I’m not sure where I’d peg the onset of the United States being functionally ungovernable. I’m inclined to pick the Gingrich revolution, which was predicated on invalidating an election; it built on the fascist foundation of Reaganism, but there was still shared governance ...

But Gingrich essentially cemented the belief, within his caucus and among “thought leaders” in DC, that only Republican rule is legitimate.

That said, Gingrich’s revolution was rhetorical. Supreme Court cancelling an actual election in some ways did more lasting damage ...

... because it showed the GOP it could craft courts in its image and end democracy, not as a matter of rhetoric, but of law.

Either way, die of American collapse was cast long ago and the gates to salvation far behind us.

My deeper fear is not that this gets worse (it does) ...

... but that the American left is so deeply engaged in a tribal dick-sizing competition that its completely missing in action. Why do you think so many elected Democrats are so hapless? They reflect the base, which can’t get its head out of its ass long enough to see ...

... we’re not in an era of progressive policy-making (not at the national level, anyway), we’re in an era of devolution, Republican violence, and deepening institutional dysfunction. Your transformative policy ideas are worth the accumulated birdshit on the Capitol steps.

And so we race backwards into a Civil War against an enemy who’s been shooting us dead for 40 (400?) years and think they’d drop their weapons if we offered them free healthcare.

Y’all live in a different country than I do.