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Look, I think the metaphors are getting a little mixed here.
We don’t see much in the way of novel institutions because our existing ones work. About as well as they ever did, anyway. No murder there.
Woke media is sort of fashionable at the moment. I don’t think this is the culmination of a Long (Ides of) March. Neither is the counter push for anti-woke products. Who’s supposed to be Caesar, again?
We disagree in premise. The current institutions do not work. They do not work on so many levels I want to ask you to pick any topic and explain to me how you can possibly read their behavior as serviceable. Even basic thing like public order are fubar. The economic system is broken to the point of hilarity, not to mention logistics and infrastructure.
Everything is fucked that is, except remaining in power, which is literally always the last thing to go.
Public order?
I can drive ten minutes down clean, well-lighted streets and get to a functioning police station or courthouse or other outpost of civil society. The worst I might see is a couple homeless. No drugs, no shootings, none of the apocalyptic tenor that shows up on this board. An armed robbery with no casualties is considered shocking, even exciting.
When I vote, I have every reason to believe my vote is fairly counted. Our polling places operate just fine. My vote may not make the difference, given that my neighbors would probably vote for a log with an R next to it, but that’s okay. That log is not a threat.
I can buy gas and groceries. Go to one of the innumerable big box stores flowing goods to the metroplex. Get a good lunch out with my family. Prices are inflated but manageable.
My job is quite secure—I have reasonable skills, and the regime always needs new weapons for its foreign commitments. We impose some level of order on half the planet. It may not always be this way, but for now, America is the best in the world.
That’s public order.
I guess you just don't live in a big city. Good for you D-FENS, but I question the relevance of your personal experience to the health of your regime when those lawless places in your country do exist.
I spent the last Saturday on the train through Dallas, actually. It was…fine. A couple “don’t make eye contact” moments. Certainly less comfortable than my glorified suburb. Do you live in one of these hellholes, or do you just hear about them on TV?
Their existence doesn’t outweigh all the functional, ordered parts of the country. Since you disagree—when was the last time they did?
Of course I might not be the most objective on this given I've escaped cities precisely because I got tired of being robbed and assaulted (once even in my own apartment) while the police do nothing and would actually arrest me if I did something about it. And back then I had colleagues that got beaten up to invalidity for no reason, and others that saw crackheads every day on their way to work.
Since what we're discussing is the competence of the regime, I feel like those hellholes existing is relevant. They are no natural catastrophy. Some countries to this day, most countries in history, do not allow such things to exist.
I don't think it's unreasonable to see elites that have eschewed their basic duty to quash lawlessness as incompetent. And all the other aspects of society being treated with a similarly cavalier handwaving instead of practical problem solving I regard as yet more evidence of their incompetence. When's the last time somebody in power in the West actually solved a problem instead of papering over it with bullshit?
What you're describing here is the ruin your country has left in it. If you actually want to argue that the elites are competent you need to explain to me how they will actually fix problems. Not just point at things they haven't managed to fuck up yet
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I mean if you’re judging by the lifestyle of someone living a middle class life in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area, I mean sure. But there are major portions of almost every major American city that are lawless enough that “good people” no longer go there and if misfortune puts them near those areas, they flee as quickly as their modern automobile will allow them.
My city had more than 250 murders last year. Not even that bad. Chicago had more. There are places in America with such high crime rates that stores have their good — all of their goods locked up, and for good measure have metal bars over their windows. You can look on YouTube for the skid rows of various cities, entire streets filled with people hopelessly addicted to drugs. Or you can look up the Los Angeles feces map. A map to help people avoid steers covered in human feces. In most of the inner cores of the city, it’s common practice to leave a car door unlocked and signs on the windows telling thieves there’s nothing of value and to please not break the windows. That’s the urban rot.
Now if you go to rural areas, especially in the south, it’s often very poor. There are no big stores giving the fruits of civilization to rural Georgia. They don’t have good jobs, they don’t have much in material wealth. Most of the buildings are in poor repair. And most of the people still there live in poverty. Those with means fled when the last good jobs were taken with the factory that left decades ago. No new business has come in, and what remains are the people too poor to move and who don’t have the job skills to make it worthwhile.
You want working institutions? I don’t see them. Politics is mostly for show and at best ignores real problems in favor of theatrics. You mentioned the inflationary pressures on the economy. So what exactly has our government been doing while people struggle to afford healthcare and food and so on? Well, we had a nice conversation about January 6, we overturned Roe, and we’re desperately concerned with the contents of elementary school books. We can muster the energy to condemn various political heresies in public and private life. We can perhaps find time to elevate a trans woman to celebrity status. But we cannot fix any real problems. Roads don’t get fixed, crimes in many larger cities are ignored, kids get shot in schools, and for that matter our schools plain stink as compared to other countries.
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