There is little reason to believe that the political-corporate-media nomenklatura that got us to this point will be able to change. The smug mindset of this caste of people was perhaps best expressed by Madeleine Albright, who once claimed that “we stand tall and we see further,” although Albright and her colleagues couldn’t see things such as the 9/11 attacks, or the Iraqi insurgency of 2003, or the 2008 financial crisis, or the chaos and violence that our 2011 attack on Libya would cause, or the current global pandemic. This is, after all, a political, corporate and media establishment that has outsourced the country’s strategic capacity to produce its own medical supplies, and has spent the past three-plus years focused on Russia-gate rather than on dealing with the actual problems facing the country. Has anyone seen Adam Schiff lately?

As the country confronts its new circumstances in the post-COVID-19 period, one of the most important questions it will face is whether the necessity for reform will be strong enough to overcome “the Blob’s” dedication to waging the senseless conflicts of the past rather than confronting the challenges of the present and the future. While the answer to this question is unclear, what is painfully obvious is that the country’s current course is unsustainable. 

Gordon N. Bardos is president of SEERECON, a political-risk analysis firm focusing on southeastern Europe.

Image: Reuters.