Mort Walker wrote:The difference in the past is the US had some time to self correct economically, which would cap political and social discontent. That window is closing.
I honestly wouldn't be too eager to bet against the US. Many have in the past, but somehow it always seems to recover if not emerge stronger. In hindsight the reasons for its successful recovery from each crisis seem obvious (and we can always say why the same reasons will not help them out for the next crisis)-- but perhaps they were not so obvious at the time everyone was predicting disaster.
I wrote this post years ago that talked about a historical cycle of ~5-year "Manthans" or churnings separated by ~30 year "Interim" periods of greater stability (or slower change) in the US, from the end of the Civil War to the election of Donald Trump.
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By this schema, 2015-2020 should have been a "Manthan" period and we should have entered a new "Interim" period, gravitating towards some sort of equilibrium, by 2021 or so. That has still not happened. I think the reason is more COVID than anything else-- not in living memory has anything else brought American society, economy, and polity to its knees for such a long and sustained period.
The sense of powerlessness engendered by the COVID experience is bipartisan, and it has caused American citizens to lose so much faith in the system that the "recovery" from the 2015-2020 Manthan has been slowed if not crippled. This lack of faith makes every other threat loom larger in the American public imagination than it otherwise would as well (China, Russia, "White Supremacism", "Woke Radicalism", pick your poison). The hopeless deficit of leadership in both Republican and Democratic parties has not helped either... they have become like religions, following doctrines, in the absence of any personality strong enough to give them direction.
But still. Somehow, the US has always recovered. There may be things we do not see yet. Parkalaam.