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One of the few positive features of the coronavirus pandemic is that oil prices have fallen to lower levels than at any time since 1999. Low oil prices are good for democracy, peace and economic growth.

From the Gulf War in 1980 until 2000, oil prices were low, lingering around $18-$20 per barrel. This was a wonderful period. The world went through the third wave of democratization, as Samuel Huntington named it. This democratization started in southern Europe independently of the oil prices. But in the 1980s the Latin American military dictatorships collapsed in external debt crises caused by low commodity prices, and from 1989-1991 democratization took off in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

But how do low oil prices breed democracy? By and large, rich states are democratic with good rule of law, but there are exceptions. The seven steady exceptions of relatively rich countries that are authoritarian are Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Singapore. Singapore is a tiny anomaly, led by an authoritarian leader who appears to have been honest and wanted to do good for his people, while the other six are typical authoritarian kleptocracies, where the ruler thinks of only himself and his relatives.

Concentrated oil incomes breed authoritarianism. Part of the explanation is that after they have been established, oil revenues require little work, making it is easy for a ruler to seize oil rents. To the extent that a dictator distributes oil rents to his underlings, it appears charitable. People all too easily accept that oil rents belong to the monarch. If a government is being financed through taxes on the citizens, people demand much more from the government.

The empirical evidence is strong. In 2017, the authoritative non-governmental organization measuring democracy, Freedom House, reported that it was the12th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. Over the period since the 12-year global slide began in 2006, 113 countries have seen a net decline, and only 62 have experienced a net improvement. When oil prices are high, authoritarian kleptocracies thrive and consolidate their power.

Fortunately, commodity prices do not stay high forever. Commodities move in long-term cycles of 25-35 years. From 1981-2000, oil prices were low, but then they rose and stabilized at a high level from 2001-2014. Finally, in 2014 oil prices collapsed and now they are likely to stay at a low level for a decade or so regardless of what OPEC does.

The world experienced a massive commodity boom from around 2000 until 2014. The underlying condition was Chinas enormous investment in infrastructure that consumed 30-50 percent of major raw materials. Admittedly, Chinas share of oil consumption is less, but Chinas big investment drive propelled the global demand for most commodities. Today, no similar demand for commodities is apparent, suggesting that oil and other commodity prices are likely to stay low for years.

A long-lasting low oil price will have major global consequences. It is a destabilizing force. When oil prices fall, fragile authoritarian kleptocracies tend to collapse. At present, quite a few relatively developed and diverse but authoritarian oil states look vulnerable, notably Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and Russia. The destabilization of any of these authoritarian states would probably be good for democracy.

The weakening of the oil states would also be good for peace, because few spend as much on armaments or pursue as aggressive a foreign policy as they. If oil price stays low, would Russia and Iran be able to afford the wars in Syria? Or would Saudi Arabia continue its unsuccessful but very cruel war in Yemen. And would the many involved parties really care about fighting in Libya if its oil is no longer valuable? Probably not. All the aggressive parties, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia would have fewer resources to pursue such foreign wars.

Lower oil prices would also have beneficial effects in the West. In the United States, the oil billionaires overwhelmingly oppose climate change. If a few of them go bankrupt, they would not be able to spend all that much money on their opposition to climate change policies, and the U.S. would be likely to adopt more sensible climate policies. It is argued that higher oil prices would reduce the consumption of oil, but that is not quite true. The oil importing countries in Europe have far higher oil prices than the United States because of high oil taxes. If the U.S. oil lobby is weakened, the United States could introduce carbon taxes, which would reduce the U.S. usage of fossil fuels.

Low oil prices are also good for economic growth. High oil prices breed rents, and rents usually go to vainglorious conspicuous consumption of the very rich rather than to investment, taxes, public expenditures and public goods.

The obvious policy conclusion is that the United States must not bail out Big Oil. At present, several proposals are being discussed, all of which run against ordinary free market principles. One idea is to regulate the transportation and thus production of oil, giving an advantage to the production of expensive oil. Why would anybody do that? Another bad idea is to prohibit the importation of oil or introduce high import tariffs. Why should ordinary Americans suffer in order to further enrich the wealthy oil barons? A third proposal is to bail out the big loss-making oil companies, as might already be the case. The richest and most harmful should not receive public funding or any other form of state protection. Public funds should go to people, the poor and unemployed, not to wealthy or inefficient corporations.

Thus, let us hope for a decade of low energy prices.

Anders slund is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. His latest book is Russias Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy.

Excerpt from:
Low oil prices are good for democracy and peace | TheHill - The Hill

The first major crisis of the post-American world is ugly and is going to get worse. A pandemic required a pan-planet reaction. Instead it found Pangloss in the White House blowing smoke and insisting, as disaster loomed, that it was still the best of all possible worlds in America.

Theres not been even a hint of an aspiration of American leadership, Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, told me. That is fundamentally new.

It is. The worlds American reference point has vanished. The prize for greatest disappearing act of the coronavirus crisis goes to Mike Pompeo, the American secretary of state.

Into the global vacuum has stepped, well, nobody. No amount of flag-waving Chinese officials disembarking from planes onto European soil with offers of masks and ventilators can obscure the fact that all this began with a biological Chernobyl in Wuhan, covered up for weeks as a result of the terror that is the currency of dictatorships.

The Asian powers that have emerged best from this disaster are the medium-size democracies of South Korea and Taiwan. The great competition of despots and democrats for the upper hand in the 21st century is still open.

The Great Depression that began in 1929 produced two distinct results on either side of the Atlantic. In the United States, it led, beginning in 1933, to Roosevelts New Deal. In Europe, it led to Hitlers rise to power in the same year, the spread of fascism, and eventually devastation on an unimaginable scale.

This time, as the coronavirus stops production and leaves more than 26 million Americans newly unemployed while in Europe it causes salaries to be nationalized, in the words of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, the effects of an economic collapse not seen in almost a century may be flipped.

Donald Trumps United States, which the German magazine Der Spiegel now calls the American patient, is ripe for an authoritarian lurch.

Awash in Trumps lies, battered by the virus, buried in incompetence, lacerated by division and ruled by a lunatic unbound, the country approaches an election in November whose theft, subversion or postponement are credible scenarios. Nothing in Trumps psyche allows him to conceive of defeat, his familys prospects out of power are dim and crisis is the perfect pretext for a power grab. War and this pandemic has similarities to one fosters executive aggrandizement, as James Madison warned.

Trump embodies the personal and societal collapse he is so skilled in exploiting. Insult the press. Discredit independent judges. Remove the checks. Upend the balances. Abolish truth. Pocket the system step by step. Mainline Lysol. Dictatorship 101.

Europe is a different story. Its division between the prosperous north and the poorer south sharpened by the pandemic, and its fracture line between the democracies of Western Europe and the illiberal or authoritarian systems of Poland and Hungary further exposed, the continent faces a severe test of its capacity for unity and solidarity. It has underperformed, but I would not write it off.

The initial European reaction to the pandemic was weak Lombardy will not soon forget its abandonment and the European Unions response to the March 30 assertion of near-total autocratic power by the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orban, was pathetic, equivalent to appeasement.

For the Union to commit to providing billions of dollars in aid to Hungary through the Corona Response Investment Initiative on the very day Orban began ruling by decree for an indefinite period was mad, bad and dangerous, as Jacques Rupnik, a French political scientist, told me. Orban is a politician Trump admires.

But in Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, Europe has again discovered a leader inspiring in her candor and sanity and steadiness. Cometh the hour, cometh the woman.

European societies, with their buffering welfare states that are covering the wages of laid-off workers and providing universal health care, are better prepared than the United States for a disaster on this scale. Governments and the European Central Bank have now mobilized massive resources.

Macron, in an interview with The Financial Times, has made the argument that the virus should ultimately reinforce multilateralism and herald the return of the human over the economic or, roughly interpreted, European solidarity over American unfettered capitalism.

Certainly, the underpaid first responders, garbage collectors, farm workers, truckers, supermarket cashiers, delivery people and the rest who have kept people alive and fed while the affluent took to the hills or the beaches have delivered a powerful lesson in the need for greater equity and a different form of globalization. People suffocate from Covid-19. They may also suffocate one day, as Macron pointed out, from an overheated, overexploited planet. Whether the lesson will be heeded through a radical rebalancing, both personal and corporate, is another story.

What is clear is that if the European Union does not stand up for liberal democratic values, those values will be orphaned in the menacing world of Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping.

I said the great 21st century democracy-dictatorship battle is far from over. Emergencies serve autocrats but can also demonstrate the failings of their systems and provoke radical rethinking.

The pivotal date in the struggle is now Nov. 3. If Trump wins, assuming the election is held, and Pangloss continues his assault on truth, the Merkel-Macron democratic camp will struggle. If Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, wins, the United States will not recover an American-led world, because that world is gone forever, but the return of American decency and principle will make an enormous difference. To begin with, autocrats will no longer have an American carte blanche.

The virus is attacking an incoherent, deglobalized world, Bildt said. And as long as that is the case, the virus wins.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Continued here:
Despotism, Democracy and the Coronavirus - The New York Times

It is estimated that we need 4 billion dollars so that all states can prepare for elections by mail, a real necessity in this time of the pandemic to ensure our democracy.

The numbers of voters disenfranchised by not preparing for voting by mail could be in the millions. That is not how democracy is meant to function.

Not making it possible for every voter to have a voice is criminal. The money Congress already passed $400 million begins the process, but we need to make sure everyone can vote by mail, vote early, and have the opportunity to vote on election day, including in person.

Congress must pass the additional funding needed to make sure our elections in November include everyone eligible to vote to have that opportunity. Make calls, get involved, be proactive. We cannot be apathetic to this issue. Voting is our way to bring about change. Do your part, please.

Here is the original post:
Democracy in the time of coronavirus | Letters to the Editor - Napa Valley Register

Now that a coalition agreement between Likud and Kahol Lavan has been signed, its worth examining the significance of that agreement, in particular two core issues. For Kahol Lavan, the fig leaf that ostensibly justifies its entry into a Netanyahu government and proves it is sticking to its principles is the preservation of democracy and the rule of law. To this end, the party even agreed to compromise and consent to moves to advance annexation as of July 1.

This is basically all one needs to know about the thinking here, across the board, regarding democracy. After all, there is no connection whatsoever between democracy and the rule of law and the continued Israeli rule over millions of Palestinians who are without rights. What Israel is doing beyond the Green Line is undemocratic by its very nature. The Palestinians have no political rights, they do not take part in any democratic process, and their entire lives are controlled by Israeli systems in which they have no representation. No Palestinian subject ever took part in the election, appointment or promotion of High Court justices, Members of Knesset, army officers or government ministers all those Israelis who make decisions daily about what occurs in the territories.

Corona keeps Bibi in power and unmasks the MossadHaaretz

That being the case, all the lofty talk about democracy is meaningless, nor is there any point talking about the rule of law. Not just in the superficial sense of the absence of a demand for a reckoning from the members of the security forces who kill Palestinians, or the lack of law enforcement against settlers who harass Palestinians, but in a deeper sense too: How can the rule of law have any meaning when it is determined, interpreted and applied in accordance with the interests of those who control and oppress their subjects with the intention of perpetuating their rule by means of this same law?

As Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice: The question is which is to be master, thats all. And therefore the meaning of a word is just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less. In the territories, the meaning of the word law is just what Israel chooses it to mean. Thus it is legal to shoot unarmed protesters, to raze buildings, to steal lands, and to deprive people of water, electricity or access to lifesaving health services.

But Kahol Lavan joined the coalition to safeguard democracy and the rule of law, so how does that work? No problem there: Theyre thinking only about Netanyahus various corruption cases and about public corruption, not about the thousands that weve shot, or about the moral corruption at the root of the Israeli regime. The Kahol Lavan leaders dont even bother to hide this, and are even eager to clarify their intention in this whole celebration of the democracy that they are defending. Its an incredible democracy whose rule over millions of subjects doesnt undermine it in the slightest, to the point that there is no need even to mention those subjects.

But Kahol Lavan isnt content with passive silence regarding the subjects. In another section of the coalition agreement, they are partners in a proactive move regarding their future: one variation or another to be agreed upon with the head honcho in Washington, of annexation, with, as usual, the Palestinians not even to be asked about it. The practical implications of this act of annexation are not clear at this stage since Israel, in any case, acts in the territories as within its own borders; it has in effect already annexed them, and its intention to perpetuate its rule over the Palestinians has long been clear.

But its contribution is great in both contexts: First, by exposing the fact that nothing separates Kahol Lavan from Likud when it comes to the cynical use of democracy as a hollow label, including dealing with the Palestinians not as human beings but as political merchandise in coalition negotiations. And second, when it comes to reducing the gap between what Israel does, with Americas patronage, and what these two are saying. Apartheid isnt waiting for July 1 its already been here for quite a while but with an official Israeli declaration it will be harder to look away from the reflection in the mirror.

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Yes, in terms of exposing the reality in all its ugliness, the coalition agreement is making a real contribution: Perpetual rule over millions of subjects without rights? Check; Democracy? Check; Rule of law? Check. The question is, saidAlice, whether you can make words mean so many different things. But Humpty Dumpty reminds her: The question is which is to be master thats all.

The writer is the director of Btselem.

More:
No, Gantz, democracy and annexation don't go together - Haaretz

Empires fall a little bit at a time and then all at once. Over the last two decades,America has provenitself to be well along on that journey. The coronavirus pandemic has simply pushed our nationfurther alongthat downward spiral.

Ultimately, thepandemic has further exposed and exacerbated for those still somehow in denial aboutthe decades-long reality of America as a decaying empiredeep political, social, economic, culturaland other societalproblems.

The countrys infrastructure is rotting.Trump presides overa plutocratic, corrupt, cruel, authoritarian, pathological kakistocracy. The commons is being to rubble while the ultra-rich extract ever more wealth and other resources from the American people. Excessive military spending has left the United States incapable of attending to the basic needs of its people. Aculture of distraction and spectacle has rendered many Americans incapable of being responsible engaged citizens. Ourpublic educational system does not teach critical thinking skills. Radical right-wing Christians, white terrorist organizationsand otherneofascist paramilitaries and extremists are engaging in a campaign of thuggery, intimidationand violence against multiracial American democracy.

Writing at the Atlantic, George Packerdescribed this woeful state of affairs:

The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus like a country with shoddy infrastructure anda dysfunctional governmentwhose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president camewillful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message.

Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state.

In theNew York Times, Pulitzer-winning authorViet ThanhNguyendiagnosed the health of Americas body politic in the age of Trump and thepandemic he has empowered and accelerated:

If anything good emerges out of this period, it might be an awakening to the pre-existing conditions of our body politic. We were not as healthy as we thought we were. The biological virus afflicting individuals is also a social virus. Its symptoms inequality, callousness, selfishness and a profit motive that undervalues human life and overvalues commodities were for too long masked by the hearty good cheer of American exceptionalism, the ruddiness of someone a few steps away from a heart attack.

Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer-winning journalist, author, and philosopher,is not surprised by Americas decline. In places such as the former Yugoslavia, he has personally witnessed what happens when societies fall apart. In his most recent book, America: The Farewell Tour, Hedges both detailsthe countrys many cultural and political crises and what could potentially happen next. The coronavirus crisis has shown his analysisto be eerily prescient.

In this conversation, Hedges warns that the tumult and pain of Trumps coronavirus crisis is but a preview of far worse things in Americas future, as social inequality and political failure combine to create a fullcollapse of the countrys already declining standard of living, as well as its ailing democracy.

Hedges also explains how the Democratic Party and its presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden, will likely not be able to respond to the Age of Trump and the economic and social destruction created by gangster capitalism, in combination with the coronavirus pandemic. Why? Because the Democrats are also part of the plutocratic establishment that has failedthe American people.

You can also listen to my conversation with Chris Hedges on my podcast The Truth Reportor through the player embedded below.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

What has the sudden shock of the coronavirus pandemic revealed about America? If you were to take a snapshot of this moment, what does it reveal about the country?

These days are the good times, as compared to what is coming next.

How does a society change so fast?

A society can change so quickly because the underlying structures are rotten. There is the patina or the veneer of a functioning system, but the foundations of it are so decayed that they cant take the stress. That was true in the Weimar Republic in Germany, before the Nazis took full control. That was true in Yugoslavia before the civil war and ethnic violence. It is true here in the United States too. This country cannot withstand thestress of the coronavirus pandemic. Beyond the obviousness of what the Republicans are doing, the Democratic Partys response to this crisis exemplifies the problems America is facing as a whole.

Twelve hundreddollars to individuals suffering during this crisis is not sufficient. The Democrats were only really trying to block the equivalent of a $500 billionslush fund that is going into Mnuchinshands, a man who acts like acriminal. That $1,200 is going to get vacuumed right up by the credit card companies and the banks who hold the mortgages.

This is like a repeat of 2008, where Congress is dumping staggering sums of money into the hands of Wall Street thieves. What happened in 2008? The plutocrats and the corporations gave themselves massive stock bonuses and other income and returns. I do not see how the United States is going to avoid another Great Depression, which in turn will lead to a further consolidation of power by an authoritarian, oligarchic elite. Those elites are not really worried about the coronavirus pandemic because they will have their own ventilators and private medical staff and all the other things that they need to survive. The average person will be left to take care of themselves.

The president, his party, the corporate overlordsand Trumps Christian nationalist cultare now telling the American people to go out and risk deathfrom the novel coronavirus as an act of patriotism and love for the economy.

would also add that huge numbers of people are going to die unnecessarily. Profit is always the most important thing for the oligarchs, and because of Fox News and other right-wing outlets a significant portion of the American public will downplay the severity and dangers of the coronavirus. Quite predictably, there is an accompanying spike in racist attacks against Chinese-Americans or any people of Asian descent.

I think the pandemic and the response to it could lead usinto virtually uncharted territory within the United States because as things deteriorate, the violence against nonwhites and other groups who are demonized by Trump and the right wing will increase. The desire for an authoritarian solution will grow more pronounced. I remember speaking to Fritz Stern, the great scholar of fascism, who himself fled Nazi Germany as a teenager. He said that in Germany there was a yearning for fascism before the word fascism was invented. We already see that yearning in America. The coronavirus crisis will make that yearning even more pronounced.

What of public memory, especially in the short and the medium term?There are manyvoices who believethe coronavirus will spur positive social change in the United States. I worry that there will be a type of organized forgetting, where several months from now the coronavirus pandemic and what it exposed about the countrys underlying rot will be forgotten all of it thrown down thememory hole.

I dont think were going to be able to go back to a time before the coronavirus pandemic. I believe that the coronavirus is going to trigger a decline unlike anything the country has seen since the Great Depression. That is why the business class and other ruling elites are panicking. It is why Trump, the corporate leaders, Republicans and others aligned with them are telling people to go back to work but to wear masks which may really not keep them 100% safe.

The pandemic was predictable. And yet, of course, especially under the Trump administration, we dismantled the mechanisms through which the United States could prepare. The needed infrastructure, such as hospital bedsand ventilators andother needed equipment, was not there because, like with all decaying empires, the resources go to the defense industry and the military.

The other part of this decay and vulnerability was the assault against public education and the corruption of the media. The fact that Fox News is even considered a news organization is staggering although I dont think CNN is much better. In total, that contributes to a yearning for a system or a figure that can promise to tame the demons that have been unleashed.

I am unsure if we have any mechanisms left in the United States by which we can effectively push back against the elites, the oligarchsand other anti-democratic forces. We dont have any ability to pit power against power. We can beg Pelosi or Mitch McConnell or some other politician all we want for help. We are not going to get it.

Watching Trump stand before the country and speak about the coronavirus pandemic while he is flanked by corporate CEOs never mind how Trump has filled the government with people from some ofthe worlds largest corporations really speaks to how the country isa naked plutocracy. The elites do not even try to hide it anymore.

The oligarchs dont care about democracy. They dont care about truth. They are not interested in the consent of the governed. They could care less about social and income inequality. They are not going to rein in the surveillance state. In fact, as things deteriorate,the surveillance state going to expand. The oligarchs do not care about job losses because, as Marx said, unemployment creates greater pools of desperate surplus labor. The oligarchs do not care about the climate. Its all about the primacy of profit and corporate power and those values and systems are extinguishing our democracy.

And of course, they are all thrilled that nobody can go out in the streets because of the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing. Mass mobilization and civil disobedience is what is needed to defeat the oligarchs and take those first steps necessary to win back an American democracy.

Americas current political system is a corporate political duopoly. A person can either vote for nativists and racists and climate deniers and creationists on one end, or a person can vote for people who speak in the language of tolerance and are willing to put gay people or women or people of color into positions of power as long as they serve the system. Of course, that is the role that Barack Obama fulfilled at the expense of the American people.

American society is in crisis, and in decline. As you pointout, the coronavirus, in combination with Trumps authoritarian, neofascist movement are just symptoms of a deep societal rot. Where do we go from here?

Lets take Biden. What does it mean to vote for Joe Biden? He has this kind of goofy persona which some people find charming. What is Bidens record? What is a person voting for if they back Biden on Election Day 2020?

The humiliation of courageous women like Anita Hill who confronted her abuser. You vote for the architects of endless war. You vote for the apartheid state in Israel. Biden supports those things. With Biden you are voting for wholesale surveillance by the government, including the abolition of due process and habeas corpus. You vote for austerity programs. You vote for the destruction of welfare. That was Biden. You vote for cuts to Social Security,which he has repeatedly called for cutting, along with Medicaid. You vote for NAFTA, you vote for free trade deals. If you vote for Biden, you are voting for a real decline in wages and the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.

With Biden you are also voting for the assault on public education and the transfer of federal funds toChristiancharter schools.With Biden you are voting for more than a doubling of the prison population. With Biden you are voting for the militarized police andagainst the Green New Deal.

You are also voting to limit a womans right to abortion and reproductive rights. You are voting for a segregated public school system. With Biden you are voting for punitive levels of student debt and the inability of people to free themselves of that debt through bankruptcy. A vote for Biden is a vote for deregulating banking and finance. Biden also supports for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical corporations.

A vote for Biden is also a vote against the possibility of universal health care. You vote for Biden and you are supporting huge, wastefuland bloated defense budgets. Biden also supports unlimited oligarchic and corporate money to buy the elections.

Thats what youre voting for.

A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for more of the same. The ruling elites would prefer Joe Biden, just like they preferred Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is vulgar and an embarrassment. But the ruling elites also made it abundantly clear about their interests: Many of these people were quoted by name saying that if Bernie Sanders was the nominee or even Elizabeth Warren they would vote for Donald Trump.

One of the dominant narratives in the mainstream news media is that Trump is done. The coronavirus pandemic and his incompetence are dooming his re-election chances; the tide has finally turned.

My response has been that this is too hopeful and borderson the delusional. One, there is no guarantee that there will even be a presidential election in 2020. Trump and the Republican Party are experts at vote-rigging and other ways of cheating to steal elections and subvert democracy. After the coronavirus crisis recedes, I believe that Trump may very well be even more powerful because he leads a cult and will proclaim that he led the country to victory over the virus.

Liberal elites offer hope that is not grounded in an understanding of political reality. I do not believe that Joe Biden will necessarily be able to win against Trump. Biden is an extremely weak candidate because he represents the neoliberal gangster capitalist policies that the Democratic Party has embraced and that so many Americans are revolting against.

James Baldwin explained why black people dont have midlife crises. Why? Because they do not buy into the myths of America. Black people know that the system in America is rigged. Black people know this when they are children. By comparison, white people buy into theseillusions of meritocracy and individualism and American exceptionalism and similar beliefs. That is why the highest rates of suicide right now are among middle-aged white men, because they are finally starting to realize that the system does not care about them.

Link:
Oligarchs dont care about democracy: Pulitzer winner warns COVID-19 will trigger a decline unlike anything seen since the Great Depression - AlterNet