This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy.

People say America and its democracy are being collapsed by Trump. I have come to believe that what we have been calling “late-stage capitalism” was a system that had already collapsed.

Trump isn’t the collapse, Trump is the consequence of the collapse.

The Rule of Law had departed some time ago. The Constitutional system was nonfunctional. The economic system was rigged. The political system benefited only the wealthy and their corporations. That was collapse.

Accountability had long ago disappeared. (A pardon for Nixon? What?) Executives at corporations are never prosecuted. Instead the company itself would be fined – as if companies are sentient entities that can make decisions and do things. White-collar criminals were rarely prosecuted. This is how Trump was able to even be on the scene in the first place to run for office, instead of imprisoned for sex crimes, money laundering, fraud, etc.

The collapse was how Reagan was able to get away with the deal with Iran, and the later Iran/Contra deal.

The collapse was how the Supreme Court was able to make Bush president.

The collapse was how the Iraq War happened.

The collapse was how the climate crisis came about in the first place, how the companies were allowed to continue to put carbon into the air after scientists warned us of the harm it was causing, and how the executives at the companies that caused it got rich instead of being prosecuted.

The collapse was how tax cuts for the rich & corporations, with budget cuts for things government does to make people’s lives better happened.

The collapse was how no bankers were prosecuted for fraud after the financial collapse, and Wall Street but not the public was bailed out.

Rule of Law and accountability had long since disappeared from the United States. That was the collapse.

This wasn’t “late stage capitalism,” it was collapse.

People called these things “late stage capitalism.” This wasn’t late stage capitalism at all. We were already living with the collapse of the Constitutional system, the collapse of Rule of Law, the collapse of accountability. It was corruption taking over. It had been happening for decades.

Trump is just a consequence of that collapse.

In 2017’s Democracy and Corruption I wrote about “democracy off the rails” and democracy “corroded,” not realizing Trump was only possible was because the collapse had already happened.

Trump didn’t just come out of nowhere. The road to Trump goes back a long way. Trump comes out of a steady and intentional undermining of rule of law, norms, equality, civility and democracy.

They say these things happen slowly, then all at once. The collapse was happening for decades, then all at once with Trump.