

Surely a modicum of responsibility can be attached to the US public more broadly and not just public sentiment manipulators.
As someone who has lived in the US for several years (before Trump), the impression I get is that Trump is more of a symptom and not the cause.













That’s a fair evaluation, but it removes agency from the American populace.
From my time in the US, I got the impression the roots of the current oligarchic regime mostly lie in the cultural attitudes of the American population. It’s not like the US got invaded by an external force or it had to deal with extraordinary circumstances.
Just one example, is the superficial attitude to things like “freedom of speech” or “free markets”. IMO, that is the real source of oligarchic/criminal power in the US.