Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

My Czech girlfriend and I arrived in the United States (Cincinnati, Ohio) several days ago and the barrage of headlines that, to me, indicates the inevitable downfall of American society completely match the reality on the ground.

Last Saturday, we went out to a bar and headed to a pizza place afterwards before getting bored with the long line and going back to our Airbnb. That turned out to be a pretty astute decision because 15 minutes later there was a shooting outside that restaurant. Gun violence is not just a myth here, clearly.

Each and every interaction we've had with locals have in one way or another circled back to general dissatisfaction with life in the country. For example, our first meal was at a Waffle House where the server, an older woman who happened to be a military veteran, passionately explained to us how "unequal" and "divided" the country is. Even just before sitting down to write this column, we encountered anti-government protesters on the street.

But one of the main events in the media now here is the ongoing January 6 committee hearings. The committee revealed on July 12 a draft tweet by former President Donald Trump held by the National Archives that would have directed people to march to the Capitol from his nearby political rally. This apparently ties Trump directly to the deadly riot that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

This is a very serious bit of evidence – and, to be sure, the entire committee serves an important function in protecting the rule of law in the country. What happened that day was a clear attempt to foment an insurrection against the government, if not spark an outright race war given some of the evidence we are seeing. That being said, one can't help but feel that the committee is actually more harmful than helpful. 

I say that because the committee, e.g., an investigative organ created by the country's legislature, is completely out of touch. Think about it. Why are there no widely televised broadcasts of specialized congressional committees tackling gun violence? After all, white supremacist terrorists are openly targeting minorities all over the country, children are being shot in schools and major cities are just generally unsafe. 

The insinuation is that American politicians and the media truly only care about acts of violence that challenge their power. This is not an endorsement of the January 6 rioters or their message, and I do not view these people as freedom fighters, but their targets were politicians, e.g., the people in charge. And while that is significant, most Americans don't really care and are chiefly concerned with the things that threaten their day-to-day existence.

In fact, this is a quantifiable argument. The television ratings for the January 6 committee hearings, which are being broadcasted on every single major network, have been less than impressive. The first night during prime time drew an audience of 20 million, which, as Joe Concha noted for The Hill, "isn't all that great" in context. Moreover, Americans are split pretty much evenly on whether they agree at all with the sheer concept of this committee, according to a Morning Consult poll taken after the start of the public hearings.

On the other hand, poll after poll have consistently shown that Americans are concerned about inflation, "the economy," gun violence and abortion rights. Congress has done pretty much nothing to address any of these issues. They can't pass any legislation that would meaningfully improve the economic situation of the average American, or pass a skimpy gun reform bill and they have failed so miserably to protect abortion rights that federal courts are legislating at the bench. 

I am reminded of one quote from Friedrich Engels in which he describes the concept of historical materialism. "The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason has become unreason, and right wrong, is only proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in keeping," he wrote in part III of Anti-Dühring in 1877.

As an American who has the good fortune to only visit the country roughly once annually, the changes I observe are more pronounced than those who see them every day. It is beyond doubt at this point that our social institutions are very much unreasonable, remarkably unjust and I can say that much of what we see in the media is unreason dressed up as reason, wrong paraded as right, which only reveals that our entire social order is, as Engels said, "no longer in keeping."

One thing's for sure: Congress is not helping to correct this mess. Their inaction and obsession with their own power are only accelerating the rate at which things crumble.

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