There's a lot of parallel process going on that are hard to account for. Internet use, for example. According to Statista, 2011 is a trough in internet use, some ≈210mn users, by 2016 it plateaus at ≈290mn, meanwhile the platforms and accessibility are evolving alongside, in manifold ways. And there's old industries developing in new ways, TV supplanted by the modem, papers by the web, and it's all interactive. TV, I suspect, and the legacy boys, are pressing hard for turning their outlets up to 11, like have you watched Tucker Carlson? And that's got to be exacerbating the problem. And information is more accessible than ever, too: COINTELPRO or the Iran-Contra or the Mexican Revolution, or Banana Republic, or go go banking a la 1980's financial imperialism and there's the third world debt crisis for you.

Viola! Schismogenesis. Erstwhile we're competing inside of a relatively inert system with intractable inertia, and the pressure builds.

Of course the economics of the individual are poorer and poorer, as well, and at what appear to be increasing costs and that is a considerable portion of what the government ultimately does - enable commerce. And we're finding out, perhaps, that we're running on fumes.

You think that was weird, witness how America came together immediately after 9/11