It's the size of the government & agency capture that irks and how it has taken over everything since globalization hollowed out US domestic industry (except print-printing, finance & real estate). Wealth concentration and a managerial class that feels too much like the Old World aristocracy. The American Revolution, a Bill of Rights (that brilliantly & solely limits government's power over it's own people), and the radical experiment of self-governance by the common man is a historical anomaly---constantly in danger of becoming just a speed-bump.
Whatever the system, there are those who will attempt to game and rig it. Sometimes the powerful succeed. Perpetual one/uni-party rule (looking at you California) is always a looming possibility. US debt is at $34T and increasing by $1T every 100 days, rapidly becoming existential. Global debt has ballooned across the board.
Likewise, US politicians revel in foreign affairs because overseas there are no courts with jurisdiction over them. The door to corruption is thrown wide open without a proper backstop. US, as the world's leader, has been headless for the previous 4 years. Unelected bureaucrats and special interests ran rampant---chaos ensued.
While, the state of the West is not terminal, but you must really have your head in the sand to not recognize we are living through a transitional period in history. The post-WWII global pax-americana era is ending, and no one is certain what will emerge next.
The culture-war that we often clash on is not the cause, it's just a side-effect.
