It's hard for us to admit it. My own journey, after spending 7+ years living abroad, and recently completing a (most epic yet) cross-country roadtrip, it is clear that America is in decline due to generations of mal-investment. We've squandered blood and treasure in quixotic and wrong-headed misadventures and dumped gargantuan amounts of money into nothing but destruction. We've been led by bravado and glory, by craven merchants of death, and greedy megacorporations with no scruples. Our political leaders are corrupt, our institutions rotting. We should have printed out all those dollars and just set them on fire for goddsakes.

The partisan bickering over just 1.6 trillion in infrastructure spending, after having lit another 3 trillion on fire to prop up the stock and housing markets for another few years, losing money hand over fist, electric grids going down at the slightest breath, and overall decay and mismanagement of all our common infrastructure...America is past its peak, stumbling now, and all that remains is angry tribalism and finger-pointing. We can't even unite against a deadly enemy that is impossible to love or anthropomorphize--a virus.

We failed to invest in fundamentals for so long....

On some days I find myself, as an American, hoping we split up. We don't really want to live together anymore. We hate each other. Not a dollar for those bastards' kids!