Some are saying we’re becoming a stan. Others are saying we’re declining into caudillismo or banana republic status. I also often point out the increasing similarities to the political-economic situation of the Gilded Age here in America. Whatever you want to call it, it’s an indication that American culture has been debased to the point where our own Know-Nothings have placed corrupt and power-hungry oligarchs and their cronies into positions of power.
It’s not history repeating itself exactly (that’s just another of Max’s many straw men), it’s just history rhyming. The ugly political and economic themes that have plagued the developing world, thought by the complacent to be long buried here in the West, are now playing out once again all over Europe and N. America.
