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As an American, honestly I feel like anticommunism was a huge factor in the decline of our civic virtue. When you start praising and empowering wealth over mutual benefit you weed the ethical and the dutiful from the leadership pool, both politically and culturally. Many left wing movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in America prioritized civic duty separate from the state (left wing) or through it (liberal).

I think the other big damage to it was the American civic religion. The country went from a huge machine we each had to play a part in, built on philosophies that everyone was supposed to understand, to a golden calf. The constitution went from the foundational rules meant to steward us towards the goals stated in the preamble it became a holy text thats name is cited, but its goals are not cherished. People often don't actually think about how what they want fits in to a reasonable interpretation of say, the 4th-8th amendments.

Idk, sometimes I feel massively outnumbered here as someone who takes her civil duties seriously.

Hey I know it's just a funny Internet meme to shit on Ohio, but any time someone does (especially in the current times where we need to find allies more than ever) I feel obligated to remind them that Ohio is actually not a hell hole, it just has backward rednecks in the rural areas, just like any other state with rural areas. Cincinnati is a beautiful city, Ohio is a beautiful state, and a huge chunk of the ~12 million people that live here are in fact not shit people.

I think you might be onto something blaming ohio actually.

Tbf, most of us don't really count ourselves as Ohioans. Cincinnati really stands apart from the state.

Also James K Polk, Republican of the stump -- promised to be a 1 term pres and stuck to it.

There's A Robert A. Heinlein book about how and why to be involved in politics called Take Back Your Government. At one point he talks about sharing his concerns that fascism was in fact more efficient than democracy with a person who had escaped Hitler's Germany. The friend asserts that fascism is less efficient, because under fascism, everyone is afraid of the boss, so no one wants to admit when anything isn't going according to plan, so problems pile up. Democracy, on the other hand, expects and encourages constant complaint, so the problems tend to get discovered and fixed sooner than under fascism.

You can see this process taking place right now: everyone is afraid of displeasing boss Trump, and as a result you've got all these clearly fucked up decisions being made while nobody is being honest about how bad of an effect they are going to have. In a functional democracy, representatives would be afraid of the consequences and do something to stem the damage to avoid being tossed out in the next election. In our current reality... we'll see, I guess?

I don't even think a benevolent dictator would be all that great. Dictators are always at the mercy of the information they receive, so you'd also need a cabinet full of benevolent secretaries, who in turn would need agencies full of benevolent directors, who'd need benevolent managers, etc. I just don't think autocracy is an efficient form of government regardless of intent. Checks on power exist to limit the damage that those entrusted with power can do, regardless of their intentions.