it's not that hard
it's just that the usa can only do very easy things now, because the people there have forgotten how to work together
the article explains some of the forms this takes, but, for political reasons, frames it differently
see also: bullet trains, homelessness, mass incarceration, hvdc transmission, chip fabrication, the renewable energy transition, electric vehicle manufacturing. the usa is failing to get its act together in almost every conceivable way
that's part of it; marc andreessen's nimby posture in the atherton zoning discussion, for example, was pure rent-seeking: https://archive.fo/MjHa8
(i know that's from the 'david miscavige leads scientology to milestone year' atlantic, but i think in this case their reporting is authentic)
but i don't think that's all, or even a majority, of it. rent-seeking is at least beneficial to the rent-seeker, if successful. but most of the problem is people fighting with each other in ways that aren't profitable even to themselves. a lot of that takes the form of arguing about how to assign blame for problems instead of solving them ;)
Yes, it is called "enshitification" - caused by the Financialization of the economy, and rent-seeking rather than innovating technologically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking