Daniel Lazare in this interview with Finian Cunningham says that the United States of America is locked in a fateful political and economic crisis that will produce either of two outcomes. Either the country is heading towards more authoritarian rule or there will be a second American revolution.

Daniel Lazare is a journalist, author and commentator who specializes in critically analyzing the politics and Constitution of the United States. He has authored several books, including The Velvet Revolution and the Decline of American Democracy.

The Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years exposes the pathological diseased state of US capitalism where private profit is prioritized over public health. Over one million people have died in the US, by far the biggest death toll of any other nation.

By contrast, China’s death toll from Covid-19 stands at around 5,200, or 0.5 percent of the US. That shows that death and disease are not inevitable but actually a result of political choice. That choice is made in Washington under the diktats of capitalist imperatives. And it does not matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.

Yet despite the appalling neglect of public health and other vital needs, the United States is racked by militarism and a foreign policy of pursuing confrontation with Russia and China.

The contradictions of the US (and other Western states) demonstrate that capitalism is a dead-end system.

The two-party rigid framework of the United States and its antiquated 18th-century Constitution means that the system is not reformable, says Lazare.

Forebodingly, that means the United States in its politically gridlocked condition is moving towards increasing authoritarian rule under both Democrats and Republicans, or the people will take control through a progressive revolution that puts the interests of workers and the general public first.

Daniel Lazare presents a stark choice for the future that is reminiscent of German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. Do we choose socialism or barbarism?