There is something (rhetorically) in the water, yes, I think, as I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread. The nation is doomed.
The rot is beginning to seep through, and the different infections are beginning to battle for what essence can still be wrought from the whole. But the body whole is doomed.
It's the same for all of Western Society, I'm afraid; Europe's more advanced than we are, at this point.
Is dealing with fantasy and not actual reality. It is a semblance, a leading intuition of how the world works. It is trying to get a promise that is not a real promise, but to foreclose what one sees as disaster by arguing with one’s own mirror.
A mirror of images and symbols one already knows the meaning too, and not the meaning of symbols and images beyond one’s reach.
Enjoy OMELAS