why squabble with people pointing out that the US is more corrupt than other countries?
I started out illustrating instances in which politicians could end-run a simple bribery ban and it got dismissed as a uniquely American problem.
And it’s more corrupt because not only are we more accepting of corruption
I don't think the US voter base is any more accepting of corruption than any other constituency. The courts are more accepting of corruption, but that's largely because they are insulated from any kind of oversight or accountability.
I gotta tell ya at this point we’re much more likely to get full, mask-off fascism complete with gas chambers than we are to get any kind of communist revolution in the US.
We've had periods of mask-off fascism in the US going back centuries. From Indian Reservations to Jim Crow to Japanese Internment to Gitmo detention to kids stuffed into concentration camps on the US/Mexico border. But there are plenty of Americans who have lived through these periods and never really acknowledged it. That's what allows fascism in the US to infest the body politic and to endure from generation to generation.
Meanwhile, we've inoculated ourselves against any kind of mass labor movement with the most hysterical media and legal response to organized workers. Every AES state is a deplorable hell-hole, because some industry unionized or popular local leader took the reins from a failing foreign corporate interest. Every domestic labor movement is simultaneously described as a bunch of entitled greedy idiot teenagers, a gaggle of uppity minorities with drug problems, and a fifth column of foreign infiltrators trying to bring down the American economy.
So I don't doubt the next step will be towards another round of brutal, blood-drenched fascism. But the end result will be the further deterioration of the American project and the ultimate crack up of our unified economy. The only thing that can save America from itself is a new socialist turn. Without that, we're headed for balkanization, further deindustrialization, and ultimate colonization from abroad.