David Pakman

For example, the other day I found a scan of an immigration document from when my mother's uncle's aunt arrived at Ellis Island or this document from the US Canada border for my relative who was born in 1895.

This is remarkable stuff.

and David Pakman dot com slash my heritage.

The link is in the description.

Is Donald Trump's America becoming a failed state?

I don't say this lightly.

I know that the question is provocative, but we need to talk about what's happening in this country right now.

When you step back and look at the data and you look at what's going on in communities across the country, it is starting to look less and less like what a wealthy developed nation looks like and more like what international observers call a failed state.

So let's start with what we can actually see.

You walk around through American cities

And you see these tent cities, these encampments like refugee camps stretching for blocks.

People who are economic refugees in their own country go to the Rust Belt, abandoned factories, entire towns where the major employer left and

Now you've got dollar generals and opioid addiction.

I was recently in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

It was grim.

In Flint, Michigan, Newark, Jackson, Mississippi, you've got tap water that is of questionable safety for human consumption.

Water mains from the 1800s are still in use and bridges are held together seemingly more by hope than structure.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave our infrastructure a C-minus.

Not a college essay, right?

This is whether the bridge you drive over is going to collapse.