After extensive research and a lot of soul searching... I have come to the conclusion that the United States of America is suffering from a malady or malaise that is threatening to tear the country apart!
Oh, it's not the usual suspects like the Military-Industrial Complex or Big Pharma or the Health Care System or the Pandemic or Wall Street or the Insurance Industry or Gerrymandering or Voter Suppression or Climate Change or the Economy or Unemployment or Corporate Corruption or Election Reform or Lobbying or the Media or.... or... or... well I could go on and on, but you get a general idea of what I'm talking about!
No, my friends, the problem with the United States of America is not with "things" it's with the people themselves.
The States has become a sick and divided country that is slowly rotting at the core and unless something is done to change the people (the culture) and their problems nothing will prevent America from sliding into oblivion... just as it happened to Rome over 1500 years ago!
As of this writing, there is a sizable percentage of the American population that has come under the spell of what we euphemistically call the cult of Trumpism, while there is also a big chunk of people that is revolting over the discrepancy between the rich and the poor. (While the rich have continued to get richer... the middle-class has remained stagnant for the past thirty-plus years!)
The American population also has a sizable chunk of minority groups mired in racism and poverty while the plight of the poor has also not improved in the last half-century. (More and more groups fall below the poverty line while the welfare state is slowly eroding from within!
There are big groups of people who believe in the propaganda spouted by Fox News and Rush Limberger as well as followers of QANON and Alex Jones of Info-Wars.
Need we mention that millions of gun owners who want to be able to intimidate anyone they want... and the religious movements that wish to prevent anyone from aborting a human fetus... but are all for capital punishment of grown-up humans!
There are countless individuals who are engaged in crime and violence while others are members of the underground drug culture.
Fringe groups and mainstream movements dot the landscape with gay rights and LGBTQ awareness while ethics and moral/religious values decline... and fracture American Family Values!
After everything is said and done there are so many fringe and disparate groups that contribute to the general decline of the United States culture that we have been able to identify only one single, solitary family in the whole country that could still be considered somewhat normal.... and even that's a stretch!
The way I see it anyway!
(The Clark Griswald family while on vacation!)
