Every retail worker who has ever worked through the last days of a big chain like Circuit City or Toys R Us can recognize what is happening in American government.

It's all too familiar.

The store hits a point where for one reason or another, it discovers it's not competitive anymore.

Instead of making a fundamental shift in the business model, management tries to assure everyone things are fine.

The store tries to put effort into promotions and sales to get people into the doors.

Trying to breathe life into a business model that is obsolete instead of adapting.

Eventually the resources directed toward infrastructure and maintenance gets redirected toward promotion

The causes for the shifts are different with every company but the reality on the ground for the employees tend to look the same.

Their jobs become LOOKING like the place is still running while it is clearly falling apart.

The floors get dirtier.
The shelves start falling apart.
Brands and products begin to disappear.

Stocking the shelves begins to mean moving items around so it looks like they're still full.

But staff knows no new orders are coming in.

Customers come into the store and immediately can't shake the feeling that something is very... off.

It may take a bit for them to put their finger on it because it's gradual, but they begin to notice it's not the same place anymore.

Eventually, customers begin to wonder why they're there.

Everything of quality they used to purchase has been replaced with cheap knock-offs

There's also a sense of doom that pervades the air.

You look around and realize everyone's just waiting to lose their job.

Checked out.

Frequently, by this point, there have been a number of crossroads in which the company could have taken a step back, looked at its situation and made the choice to change course rather than double down or panic.

And the retail staff could have explained it to them.

While management looks at aggregate data, retail workers are engaging with actual humans and having real interactions containing important information.

But nobody listens to them because "If they knew anything important, they wouldn't be working retail"

However the company gets there, the endgame is usually the same.

The company cannibalizes itself.

Either by corporate greed or managerial ineptitude.

The company itself becomes its last remaining product

It gets sold bit by bit.

Locations
Departments
Floors
Lighting fixtures

Eventually, it's in everyone's best interest to extract every ounce of remaining resource for themselves in whatever manner they have access to.

Cause the resources are going elsewhere one way or another.