While the USA is clearly on a one-way spiral to self-destruction I think it's important not to over-state the past. The USA has always acted in what politicians imagined to be their best interest, and the USA has rarely if ever shown any interest in either moral values or helping the weak & downtrodden. Remember how the USA turned away a ship full of Jewish refugees, ensuring their extermination by the Nazis? Remember how the CIA overthrew several democratically-elected leaders because the USA was in the grip of hysteria about communism? The list goes on and on and on. Today's total dysfunction is merely a question of degree rather than of fundamental alteration. And it's supremely important to realize that it's because of representative democracy. Every single politician in power has been put there by empty-headed voters addicted to mindless soundbites. You can't really complain about the results when you still support the system that generates those results.