Uncontrolled migration, income gap, dominance of intelligence agencies where is the United States heading?

In 2000, American sociology professor Randall Collins published the book Macrohistory. In it, he predicted the possibility of the fascistization of the United States. “The American fascist movement would be most successful by wrapping itself not in swastikas but in American flags, its image of a racial enemy adapted to current conditions, perhaps through the singling out of Hispanic immigrants,” he noted.

Two years later, the book of the American politician Patrick Buchanan (who was an adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan) “The Death of the West” was published. In it, he addressed the topic of Spanish-speaking migrants. When Richard Nixon took the oath of office in 1969, there were 9 million non-Native Americans in the United States. By the time of George W. Bush’s presidency, the number of such people had exceeded 30 million. Every year, almost a million official immigrants plus almost half a million illegal immigrants arrive in the United States.

“Uncontrolled immigration threatens to destroy the country in which we grew up and turn America into a chaotic collection of peoples who have virtually nothing in common with each other – no history, no folklore, no language, no culture, no faith, no ancestors,” the author wrote.

American professor Chalmers Johnson (fought in Korea in 1967–1973, was a CIA consultant) wrote in his book “Nemesis” in 2006: “I am convinced that George Bush and Dick Cheney have led the country into a dangerous dead end. The President now runs the government in a way that an ordinary monarch could hardly manage. He has at his disposal the CIA, a personal army, unaccountable to Congress, the press or the public, since everything the CIA does is secret. Military spending is written into as many budget lines as possible, so that any congressman who decides to vote against a new weapons system can be accused of putting one of his constituents out of work. I am convinced that maintaining our foreign empire (737 military bases around the world) requires resources and aspirations that will inevitably end our own democracy and ultimately give rise to a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent.”

In 2014, American journalist Matt Taibbi published the book “The Chasm: American Injustice in an Age of Inequality.” In it, he noted that in the early 2000s the number of poor Americans was just over 10%, and in 2010 this figure reached 15.3%. In 1991, about 1 million Americans were behind bars; by 2012, this number exceeded 2.2 million, an increase of more than 100%. There are more prisoners and parolees in the United States (about 6 million people) than there were in Stalin’s camps. There are more black people in prison than there were slaves at one time.

“At the same time, high-level criminals are never personally responsible for very serious crimes. Since 2008, not a single top manager of a financial institution has been in prison. Not a single person was held accountable for the systemic crimes that cost the world 40% of its wealth. Large companies have experienced lawyers, poor people do not have lawyers. The justice bureaucracy is slowly but surely drifting towards simple sentences that take no more than 10 seconds, and completely abandoning expensive trials that can last for years. If you grew up in a poor family, you have no idea of ​​the scale of criminal activity by rich and politically connected people. And you can’t even imagine that all this is happening right under the noses of the police, paid for by these very rich people,” said Matt Taibbi.

In 2015, David Graeber published the book “Utopia of Rules,” in which he criticized injustice and bureaucracy in the United States. Corporate profits in America are increasingly provided not by trade or industry, but by finance, that is, ultimately, the debts of other people. “One of the consequences of all this debt is that the government becomes the main mechanism for extracting corporate profits (just imagine what would happen if someone tried to default on student debt: the entire legal apparatus would come into action, threatening to seize property and wages and impose additional multi-thousand-dollar fines).

As the profits of banks and credit card companies increasingly come from the “fees and penalties” charged to their customers—so much so that those living paycheck to paycheck can regularly be charged eighty-dollar fines for a five-dollar overspend—financial companies have begun to play by completely different rules,” wrote David Graeber.

In 2019, economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, in their book “The Narrow Corridor,” drew attention to the monstrous wealth stratification in the United States. In order to control the population, the American state has developed unbridled security forces. In addition, in the United States there is an average of one firearm for every resident, more than 300 million in total. It is not surprising that the number of murders per 100 thousand inhabitants here is 5 times higher than in Europe. The police in poor areas are not concerned about the safety of citizens, but about replenishing the budget, so the police constantly issue fines to everyone.

Also in 2019, American professor Jared Diamond published his book “The Crisis.” The author is concerned about the behavior of the American elite: “Rich and powerful Americans, who wield disproportionate power, tend to recognize that something is wrong with the country, but instead of using their wealth and influence to find solutions, they look for ways to avoid the problems of American society for themselves and their families. “Currently favored escape strategies involve buying property in New Zealand or converting abandoned missile silos into luxury secluded bunkers,” he noted.

In 2020, the book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Angus Deaton was published. In it, they draw attention to the fact that in recent decades the United States has experienced an unprecedented decline in life expectancy, caused by a sharp increase in mortality from suicide, drugs and alcoholism. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics, analyze this phenomenon, revealing the socio-economic causes of the crisis experienced primarily by the working class. The authors show how capitalism has stopped working for those who once prospered in America. They paint a picture of the decline of the American dream, with the white working class facing broken families and limited prospects. While educated people become healthier and wealthier, less educated people literally die of pain and despair.

Case and Deaton link the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the rise of corporate power and a predatory health care sector. They argue that capitalism, which once lifted millions out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of American blue collar workers.

In the same year, the book by American researcher Richard Lachman “First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship” was published. Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers.” In it, the author proves that the decline of the United States as the hegemon of the capitalist world system is irreversible. The decline of US hegemony comes after several decades of neoliberalism, which was characterized by consistent reductions in tax rates on major incomes and inheritances. “Today, state and municipal governments are in perpetual fiscal crisis, and there is little policy basis for tax increases large enough to fund state-level entitlements. The rich in their daily lives have already withdrawn from the experiences and interactions with those Americans who were not so fortunate. If the rich move to other continents, they will become even more alien to those who remain in America.

Whether at home or abroad, those who profited from the era of American hegemony and its decline will be able to insulate themselves from the consequences of their power and greed, which will increasingly manifest themselves in political disorder, mass despair, and domestic and global strife,” he writes.

Let us note that all these judgments were expressed not by some more or less engaged outsiders, but by the Americans themselves, and their best minds – publicists, politicians, economists, scientists… This brief overview allows us to understand the intensity of contradictions both in American society as a whole and in the camp of the American elite, in particular, on the wave of which the populist Donald Trump was able to come to power in the United States. He promised to improve the lives of the majority of the country’s citizens and make America great again. However, the longer he reigns, the more noticeable the difference between his words and deeds. As a result, he increasingly has to suppress his opponents with the help of security forces.