The thing is, there's kind of two USAs, right? There's the one the vast, vast majority know and interact with every day. Then there's the kids whose drivers bring them to fancy college classes in a Rolls where the grading system's rigged and even showing up doesn't matter; the few who are too big to fail, jail, or bring into line in any way. Any warning signs I'm seeing are not coming from anywhere that 99.99% or so of the population deals with or sees. My tailor's a friend. He was conscripted into the soviet army, as was standard. He has some stooge antics. I've got no doubt you've heard some better. Corruption's a notoriously hard thing to measure comparatively. Transparency puts out the corruption perceptions index which tries to do it. The trajectory the US has taken in recent years is not good, even if it's a long way to the bottom.