Russia is exploiting vulnerabilities that are inherent in democracies. <snip por favor>. Over time, growing inequality leads people to doubt the current political system, whatever that system might be, including democracy. As I've put it before, people have a built-in 'fairness' meter. This doesn't mean that everyone expects or feels entitled to live like Elon Musk, but they do feel that they should receive the same benefit of living in an advanced civilization as others do. Things like living in a safe neighborhood. Being able to drink city water without fear of being poisoned. Being able to breathe clean air. Living in a safe neighborhood. Not living in a food desert. Not having to worry that a trip to the hospital or getting an advanced educational degree could leave you in permanent financial distress. Those things.
Well said. Growing wealth inequality is a threat to liberty AND security, for the majority who are left out.
As voters though, they're wedded to the idea that they can get good things from government without ever having to pay taxes for them. It can go on maybe a decade longer, but only with modest tax increases and downward pressure on all the good things. Basically, as voters they have been deceived and like anyone, will be loathe to admit that.
Interestingly enough, I think both China and the U.S. have a similar problem. They're getting older and they will need to import productive immigrants who can pay the taxes to help maintain their collective productivity and also pay for an expanding balance sheet. I agree with you that, historically speaking, and particularly since 1965, the U.S. has done a better job of solving this problem through immigration. But we're backsliding in this direction as well, and if the right wing gets re-elected on a ethno-nationalist platform, it will have disastrous consequences for the U.S. going forward - consequences which, like Brexit, may not be obvious at first but will insidiously put the country at an ever-increasing disadvantage over time.
Actually I would say that the humanitarian motive for immigration used to coincide with the US's unlimited need for hard workers, but now it really doesn't. The US is taking in
skilled and in some cases
rich immigrants, because those are more in demand by the private sector than laborers are. Of course there are still some refugees admitted, but the number has not grown anywhere near as much as the "supply" has. Perhaps the humanitarian motive always was a sham, or a way of feeling good about poor people picking the cotton or mowing lawns ("we're doing them a favor!") but I take a more positive view. The tolerance of Americans for too high a rate of immigration (any kind) has always been limited, so the different kinds of immigration have to be balanced and currently, the interests of industry outweigh the compassionate motive.
It's really hard to imagine the US taking in a million peasants, who only speak French if any of the national languages of Europe. But I suppose the Europeans really didn't have much choice. As Australia became so alarmed about, refugees who come on unsafe boats are very hard to "stop at the border" and all Western countries are signatories to the Refugee Convention which requires them to harbor asylum seekers while they're processed
if they're actually in the country. And the laws of the sea prevent letting them drown. The best countries like Greece could do is not to sail around at all, so they didn't have to pretend they never saw unsafe boats. Europe with the Mediterranean and also long land borders, never stood a chance so they just accepted the refugees. But Australia with a much favorable single sea route (via Indonesia, which isn't where the refugees were coming from)
seemed to have success with towing boats back (or transferring refugees to essentially disposable life-boats, if their boat wasn't sea worthy) but I say
seemed to because all that did is raise the price to refugees: they quickly wised up that with nothing more than a few thousand dollars, a clean criminal record and a holiday itinerary, they could easily enter Australia as tourists and then apply for asylum. The
exact same thing is happening in the US. When you raise the effective cost of illegally immigrating
above the cost of a holiday visit, no wall is going to do you any good. And obviously the US is not going to shut down such a lucrative "export" industry as foreign tourism. At best, the US can keep out Interpol-listed criminals.