exactly right.
However, to understand how to renew the American Republic, one cannot do better than to study the lessons of the Roman Republic in Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy.
The great depression was not called that until the mid-1950’s. This will, eventually, be called WD II and the original one will be called WD I - World Depression I.
And it’s not hit the really bad part yet.
It will end the same way - with world war.
***keeps printing bogus trillions that have no backing in goods and services.***
And the nation that collapses first loses all. Remember the fall of the old USSR? I remember reading that people who had saved up millions of commie rubles for retirement lost it all.
It worked for Baraq, very well.
He was able to pull off re-election with $4 gas, 8% unemployment (13% real), surging food prices, and trillion dollar deficits.
With the American Empire, its a question of will. For whatever reason, too many people seem to be ashamed of our own culture and history. I don’t think this constitutes a majority yet, but it certainly does include most people who are “influencers”. That does not bode well for the future. The fact that we elected a full-fledged security risk as POTUS is evidence of our stupidity.
I also think our material prosperity and technological prowess are part of the problem. They have served to insulate people from reality and enabled them to take off on these foolish flights-of-fancy. These attitudes would never have been tolerated pre-1960.
I suspect the fall of Rome was incomprehensible to most Romans too—until the Barbarians were at the gates.