by Neil H. Buchanan
The UK's many problems have become too obvious for even the most obtuse anglophiles to ignore or deny. That country's post-Brexit meltdown, which has (among many other things) renewed the possibility of Scotland declaring independence -- Sexit, it seems -- continues to get even worse, with the empire on which the sun once never set now seeing an acceleration of its long, agonizing decline.
In yesterday's column here on Dorf on Law, I asked whether the US or the UK will be the first to fully implode, economically and politically. I acknowledged that the Brits have a significant head start on the Americans in terms of frittering away their many advantages, having begun their decline in 1945 (at the very latest) and showing no signs of rejuvenation at any time since then. On the other hand, the US's particular pathologies -- most obviously the chaos that Republicans are unleashing via debt-ceiling-based threats of Armageddon, although in fact it all comes down to our constitutional infirmities, such as a Supreme Court that laughs off gerrymandering -- might allow us to speed past our former colonial overlords on the highway to hell.
Moving from predictions of doom to the possibility of changing our fates, what might be done to stop all of this? A brief conversation with a British colleague earlier today sparked some thoughts. A possible alternative headline to this column captures the basic idea: "National Renewal and Soaking the Rich: What Must Be Done to Reinvest in Our Future?"