The most depressing and convincing theory I’ve read about the state of American democracy is Sarah Kendzior’s book “They Knew”.

The tl;dr is that the US is ungovernable. The ruling classes don’t have the will to fix the economic and cultural divides that split the country and there’s an unspoken understanding between them all that the only way is down.

So they’re letting it run its course, letting the weakest fall into the gears and skimming off what wealth they can, to insulate themselves from the inevitable chaos.