I frankly haven’t believed in my own government since 9/11. This is not about conspiracy theories; it’s about the fact that I could drive into Canada in 2000 with a driver license. We obviously are the most imperial country in history (the irony is not lost on me, given how this all started).
But we started doing things like creating the Department of Homeland Security when the DoD covered that alongside ICE. I don’t understand what it’s like to think those were insufficient.
The sad thing is we lose, not them. We have some 35% of the country convinced that elections don’t matter. That’s tangentially a democracy problem, but good luck having a meaningful discussion about the the difference between a democracy and a republic.