge seeking, or the national "conversation" taken solely on the public's reaction to grocery prices and enslavement to propagandized slop social media. My union, a big survivor solely because of a federally illegal strike and its now weakened control of commercial infrastructure, reacts to the actual assaults, blames both parties in the same frustration- but does not get it.

The horrors of first wave robber barons made life(without social safety nets that one forgets were installed as steam valves against revolt and collapse) saw populist reformers rise up and fall short. In order to win, third parties allied with the Democrats to their long term semi-success, but corruption and toned down ineptitude cost them all the elections prior to the third party effect that gave Wilson the Presidency. The GOP came in third and Taft originally was a Teddy Roosevelt guy.
The media slaved for the GOP by attacking TR. Winning wars just enables the system to go imperial. Empires morally die then just die. Decadence of the winners makes fellow elites grumpy and the military shamed unless the people regain some semblance of influence, which gradually they lose as it gets to this point where we are today.

Too much of anything taken into social power creates sociopathy to scale. Too little accountability, too little action, too much self-serving cowardice or laissez-faire is the handmaiden of false gods. I did not know I was even retreating, but I(an ordinary American citizen) have been under this imperial assault in every way my entire life whatever I have gleaned of the benefits of the system and my labor. Every single aspect, every good and life-enabling thing under assault and few people are enlightened (awoke) enough at all for any response whatsoever. There never has been any logic to the support given by everyone in various upper positions for fatally losing and murderous rampages. Like Vietnam, where I was absolutely sure the Best and the Brightest knew was unwinnable, political suicide, therefore it would stop. Nope. Up with dopery, down with Reason, much less actual compassion!

Solutions? In my religion the Founder only got the cross and the followers even worse, then melted and somewhat corrupted into the fading empire. There is a solution there though I think the Founder was not optimistic about political reform.

In the scientific age we must realize that animals with brains too big empowered by dangerous tools need to use them to socially evolve or the incompetent morons currently in charge of global death will be the Big Filter. Is self-evolution assured or even possible? Only choice leading to action decides.

Sadly and alarmingly Mr.Hedges has predicted the horrors which presently confront us with accuracy and he continues to not be afraid to tell us the ugly truth. After reading most of the essays I have to tell myself “despair is not an option”. His book “American Fascists” came out over 20 years ago and most of what he predicted has come to pass.