What was that thing Jefferson said?

Modern Apathy failed to repair the damage, but the ENTHUSIASTIC giveaway of the country to the rich in both capital and power, the "Reagan revolution," is most directly responsible for the later Citizens United, Trump, and our imminent collapse.

Apathy didn't destroy this country for the people, Enthusiastic greed worship BY the people did. Greed is a personal failing, character deficit, and is every bit as dangerous and destructive to society as hatred. The Gordon Geckos and Mr. Potters of the nation are supposed to be hated, booed, and shunned by decent people for their antisocial activities, not worshipped as the celebrities and...🤮... Role models they are treated like today.

The owners have spent decades propagandizing us to forget what a societal poison greed is as they took over.

Oh I'm sorry it's not greed anymore. I meant ~~greed~~ rational self-interest. Shout out to George Orwell.

Mommy, the weak men created the hard times once again 😭

This is the boiled frog effect.

If the SCOTUS creates enough national crises, and that's what they've been actively doing, rolling back the rights and protections of individuals while further empowering capital as citizens discover there is just no recourse, then the crises they continue to create, as dire as they are, just feel like another tuesday.

It was surely all over the Washington Post, i mean the amazon guy owns it, right?

Why wouldn’t it be, yknow, bang, right on the ol front page there?

I'm anti-capitalist, but this makes it sound like all companies are equally evil, and differ only in their masks.

They're all exploitative to some degree, but the local acorporation running the affordable grocery store, or the incorporated truck driver - these companies can rise and fall, peopled by folks not looking to expand at all. They're just using the company template to support their lifeway.

This isn't to justify corporate profits, but to point out there are degrees, and your choices matter.

I would prefer to say "all publicly traded corporations are effectively amoral, and capable of any imaginable evil, if it is in their interests. It's just a question of when their interests will align with an evil action."

Private ownership of capital is antisocial and antidemocratic. Owner-operated private businesses, the classic "Mom and Pop" store, are still antidemocratic, but much more distinctive in character, and may be more pro-social. Worker-owned cooperatives are significantly better altogether.

Yeah, but it’s also more accurate to how we’re crumbling. The republic died to social divisions and demagogues eventually done in by a populist who sought nothing but his own power and was too comfortable breaking the rules to advance himself.

Now I will acknowledge the difference here, Caesar seemed to actually improve the lives of the Roman proletarii whereas Trump doesn’t. Because our collapse is in many ways closer to the fall of the Weimar Republic when it comes to the details.

Though we also must acknowledge that the Roman republic was also an empire. Republics don’t like acknowledging when we’re empires.

In no way is it 'my case', but you're not wrong, perhaps unfortunately, simply an allegory to a famous book.