Earlier quoted context omitted.
> do the thing that we used to explain to children what they do. The whole thing demonstrably does not exist Something misfunctioning doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. A massive economy, industry and war machine are still here. Pretending that doesn’t exist because it doesn’t work the way we like is an expression of exasperation, not a description of reality.
>A massive economy, industry and war machine are still here Those things are exactly what destroyed the nation. The military industrial complex and the billionaires who removed the teeth from institutions that used to prevent the accumulation of power (see also: antitrust litigation against Standard Oil). Those entities are now in complete control and democracy is nothing but a sham, a clown show between two faces of…
You're confusing the destruction of the dream of a nation with the desrtruction of the nation per se. The Roman Republic's fall was the destructionn of a dream. Those who thought they were witnessing the destruction of a nation, on the other hand, were dead wrong.