Excellent essay by a Ukrainian journalist who has covered the US for 20 years. Two things stand out:
The collapse of shared reality essential to a functioning society - a point made by Peter Pomerantsev in his books. “There is no longer a shared sense of what is true. I know first-hand that when facts are questioned, rather than verified and used to build common ground, it becomes harder to agree on even the most basic issues – including what the government is for. People stop debating what can be changed and improved about the public sector and instead start to see it as something to be dismantled. The underlying problems, meanwhile, remain unsolved.”
The collapse of trust in the state, seen by many Americans as a threat to freedom and an inefficient relic. The author, Natalia Gumenyuk, contrasts this with the essential role played by the state in Europe, in particular in Ukraine during wartime.
“The war revealed to us what a state truly is…For us, statehood now means trains running to frontline areas; a health care system capable of treating thousands of wounded; schools and universities continuing to teach – These are not ideological constructs, they are lifelines. And they cannot be replaced by philanthropy or the private sector. Survival cannot be outsourced.”