Usa's working class has been destroyed in the long run thanks to Ronald Reagan and it continued under successive presidents regardless if they were republican or democrat.
The price to pay for too much capitalism.
Too easy an explanation/scapegoat....as too much gets included in "Capitalism" (esp depending on definition and perspective).
To me there is something far deeper and even inevitable/futile going on.
i.e The modern day (industrialisation + nation state era) psyche seems to work in about 100 year time frames.
At some year X in the past you have some bloody conflict/revolution where you grapple with some very stark fundamental questions or even existence...
The memories and lessons of these (especially in the practical learned "lived experience + context" sense) tend to fade away over 100 years setting up the conditions for the next one.
So there is almost 100 year distance exactly between the napoleonic wars and WW1 for instance.
The US had a mighty civil war in 1861 (few really have read this in detail outside the US as they maybe ought to, to better understand things today)....and was hence "due" to grapple with this cycle resurfacing in the 1960s (Which you will notice it did in a lesser context - the civil rights movement coming to its climax).
What has bought time for the US (and world at large) is/was the presence of a massive foreign adversary during the cold war and now current neo-cold war...given the spectre of WMD involved on top....adding a real "pressure cooker valve" to how vertical anything can go.
The 100+ years of that passage...combines with the 100 years since WW1 and soon to come 100 years of ww2...all adding to the foreboding present now like never before (IMO).
This however just delays the process and it surfaces in its own "new type" war regardless.
One only need to look both closely and at some distance too....at the events going on....and the mentalities on offer.
i.e it is useful to look at your country/identity/society 100 years ago to the year and compare the significant events to whats going on now...and understand what the passage of time does to resurface the same issues in various ways.
Consider for example what Turkey is seeing now....compared to significant events happening 100 years ago....what is returning, what is different, what is the same? What is the cycle?
This drives everything underneath it including economic sentiments.
The basic human psychology of morals and ethics being taught and known better immediately after a war/strife (and importantly the trust + credibility in the system by its people this instills, esp subconciously)....and how this slips with time as memory and immediate relevancy fades)...prompting tensions for the next one....
...and however that conflict evolves in new eras (there was marked change from napoleonic to ww1 to what we saw in the 20th century and what we are seeing now in the WMD world)...
It is all literally the underlying reason why the ex-chairman of the fed (and now treasury sec. of US) is calling for the debt ceiling to be removed (from legislature control) all together.
You seem a young one my friend with much to learn still....(and I see many like you in this forum and in similar online spaces)...
... though (it seems to me) you have read your fair share on at least the "top layer" of war, conflict and history...especially as to the elements concerning your country and identity.
My advice is to (go deeper) and take it upon yourself to study the patricians very closely as to how they exploit these cycles to benefit themselves...and how the plebs let themselves be exploited by this systematic inevitable amnesia that forms in 100 years.
Don't fall for the capitalism vs socialism stuff too much....or right wing vs left wing etc (these are often patrician manufactured wedge issues).
The middle and bottom layers of this (human history and psychology) matter greatly to understanding it.
Always look at the biggest picture possible....across as much time and space as possible.
Listen and observe as much as possible...and as deeply as possible.
Wherever life takes you....above all never forget to speak boldly and plainly when you are surrounded by clownish jingos...eager for a brother war of all things...all on a deeper immorality that could no longer be contained...
Try to know and point out the stark truth always like Mr. Butler does here...
Rhett: "There is not a cannon factory in the whole south....."
Jingo: "What difference ,sir, does that make to a gentleman?"
Rhett: I am afraid it is going to make a great deal of difference to a great many gentlemen...sir"
@VCheng
