Exactly, I'm reminded of this that I read recently:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/opinion/trump-presidentia...:

> Instead of comparing what is happening under Trump with the situations in Hungary, Turkey and Russia, Goldstone argued that conditions in the United States are,

>> ironically, more like what happened in Venezuela, where after a century of reasonably prosperous democratic government, decades of elite self-serving neglect of popular welfare led to the election of Hugo Chávez with a mandate to get rid of the old elites and create a populist dictatorship.

>> I find that decades-long trends in the U.S. — stagnating wages for non-college-educated males, sharply declining social mobility, fierce political polarization among the elites and a government sinking deeper and deeper into debt — are earmarks of countries heading into revolutionary upheaval.

>> Just as the French monarchy, despite being the richest and archetypal monarchy, collapsed in the late 18th century because of popular immiseration, elite conflicts and state debts, so the U.S. today, despite being the richest and archetypal democratic republic, is seeing its institutions come under attack today for a similar set of conditions.