I have been staying out of this thread since it was first posted, but today's events have tempted me in.
It is remarkable to watch the death of the world's latest great empire in real time, for that appears to be what's going on. Even in the very best case scenario of the United States successfully ushering in a Democratic executive, Senate and House, and even if those three arms of the government manage to operate to the good of the public and not of wealthy donors, then there is still an enormous problem.
Around 40% of the electorate - the loudest, and most heavily armed 40% - remains utterly convinced that they have had their country stolen from them by the "radical liberal socialists". They don't just have different opinions anymore, they live in an entire separate reality. That isn't something that will be fixed by getting a nearly octogenarian corporate Democrat to stick his hand on a Bible then have his VP run the country.
40%.
I do not know of any way to fix a problem that big.
Especially not against a backdrop of equally big problems, which include (but are not limited to): overreaching and untouchable "security" apparatus; potentially world-ending military capabilities; an unchecked COVID epidemic; a healthcare system that does care for people's health; a mass homelessness crisis; wildly unsustainable levels of consumption; an entirely unrepresentative democracy; a mass incarceration industry that profits off of the politically, economically and educationally disenfranchised; political, economic and educational segregation, and a system in which these are not accidents but are the system working as intended.
The United States of America is the sick old aristocrat of the world.
