© Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesUS President Joe Biden
How did this state of affairs come to pass? Most "analysis" starts and ends with a bit of hand-wringing about the moral decay of the youth. But this doesn't explain much. There were countless complaints about the sad state of young people in the late 19th century — but that didn't translate into a society-wide lack of patriotism and disinterest in defending one's country.
More useful, perhaps, is the model supplied by British historian Arnold Toynbee, whose life's work mapped the lifecycle of human empires. In particular, one concept is of interest here: the idea of the internal proletariat, a group of people who tend to grow in number as empires begin to stagnate and decline.
Comment: Without applying wisdom to reflection, history repeats.