The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump still has around 35% approval rating.

That means the hardcore MAGA base is a third of the US population. I genuinely don't know how to reconcile that with the long term future of the United States.

In Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan referenced some survey from the 80s in which one of the findings was that ~20% of Americans agreed to the statement "the sun is alive." In trying to find that survey for this comment I instead found this one from Time in the 2000s [0], in which 26% of Americans (N=2200) responded that the sun revolves around the Earth. America is a big and diverse place, full of people that have little attachment to reality.

0: https://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-ear...

As a constitutionalist American, I really wish I had an answer for you. The best I have is that two-thirds of the country thinks he's off-base. But I can only agree that's an alarming figure.

It seems like a lot of the governmental structure of this country is predicated on the idea that the People will not elect someone who puts their own interests over those of the nation. And when we do, the whole thing starts to unravel.

That plus the 20% or so that don't care enough to vote.

Americans love to single out Trump, but he’s just a symptom of an epidemic of civic unfitness that is hollowing out the country. It underscores why the only correct move for the world is de-Americanization. Make them economically and militarily unnecessary and they might even be forced to once again behave correctly, even if out of necessity.