Many respondents believe the US economy is already in dire straits, the poll found
More than four in 10 Americans believe the country is heading toward a complete economic meltdown within the next decade, according to a new poll.
The survey, released by YouGov on Wednesday, shows Americans are more worried about the economy than potential threats to the democratic system or the prospect of civil war.
42% of respondents said it is very or somewhat likely that there will be “a total economic collapse” in the next 10 years, while a smaller share, 38%, described this outcome as unlikely.
Financial anxiety ran much higher among Democrats, 53% of whom feared an economic breakdown, compared with just 28% of Republicans.
The difference, imo, is that the US was trending upward in terms of influence and had no meaningful competitors on the global stage after WWII except the USSR, which collapsed.
With the slow death of US dollar dominance and the rise (and much smarter politics) of China, I don’t see how that trend will reverse itself.
The US had the USSR as a direct competitor, but it also had a thousand anti-colonial independence movements that were tearing away the fabric of the old European empires, which the US had intended to inherit.
When the USSR failed, the US moved on to try and pick off all these smaller regional adversaries. And it’s this endless campaign to recolonize the Global South that’s described as “upward influence”.
Americans can just stop the wars. This won’t end the bleeding, but it can be the beginning of the end.
We can kick out our own despots and return to the bargaining table. We can pay reparations and turn our bad actors over to the ICC.
We can reform if we want to do so.
We don’t want to. But we could.
I think we would want to if people were adequately educated and aware of their power. The trick is how to accomplish that in a country which is actively hostile towards education and working class empowerment. Unfortunately, the only answer I’ve found is, “slowly and gradually.”
It’s a real snarl, no doubt.