What happened to the USA? [View All]

[redeye]

In the early 19th century, it was the most democratic nation in the world; it had no monarchy, all white males aged 21 or more could vote (in Britain at the time there was still no universal white male suffrage and France was in complete turmoil), and it had a pretty modern constitution based on the enlightenment (the electoral college went obsolete about that time, but no other part had or did).

Well, look at the USA now. It is far more democratic than it was in the 1830s, there's no doubt about that. The world, however, has progressed far more than it; the USA denies felons the right to vote, its law has loopholes that allow presidents to be appointed by the SCOTUS rather than elected, its people are the stupidest in the world, and its income is distributed less equally than this of any other developed nation.

My question is, what happened? Why has the USA become the mire that it is now (don't blame Bush, by the way, because it was that bad in the 1950s, too)? Why, how has it turned from the most liberal nation and culture in the world to the most conservative in the free world?