The availability of the modern media may be accelerating the decline of western civilization (as compared to other empires), but it is still a slow process.

A couple of years back, I read a book called “The Unreality Industry”, which was written in 1989. It talks about how the media has evolved since the 1950s. You can see how the “bad things” of the media at that time have risen to higher levels.

While it obvious that Mr. Trump would like to run the USA as if it were his private company, he is thwarted by the many features of modern democracy that make it a modern democracy. The trouble is that he just is not smart enough to figure how to turn his popularity into a dictatorship. The next populist leader (who could come from the left) will be smarter — and learn from Mr. Trump’s legacy.