The “limping on” has been the past 40 years already. Ever since Neoliberalism became the dominant economic ideology and fully embraced by both mayor parties.
Capitalism declines into Fascism. The current administration is not the root cause of the US problems. It is a symptom that is accelerating the decline into Fascism. But the ground work was laid many years ago and defended ever since. We see a similar trend in many other countries that adopted the US Neoliberalism to various extends.
North Koreans don’t think this. Everybody knows its bullshit. The point is not for people to believe in the bullshit, the point is normalizing the government to get away with obvious bullshit. And this pattern is not exclusive to North Korea at all.