4 ms·

I agree things are fairly bad in a lot of ways, and very bad in some ways, but "failed state" does have a specific meaning and applying it to the US is pretty h

I agree things are fairly bad in a lot of ways, and very bad in some ways, but "failed state" does have a specific meaning and applying it to the US is pretty hyperbolic. It's fuzzy like anything that describes human stuff, but the US is definitely on the not-failed side of that fuzzy line. Heading toward it? I dunno. Maybe. Probably not. But maybe. There now? Certainly not. Our Federal government might be doing a piss-poor job but it has not stopped being able to assert sovereignty in meaningful ways, domestically and internationally, or to continue to deliver government services to a significant extent. If those things had happened we'd know it. "Governing very poorly"—even somewhat maliciously—is not what it means for a state to have failed. Maybe it's being used... I dunno, poetically? But that doesn't seem to be the case, in context. Some of the stuff in the article's interesting but a lot of the rest is similarly overblown. Declaring China's ascendance (it sometimes explicitly says China but then other times seems to use Asia to mean "Asia, but mostly China") is fashionable and might end up being true but is far from settled history, to pick on another part, and I'm guessing the "D-Day versus gun deaths in 2019" stat is mostly suicides, which seems disingenuous to me, in this context—while of course it is interesting and meaningful in others, I think they're trying to mislead with it here. I'm left-wing as hell and probably agree with most policy positions and general opinions the writer holds, so this should be right up my alley, but the piece isn't great. A better-written version of this with exactly the thesis and overall journey might even be something I'd really like! It's a mix of a pretty good cataloguing of disparate bad-sounding stats and figures about the US, many bad/misleading instances of same (any time there's a bad-sounding—or good-sounding, for that matter—stat missing any frame of reference, I get twitchy, and this has plenty), some dull and overstated predictions about the future, and some lazy narrative-building. I hate these kinds of articles when the right does them, but I almost hate them more when "my" side does them. I know that's bad politics because people respond to this sort of thing, but I just can't stand writing this transparently manipulative, at great cost to honesty and accuracy. The best parts are when the writer's focusing directly on the COVID response. Those are alright. A few other bits are OK for a few sentences in a row and could form the seed of good, if thoroughly unoriginal, articles on their own.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
It sounds like you would give the article a B- Not exactly a train wreck then.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  Mmmmm.... call it a C-. Some paragraphs are train-wrecks. There's about 1/3 of an only-semi-interesting but not-actually-bad article in here if you cut it down, maybe.
nouveaux 6y ago
"It's a mix of a pretty good cataloguing of disparate bad-sounding stats and figures about the US, many bad/misleading instances of same (any time there's a bad-sounding—or good-sounding, for that matter—stat missing any frame of reference, I get twitchy, and this has plenty), some dull and overstated predictions about the future, and some lazy narrative-building." I see what you're saying. To me, this article is not about building a case for America's failed state. It's an argument for the perceived loss of American leadership around the world. Given that conclusion, the stats he chooses are exactly the ones on people's minds around the world. Talking to my friends in China and Singapore, the George Floyd protests often come up as the US descending into chaos. There are comparisons to Hong Kong. Regardless of the faulty perception outside of the US, that perception shapes our leadership abilities. This article perfectly reflects what I've been hearing from overseas.
- zepto 6y ago
  That’s fair, but I personally lived for more than 30 years overseas before moving to the US, and am in contact with plenty of people outside the US. My experience has been that people’s perceptions are mostly reflective of what they read in the press. They were grossly inaccurate and misleading when the US was perceived as a magnificent success - most of the problems we have now were already apparent then. But they are also grossly misleading when representing the US relative to other states now. There are ‘failed states’ inside the European Union for example, and pretty much every one of the problems the US has are reflected elsewhere too. It is obvious that things are a lot worse, and that serious problems have gone unresolved, etc. I live in the East Bay and stores were looted only a few blocks from here. Similar things happened during the riots over Oscar grant at when I lived in another part of the East Bay. There is no descent into chaos. It’s not surprising that it seems like that if you live in China or Singapore, where the penalties for rioting are draconian. You can make argument either way as to whether the riots represent something healthy or unhealthy. But it is simply not true that US is descending into chaos. It’s not even true that this is some new thing. But of course if the media present it that way, then people will think that.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

It sounds like you would give the article a B- Not exactly a train wreck then.

spanhandler 6y ago
Mmmmm.... call it a C-. Some paragraphs are train-wrecks. There's about 1/3 of an only-semi-interesting but not-actually-bad article in here if you cut it down, maybe.

nouveaux 6y ago

"It's a mix of a pretty good cataloguing of disparate bad-sounding stats and figures about the US, many bad/misleading instances of same (any time there's a bad-sounding—or good-sounding, for that matter—stat missing any frame of reference, I get twitchy, and this has plenty), some dull and overstated predictions about the future, and some lazy narrative-building." I see what you're saying. To me, this article is not about building a case for America's failed state. It's an argument for the perceived loss of American leadership around the world. Given that conclusion, the stats he chooses are exactly the ones on people's minds around the world. Talking to my friends in China and Singapore, the George Floyd protests often come up as the US descending into chaos. There are comparisons to Hong Kong. Regardless of the faulty perception outside of the US, that perception shapes our leadership abilities. This article perfectly reflects what I've been hearing from overseas.

zepto 6y ago
That’s fair, but I personally lived for more than 30 years overseas before moving to the US, and am in contact with plenty of people outside the US. My experience has been that people’s perceptions are mostly reflective of what they read in the press. They were grossly inaccurate and misleading when the US was perceived as a magnificent success - most of the problems we have now were already apparent then. But they are also grossly misleading when representing the US relative to other states now. There are ‘failed states’ inside the European Union for example, and pretty much every one of the problems the US has are reflected elsewhere too. It is obvious that things are a lot worse, and that serious problems have gone unresolved, etc. I live in the East Bay and stores were looted only a few blocks from here. Similar things happened during the riots over Oscar grant at when I lived in another part of the East Bay. There is no descent into chaos. It’s not surprising that it seems like that if you live in China or Singapore, where the penalties for rioting are draconian. You can make argument either way as to whether the riots represent something healthy or unhealthy. But it is simply not true that US is descending into chaos. It’s not even true that this is some new thing. But of course if the media present it that way, then people will think that.