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The most basic requirement of a functioning government is to know when it has been scandalized. The decline began when the internet-scandals and the TV-scandals diverged, because US legislators were not Online.
Electronic voting has been a persistent low-grade scandal for two decades. When Republicans decided the election had been hacked, they weren't just being dumb; they found the paper trail of election security having been bad all along.
Every year, we heard: police steal with civil asset forfeiture; police plant drugs, arrest and beat the innocent, esp. blacks; lawyers say to never talk to police. There were simple reforms available. Nothing was done. This was the kindling, George Floyd was a mere spark.
Through the 00s and the early 10s, a sizeable portion of the population, especially minors, relied on piracy for their access to movies and other entertainment. And every so often, the news would be that Congress was, literally, trying to take away their television.
Authorities are telling everyone how important it is to trust science. Meanwhile if you peer into the sort of forum where people care about replication, you find out prestigious organizations are peddling pseudoscience. So laypeople who check the paper trail don't trust vaccines.
When Trump started attacking the media, as a strategy for defending against the media's criticism, this was another spark; anyone who checked the paper trail would find kindling: Gell-Mann Amnesia, revocation of the fairness doctrine, comedians as the leading news sources.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA has dragged its feet on everything, causing enormous harm. But if you check what the economists were saying, the FDA had been in dire need of reform all along. Persistent low-grade scandal creates kindling, spark creates disaster.
When I look around, I see unignited kindling everywhere. Persistent low-grade scandals that haven't exploded yet, which look like a lot like the scandals that have exploded, in earlier stages.
