Enumerate a number of unfortunate circumstances in the United States of America today. Check.
Insist that these instances of these happenings are quite different than they ever have been before. Repeatedly emphasize how historic and unprecedented these events are. Preemptively brush off any precedents that might be raised. Check.
Make the leap from a bombastic enumeration of America's social failures to the clear and obvious conclusion that America is about to collapse. Never mind the number of times that claim has been made before. No real effort at arguing why the one follows the other. Just do some textual hand waving and presto, collapse!
Now let's wrap it all up in a ribbon by implying that the collapse is so inevitable that while it may not have occurred yet, it may as well have. So let this be an object lesson from any nations who think to emulate the United States of America. You too will find yourselves inexplicably leaping from "has some significant social problems and failures" to "the entire nation will collapse and the rubble will bury your children."
I think it's grounded in fact rather than rhetoric. Here's some more context on that school shooting stat. The fact that there's been an average of 1 a week since 2013 is, I believe, exceptional in international terms.
It doesn’t read like a thoughtful piece. It’s aggressive, weirdly punctuated, and hammers on this disease analogy that doesn’t hold up. Also tonally it sounds like he thinks guns are really a disease. Some people think drug addiction is, but tell someone with cancer that you have heroin addiction and see how well the model works. The writer of this thing is a jerk. For me that invalidates his point. He has an agenda in fear, not fact.
Insist that these instances of these happenings are quite different than they ever have been before. Repeatedly emphasize how historic and unprecedented these events are. Preemptively brush off any precedents that might be raised. Check.
Make the leap from a bombastic enumeration of America's social failures to the clear and obvious conclusion that America is about to collapse. Never mind the number of times that claim has been made before. No real effort at arguing why the one follows the other. Just do some textual hand waving and presto, collapse!
Now let's wrap it all up in a ribbon by implying that the collapse is so inevitable that while it may not have occurred yet, it may as well have. So let this be an object lesson from any nations who think to emulate the United States of America. You too will find yourselves inexplicably leaping from "has some significant social problems and failures" to "the entire nation will collapse and the rubble will bury your children."