Thread by @nfergus

.@JonahDispatch's response to my "Late-Soviet America" piece acknowledges that most of my argument is true but then says: "We're a non-evil empire; people want to come here, not leave; and we could fix all our problems if we just applied our founding principles." It's pure cope. 1/18

A chronic soft budget constraint in the public sector. Constantly growing state intervention in the economy. A military that is vast yet loses wars. Gerontocratic leadership. Millions succumbing to “deaths of despair.” Total public cynicism about nearly all institutions. 2/18 thefp.com/p/were-all-sov…

And a bogus ideology that hardly anyone really believes in, but everyone has to parrot. These are deeply unhealthy trends. Saying, "Yes, but we don't shoot the accused after our political trials, we're only a banana republic," is desperate stuff. 3/18

"But people love America, see how they flock here!" An alternative formulation would be: Neither the late Soviet Union nor the late-Soviet USA were capable of even the rudimentary state function of policing their borders. 4/18

And somehow I forgot to mention that people love being Americans so much that we have to lock 1.77m of them up ... No, I didn't call it the American gulag, but our criminal justice system isn't exactly a great ad for the Land of the Free, is it? 5/18

The bottom line is that we need to be much more worried than we are by the shocking degeneration of all our institutions, from the presidency to the public health system. The idea of late-Soviet America is intended to shock people like @JonahDispatch out of their cope. 6/18 thefp.com/p/were-all-sov…

Exhibit A (7/18)

Exhibit B (8/18)

Exhibit C (9/18)

Exhibit D (10/18)

Exhibit E (11/18)

Exhibit F (12/18)

Exhibit G (13/18)

Exhibit H (14/18)

Exhibit I (15/18)

Exhibit J (16/18)

Exhibit K (17/18)

Exhibit L (18/18)