Sorry if the premise is inflammatory, but I’ve been stymied by this for a while. How did we go from something like 1940s era collectivism or 1960s era leftism to the current bizarro political machine that seems to have hypnotized a large portion (if not majority) of the country? I get it - not everything is bad now, and not everything was good then. FDR’s internment camps, etc.
That said - our country seems to be at a low point in intellectualism and accountability. The DHHS head is an antivaxxer, the deputy chief of the DOJ is a far-right podcast nutball, etc. Their supporters seem to have no nuance to their opinion beyond “well, Trump said he’d fix the economy and I don’t like woke.”
Have people always been this unserious and unquestioning, or are we watching the public’s sanity unravel in real time? Or am I just imagining some idealistic version of the past that never existed, where politicians acted in good faith and people cared about the social order?
“am I just imagining some idealistic version of the past that never existed”
yup.
Americans have always been this stupid, but stupid people aren’t the problem.
everyone is stupid, greedy, or otherwise morally corrupt at some point or another or in some situation or another, that’s why legal rights and protections were so important, to keep the playing field level and the trains running on time when the assholes wanted to run riot.
the successful conservative suppression of civil rights and removal of restrictions on corporate and wealthy political stuff civil activity, particularly the allowance by the Supreme Court of money to dictate political action, has removed the guardrails that used to protect the stupid and keep corrupt people in line.