Maybe things haven't changed. More history you never learned

Yes, there are plenty of good people here but as in every other country at least 35-40% of the rest are ignorant and dangerous, and that's enough to destroy a govt and democracy if they get in the right positions. Thank all the repub voters and trump voters for putting us there.

I saw a bunch of people interviewed on PBS yesterday. All appeared to be normal, well-meaning, nice people. They all said they were voting repub because inflation and the economy was killing them. All of them are too ignorant to understand that no president or congressman can wipe out rampant inflation caused by global factors. 

No one ever seems to ask what the Republican plan for inflation is.  All they every propose is tax cuts for the rich.

Also no one ever seems to mention that the economy does better under Democrats and the deficit grows less.

But no one wants to be distracted by facts.

The way imperial powers work is always complicated.

The wealth they accumulate ends up making life better for their ruling class, classes that are in the vicinity of the ruling class, and segments of the society that are in the orbit of the ruling class, whether it is the artists, philosophers, etc. So they end up producing quality art for their time, and develop lofty philosophies about how everyone is grand and worthy and how the world can be a better place, mostly intended for the feel-good mindset of the ruling class. Every now and then those ideas inspire their underclass who start getting this dangerous idea that maybe they also deserve better, which has been the tumult the wester world went through in the late 18th and the 19th centuries.

At the end of the day, though the group of people who benefit from an imperium is very small and well-defined. And the "good" they do either comes at a cost to someone else or has a dark underbelly (for instance, if Hitler's Germany had been an asian power decimating a series of other asian countries, the US would probably never have been involved with stopping fascism; which arguably happened in some fashion when Japan was burning through at least parts of the continent around WWII -- We jumped into wars in Europe because of emotional ties to England. The Eastern establishment that has been running this country has always been enamored by Britain (more than Germany or France) and wanted to earn their respect, one way or another, I believ. IOW, they have had some "daddy issues". If Hitler has emerged in England and taken over that country, would we have been on the right side in WWII when we never quite had any real national interest in what was going on in Europe at the time? It's a question worth considering.)

So, yes, it is complicated to the point that I don't think talking about good or bad/evil really makes much sense in the first place. The Mississippi river is not a good thing or a bad thing. It is a thing and it impacts its surroundings in different ways at different times. All you can do is to understand what it is and learn to live with it and adapt to it. I tend to think of history and nations in similar ways. Germany, for instance, has not been good or bad. Some really bad things emerged from that country, as well as what I would consider to be some really good things, the same way that floods are not good thing, but river transportation is.

>My reading list includes the NYT, WaPo, The Economist and the LA Times, but I only read the articles that interest me. I'm more engaged than some, but probably underinformed in general. In short, I'm normal but probably only a little above average.

Bob, you grossly underestimate yourself. A huge swath of people in this country, tens of millions or more, only get information from propaganda news alerts on their phone, or watch only one propaganda station. They don't read or investigate anything. They may be able to drive a truck, or run a small business, or repair your teeth, or even help you legally in court, but they don't understand economics, much less even the basics of global economics, or science, or politics in regards to who can do what. They are grossly misinformed or uninformed voters and now pose a real threat. I think that group is dangerously close to the "norm" at 35-40%, maybe much more. You are light years ahead of that.

If anyone doubts that just look at the number of "intelligent" people who blame Biden (or any president) for inflation or gas prices.

>"The estimated total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2020 was 24.3 million for weekday and 25.8 million for Sunday,"

Exactly my point. That's less than 10% of the population that reads anything reliable in print or digital except blurbs on their phone that is often propaganda. Smart phones have turned us into the dumbest population in the last 100 years.

Even worse too many kids today can only read or write in print or block letters and can't subtract 50 from 100 without their phone. Too many don't know what continent they are on. Yes, we all know of more educated exceptions.