We Are Living in a Failed State

A review of “We Are Living in a Failed State” by George Packer (The Atlantic)

In this great article, Packer hits on many points and thoughts that echo my own. The true tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic’s affect on the US isn’t the virus itself, but the woefully inadequate response led by incompetence, decades of cuts to public spending and infrastructure, privatization of public resources and services, and political squabbling.

COVID-19 didn’t break the system. The system was already broken. COVID-19 just brought the broken system to its knees, and made it blatantly clear how broken and incapable it really is. Our healthcare system is broken, our government is broken, and our politics are broken. This article does a great job highlighting this and shows how the US really has become, as Packer puts it, “A beggar nation in utter chaos.”