Turns out, it was just the USA. Almost everyone else is communist and in space with satellites pointed at the US and laughing. They originally couldn't do anything to fix the States because of the nukes and nuclear capitalism just kept rewarding the most inbred failsons in an endless cycle like the royal families, but they disabled the nukes decades ago and isolated the States, leaving a constant horrific reminder of the inevitable results of capitalism (amid a longstanding debate about socialist self-determination).

The rise of president Notsure then gave them a sociological experiment and data too good to pass up, and the field of Sociology is having a resurgence it hasn't had in years.