Of them apply to the US, shall we?
Social
Mounting demographic pressures and tribal, ethnic and/or religious conflicts - The US has a extremely racist history, and even today minorities struggle with racism in their daily lives. This affects a lot of things - Such as their treatment by police, medical outcomes, how much they're paid when compared to their white counterparts. And that's even before accounting for all the 'white genocide' groups that preach loudly about how equality is tantamount to oppression. Many of which groups label themselves as militias... And wouldn't ya know, the FBI consider these to be terror threats. We might not be seeing war on the streets, but it's certainly becoming a powerkeg. Considering everything, this box is certainly checked.
Massive internal and external displacement of refugees, creating severe humanitarian emergencies - I'm assuming that this applies to people within our nation, rather than the treatment people seeking refuge here at the boarder experience. We don't see significant displacement of our own people, so... I'd say it doesn't apply, but I'll admit that I might be misunderstanding this criteria.
Widespread vengeance-seeking group grievances - January 6th, and the entire Qanon movement. See also right/white-ring groups under demographic pressures.
Chronic and sustained emigration - We're still net positive in regards to migration, although that number has drastically fallen since the 90's. Maybe it's a sign of improving conditions elsewhere, creating less of a desire to migrate to the US. Maybe it's a sign that we've lost a lot of our allure. Still though, this doesn't apply.
Economic
Widespread corruption - Honestly, I don't think we suffer from corruption in general. We have issues yes, but those more-so fall under other labels.
High economic inequality - Oh boy, here is one that certainly applies considering just how much money the billionaire class made during the pandemic, while millions of people lost their jobs. And this is just general economic inequality, we're not even getting into racial and gender disparities.
Uneven economic development along group lines - And yep, here we are. We've got gender paygaps, and racial paygaps. A lack of money in their pockets, along side lack of opportunity to make money.
Severe economic decline - As much as I want to argue against a general decline, it's hard to when considering how far worker wages have fallen when compared against historical pay factored for inflation. It seems to be more inequality than actual decline, but well... Stagnant (At best!) pay, ever increasing living costs... I'd say that leads to a declining economic situation for the average worker.
Political (Oh god, is THIS one is going to be interesting...)
Delegitimization of the state - See the QAnon movement, and other Republican aligned groups. Conspiracy theories abound between them about how Trump is the 'actual' president, and that the military is going to force Biden out of his office any day now once the stars align and the pigs fly. Hell, even Democrats scratched the surface of this when Trump won - In our case though, we still had faith in the system as a whole even if we lacked it in certain parts, but many Republican leaning groups think that we haven't had a properly elected President for decades now.
Deterioration of public services - A public service, for the public good. Many nations consider healthcare to be a public service, so by that merit your admission that we're close to a failed healthcare system is enough to meet this criteria.
Suspension or arbitrary application of law; widespread human rights abuses - Yeah, uh... The shit that minorities experience at the hands of the police more than checks this box.
Security forces operating as a "state within a state" often with impunity - Basically, the 'Deep State'. Republican aligned groups believe in such, and that belief by itself is enough to cause instability.
Rise of factionalized elites - Ok, so, I had to find a definition for this one. Ready for it? Basically, its a splintering of a nation into political groups that promote rhetoric and actions that are harmful to the country. So... Yeah. Pure Red states, pure blue states... Our nation certainly has that political division, and for the Red states... Well, see QAnon.
Intervention of external political agents and foreign states - I really, really, don't like that this is considered a criteria. Given how interconnected the world is these days, no shit foreign states and their agents are going to have a interest in who wins elections. But, still, this applies as much as it feels like a freebie.
So of 14 criteria for a failed state... 11 of them apply.
= new reply since forum marked as read
privilege has nothing to do with this.
