Civilizations collapse when they experience a loss of social order; this leads to the civilization being conquered by invaders and its population destroyed through a type of genocide by outbreeding. When trust in institutions, people and government to be free of corruption and competent declines, this process is advancing.
Gallup reports a massive decline in faith in the professions, which reveals both a lack of trust and a sense that corruption now dominates our institutions.
As the reader can see from this chart excerpted from the above article, trust is declining toward professions like law, government, political pundits, media and finance. For example, only one in five people profess a high degree of trust in lawyers, who are the people who often make our laws and decide our future with court cases.
If you were wondering what the fall of Rome was like, this is one of the advance signs of an “internal collapse” in that style. Long before the Vandals arrived, conquered and subjugating the people — leading to their genocide and replacement with modern Italians — Rome also experienced corruption and incompetence that lowered trust in this way.