Is it time for me to move back to Britain?

I first saw America 50 years ago. I spent the summer of 1974 with my New York girlfriend. Richard Nixon resigned halfway through my trip. Gerald Ford took over. My first visit spanned two administrations. It was a different country then. Income equality in America was better in the 1970s than it is in Norway today. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, it was better than anywhere in Scandinavia today. Politics was grubby, but retained a discernible spine. Congress was so appalled by the slush fund which paid the Watergate burglars that it passed tough election finance laws even before Nixon went. Those laws worked. Limits were imposed. Ten years later, Ronald Reagan won his 49-state re-election without holding a single fundraiser. The laws were toughened still further as late as 2002. Then they were smashed completely in 2010 with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which held that the First Amendment prohibits the restriction of campaign expenditure. Thirty years of relentless bribery had paid off. Unlimited money was allowed. Talk radio and cable news delivered relentless propaganda. Now politics no longer exists in America. It has been replaced by a permanent kulturkampf so toxic, psychotic and deranged that it’s impossible to believe unless you live here and suffer it every day. The rest of the world thinks it’s bad here. They have no idea.