Submitted 5 weeks ago by Lawdoggo@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
The short version is this - once politicians realized that human engagement was maximized by anger, a segment of politicians focused on making white christian Americans believe they were a minority group under attack and being disenfranchised by their country. The seeds of this have been getting sowed for decades.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin
I would say “stupid” is a judgement you should keep between your ears. I think Americans are undereducated before they get released into a mad for-profit higher education system that gives them debts for life (but hitherto also great sciencing at a high level). The strong cultural undercurrent of exceptionalism hardly ever lets them look elsewhere for comparison. And the political system, which is based on who can spend more money, not so much on ideas, is proving to be a system that’s rarely bringing out the best people for top jobs. But it’s a dog and pony show and that favors characters over good policies. The fragmentation of people all watching the same news show at night 3 decades ago, to watching partisan 24h news channels 2 decades ago, to splintering even further on the socials now adds to the problem. There is no largely unified audience with the same facts at their disposal.
It’s also nice that Trump is now dismantling the democratic state because voting in the US always gets filtered through electoral colleges and gerimandered districts, skewing results to favor the two main parties, often only one of them. It was pretend-democratic until now.
Something that gets overlooked easily is the long history of fascist rules that was in place in the south after the civil war. Jim Crow laws masqueraded as democracy for a long time and every time courts tried to put a stop to it, the white people in charge found other ways to be a-holes. That’s part of American culture already.
America has always had a penchant for whacky leaders. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. None of them fit my idea of a virtuous leader. But at least the ones this century adhered to a decorum, an unwritten standard of how to behave as president. Nixon didn’t want to get caught. Trump doesn’t give a sh!t. So the leadership culture has shifted, not for the better.
All this mixes a large chunk, an uncurious population that still sees itself pretty much as a role model for the world, falling for simple populist messages. It should also be said that tarring all Americans with the same brush is unfair. I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality, roughly another third just behind it, with the remainder not bothering to vote at all. I would say the often fantasized silent majority is actually not pro Trump.
So calling all Americans stupid is not right. There are a lot of people hurting right now as they watch their country develop in a bad way. We need those people to stand up and fight and calling them names doesn’t help.
(Other countries have gone down similar routes, have had whacky leaders, have done questionable things. The US is not alone on this path.)
I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality, roughly another third just behind it, with the remainder not bothering to vote at all. I would say the often fantasized silent majority is actually not pro Trump.
That means that a third didn’t bother, though. The exact reason is up to debate, but it doesn’t say any good things about them or the political system.
I agree. I didn’t mean to imply all of the remainder would be pro just one of the candidates. My guess is that it’s still enough to make up a silent majority. Which sounds great but no one can prove anyways.
I’m inclined to give American voters a limited raincheck on not bothering to show up. Voting is often a booklet of ballots on various issues and elections for office. It takes forever to fill it in. That explains the long, slow-moving lines outside pulling stations, much rarer occurrences in other democracies. And that’s only the people who are able to come on a workday (and didn’t have the foresight or were unable to get mail-ins). That’s after a registration process that can have Kafkaesque features in many states. So I would forgive the single mother who didn’t have time to do this between working her two low paid jobs. It’s part of a subtle but deliberate disenfranchisement. We’ll add that one to the list of grievances as well.
I really appreciate your level headed take.
It should also be said that tarring all Americans with the same brush is unfair. I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality
But that means all the non-voters are to blame as well.
And why are the streets so empty now? I can’t see all these democrats out there.
I have stated elsewhere in this thread that I have limited sympathy for the US non-voters. So refer to that if you’re curious. I am trying my best not to condemn everybody equally. A free election, in most democracies, means you’re free not to go. Perhaps we’d all be fine with non-voters if Mrs. Harris had won. Putting blame at their feet is also shutting the barn door when the horse has already bolted. We should motivate the ones willing to stand up and resist. You don’t want to injure their pride and get them to jump on the MAGA bandwagon out of spite.
There are protests taking place. I just saw Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were in the news leading rallies and protests. American and Canadian protesters gathered on either side of one of the lakes, forgot which one. There are people who are saying something. Even GOP voters are shouting down their elected leaders in town hall meetings because Elon chainsawed a benefit that affected them and theirs. It’s easy to draw parallels to 1930s Germany but this Trump 2.0 administration will plot its own despicable course.
One of the reasons why you don’t see so many mass gatherings like you saw in Serbia recently or Slovakia is also US infrastructure. It’s real hard to get thousands of Americans into one place anywhere when there isn’t sufficient public transport and it would statistically be 1.2 people per car - you’d need a Rhode Island just for parking.
the only reason their kkk ass didnt join the nazi german campaign is that the president realised a big ass war against the germans and rebuilding europe is a super great deal.
us school lack of worldwide geography and history lessons, keeping the kids stupid as fuck.
the 2 party system makes sure no other new ideology comes beetween their bew god: the lobby money from the top 1%.
answering your question: yes
Dont forget the failure of the Business Plot. Which side of the war would those fuckers be on?
(Fun fact: Prescott Bush, Dubya’s grandfather might have been involved too - it’s debatable but the argument against it is that he was too busy with Nazis abroad to be helping them here….)
I’m pretty sure USA being a fucking evil empire since, at least, 1898, has played a significant hand in making its population stupid bricks, at least when it comes to foreign matters and, often, domestic ones that relate to welfare.
Oh it goes back even father than that.
was going to say, the invasion of Mexico (like 1848 or so) was naked greed and caused some countries to doubt the U.S. was serious about its supposed founding ideals, lol
First, your premise is inflammatory and I’m pretty sure it’s intentional, so apology not accepted.
Second, this is not a uniquely American problem. The UK, for example, has been dealing with the rising conservatism, the dismantling of their government, the privatization of major public services like the rail network, etc. This is the natural conclusion of that process: oligarchs gain so much power they can outright buy presidential elections and accelerate the trend toward fascism. Lots of people have seen this coming, but we can only vote so hard.
There was a post on some Lemmy community or other yesterday which stated that most Americnas support ideas like universal healthcare (55%) and getting rid of guns from private ownership (mid 60% IIRC).
In that thread someone said it was awful that even amongst progressives the support for universal healthcare was so low and the very few responses to that were basically - :shrug: we’ve been lied to what are we gonna do about it?
The responses to the gun ownership stat were numerous and declared support for ‘second amendment rights’.
When even US progressives are passionately defending the biggest cause of child death in the USA in 2022 but are apathetic about universal healthcare, that’s a uniquely US problem that speaks very much to the level of thinking power available.
I think I saw that post, and IIRC it was something like 60% of people own guns, and 90% of people support more gun control - there was no mention of getting rid of guns. But, fair enough.
Yes, America has been sliding into a hypercapitalist hellhole because the right breaks the rules and wins no matter what and then throws wrench after wrench in the works, while the left has no positive vision for the future and has abandoned the working class, so yeah, it’s not surprising that there’s been little to now resistance and lots of appeasement and collaboration with this bullshit. It’s infuriating. But it’s not uniquely American; as I said, we’re just further along than everyone else.
No. Education has been under attack for the last 50 years.
For every generation that goes by education gets worse and worse. People are literally getting dumber as a result.
It’s all in the republican playbook. The dumber people are the easier they are to control. That’s how dick wads like Trump get into office.
Increased blood lead level in children has been correlated with decreases in intelligence, nonverbal reasoning, short-term memory, attention, reading and arithmetic ability, fine motor skills, emotional regulation, and social engagement. … The effect of lead on children’s cognitive abilities takes place at very low levels.
High blood lead levels in adults are also associated with decreases in cognitive performance and with psychiatric symptoms such as depression and anxiety.
Lead poisoning # By organ system - Wikipedia
www.co2.earth/monthly-co2 <- 427 ppm
In my experience, all the Gen X people I’ve ever met were smart and kind people. It’s often the Boomers who are total assholes.
Yeah, gen x is by far and away the best generation (saying this as a millenial).
Nice PSA for understanding the world around us.
This doesn’t answer your question but is more of an interesting observation that fits your question. It seems bar for political leaders’ mistakes has gotten so low over the pass few decades.
In the early 90s then VP Dan Quayle misspelled potato (though apparently not 100% his fault) and he was labeled an idiot by the entire country. Bush had a lot of funny Bushisms but most are either weird, poorly worded, malapropisms, or a mix of all three.
Then you have Trump. And while there are definitely people who think he’s an idiot, it doesn’t seem as widespread of a belief as it was for Quayle or Bush. I think part of it is because Trump is far more sensitive to criticism than any president we’ve seen so he’ll go after people who say anything negative about him. But I’m sure there are other reasons as well (ex: politicized news channels, social media, technology etc)
I often recall Howard Dean’s promising presidential run coming to a screaching halt with one excited and slightly awkward “yyEAH” on stage.
You realize that all of that is media propaganda right? People believe and listen to what ever is put in front of them.
The reason Trump is acceptable today is because of the media.
If they wanted people to hate Trump then media would look a lot different and you wouldn’t have Fox News pushing bullshit ideas.
I didn’t want to go into all factors that lead to this observation because that would take too long and require more research on my part. Fear of retaliation (and desire for power) is more an explanation of at least why members of his own party won’t criticize him.
What had happened is nothing new.
Thing is, USA never had a pure dictatorship. Or were affected by imperialism. People in Europe take to the streets far faster because there are generations that remember the boot of russia. Or were under imperialist rule. See again russia and/or nazi germany.
And while what had happened is nothing new, propaganda fuel hate circle had happened in such a short timespan and force humans has never seen before.
Further more. Explaining lies takes way longer and much more effort than spreading them around.
People have been stupid for centuries.
The average education level has been low or nonexistant for most people through most of history so everyone was equally dumb. Public education is a relatively new thing. People have been vulnerable to greed, deluded thinking, etc since day 1.
The internet has allowed stupid people to find each other and reinforce each other’s stupidity and create a race of conspiracy obsessed super morons.
The internet has also distilled everything into negativity to the point where everyone and everything isn’t just questioned but warped and rejected. Even the most basic advice on public health is now rejected. You’ve got people rejecting basic facts and science. Everyone who runs for office gets subject to so much hate and lies that no sensible person would want to run for office now leaving only questionable personalities willing to do it.
I’ll add that America’s obsession with individualism, which ironically becomes groupthink like with MAGA, has become extremely poisonous. It is making it impossible to do even basic things like improve public transportation, gun control, education, healthcare, public health, etc. It is like we’ve become a nation of children who can’t handle being told to go to bed and brush their teeth.
The real truth is our stupidty is not unusual, it’s just a preview of what is coming down the pipe for some of you. Right-wing populist dipshits are gaining ground in a lot of countries. It tends to go alomg with economic hardship. People look for other people to blame for their problems. The real truth is that it’s not immigrants, or jews, or woke women that are ruining everything for everybody, it’s a very small number of inconceivably rich people. Sure, the economy looks great (historically speaking) but real measures of happiness, like the cost of medical care, education and household measured in working-hours has shot through the roof, something which “the economy” does not capture very well.
Tl:dr, shit is going bad almost everywhere, and if you don’t get the to root cause of the issue ( a few rich people owning everything) then the stupids in your county are going to elect right-wing dipshits too.
I think so yes (there is a stereotype about them for good reason after all), but I think things are trending in an extremely concerning direction and things are going to get worse. I mean, they’re clearly trying to make younger Americans less intelligent, look at what they’re doing with the department of education.
I blame the Left becoming TOO tolerant of all beliefs and allowing this direct to flourish. We really need to acknowledge that some ideas are too far out of mainstream to not be ridiculed into oblivion.
And this is why the Left can’t win.
It’s too obsessed with purity and infighting to focus on the true enemy.
The fascists, on the other hand, focus on the true enemy, then focus on purity and infighting!
Most leftists are unarmed finger waggling sign-holders.
We spent the last thirty years making gun control a priority, making anywhere near a blue state or democrat controlled city impossible to buy a gun, making democrat/Leftist protests just impotent and likely helped with police training rather than change policies or influencepoliticians tonl protect LGBTQ.
Meanwhile Bubba and his redneck Republican states allowed him to have his ergonimic advanced arsenals delivered to his front door from online purchases at cheaper prices.
And if you are a Leftist who wants to rebuke me, prove it by posting a pic of your gun. That’s right, you don’t have one and can’t protect our trans folk if they needed our help, you think fascist cops would do that. GTFO of here.
those people you call “fascists” are too selfish to be fascists. Trump and his minions don’t care about their nation or the well being of its state and people.
If you keep thinking there is a left in America, you have to stop looking at Fox and right wing sources. It’s center right at most
The left has undeniably alienated some of their group (my mum was alienated by trans rights, I was alienated by the DNC, Elon was allegedly alienated by Biden’s EV push ignoring Tesla), but I think the bigger problem is the left doesn’t fight for things people care about.
The right are the only ones in the news cycle (look at how many articles we have about Trump, even when he wasn’t president) which, to anyone who doesn’t treat politics like sports teams, makes you obviously see a thing or true that you support Republicans on. This imo is the critical flaw of the left; I now have no reason to be excited about their platform, and I’m completely numb to anything they say negatively about Trump.
my mum was alienated by trans rights
How in the world does us trying to exist and not be harassed alienate anyone?
Lol @ thinking Elon Musk was ever ‘left’ he was never even left of center.
I now have no reason to be excited about their platform
I’m excited about the part where they AREN’T FUCKING FASCISTS.
I’m completely numb to anything they say negatively about Trump.
Then Trump has beaten you through attrition, which was his goal.
People are down voting you, but I’m hyper left and also believe this. A big one for me is overly sensitive consideration for things that aren’t truly problematic, such as the use of “LatinX.”
A massive majority of us Latinos do not give a shit about this or think its idiotic. A white person definitely decided that the linguistic gendering inherent to Spanish was sexist.
We’ve spent multiple decades making sure our kids didn’t receive the best education and our government officials are complicit in fueling propaganda for pocket change.
There’s a reason we’ve been the worst first world country in everything that matters except school shootings for a while now
They wanted less government interference, but instead got an authoritarian state with no funding for education, healthcare or police training.
It has been building to this for a while. When the republicans are in office it escalates a lot, and when the Democrats are in office it escalates less, but it only ever escalates.
This is what a private education system gets you.
“My Chancellor says we should not indulge in superficial anti-Americanism now, but I assure you: Mine is not superficial at all.”
Thanks for that quote.
I wanted to know who said that so I looked it up and here’s the full quote with attribution:
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has several times made statements to the effect that we Europeans should not cultivate a superficial anti-Americanism.
But mine isn’t superficial at all.
Personally I have nothing against the US itself - it’s a beautiful country - it’s the people who live there that are the problem.
I guess you could say it’s the same thing with Bavaria.
– Volker Pispers, a German kabarett artist who is well known for his political satire.
Impressive, thanks! I’ve cited this from my memory for at least a decade. I used to listen to him when I went to sleep. :)
leaded gasoline was fun, huh?
I don’t think he represented leaded fuel in aviation correctly, although he wasn’t wrong. It’s an economic and legal issue
It’s important to understand this is propeller planes only: jets and turboprops always used jet fuel with no lead. The octane benefits to piston engines really don’t apply to turbines so it was never a concern. However commercial aviation is almost entirely turbines. The most active, profitable and by far the largest part of the industry never had a problem.
Those piston engined propeller planes though… that entire industry was destroyed by litigation and lack of economies of scale in the 1970s. Not only is this a small part of the industry with less profit, not only was the industry mostly destroyed, but now most of those airplanes in active use are old. Very old. They keep flying much longer than for example a car, and there are very few aircraft produced every year. Also note the small volume of fuel used, and lead contamination means this has few refiners and limited distribution: there’s not much profit
So there have been attempts to develop an unleaded fuel for decades, but why does it never happen? Everyone seems to support the idea. Economic and legal. To support a new fuel, engines potentially need to be modified, aircraft performance certified, and someone needs to take legal responsibility for any problems. Who’s that going to be?
So because of the collapsed industry meaning very little new development or manufacturing, the high legal bar because of safety requirements, the sheer age of the fleet, and the general legal principal of grandfathering, there’s just not enough opportunity to move forward
I don’t fucking get the religious right in my country, all I can say is they’re so fucking gullible by the corporate mainstream media, facts and hit them in the fucking face and they’ll always move the goalposts. They form an opinion and never be swayed by it, despite the strong evidence against it. They picked a guy who cheated on every wife he has, a criminal past, massive security clearance violations, is the most un-christlike in behaviors… And they excuse it all because they don’t like being told they can’t do things that are harmful to ourselves, or they only like receiving socialism but don’t like the responsibility of paying into it. They’re selfish as fuck, and I’m sick of it.
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?
The prevailing economic wisdom after WWII was Keynesianism, which says that the government should increase government spending when unemployment is high and decrease it when inflation is high. What happened in the 70’s and 80’s was that the economy started experiencing both high unemployment and high inflation at the same time, “shrinkflation,” which wasn’t supposed to happen according to Keynesianism, and which it had no real response to. The reason it was happening (at least from a Marxist perspective) was that the US had already developed in the ways that saw the highest returns, and there simply wasn’t as much new ground to cover - this is what’s meant by “the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.” Regardless, the government was faced with a decision of which problem to focus on between unemployment and inflation - and it chose inflation.
The phenomenon of shrinkflation started under Nixon, who attempted to fight it with price controls, which was perhaps the most anyone ever did. Ford had no idea what he was doing and just asked people to spend less.
And then we got Carter, and Carter does not get nearly enough hate for his role in this. Carter chose to confront inflation rather than unemployment, the real beginning of “supply side economics” that Reagan would take further. Carter’s whole deal was “restoring the dignity of the office” after Watergate and his focus was on individual morality. His message was essentially, you’re going to have less purchasing power, but it’s ok because we can seek fulfillment in other ways, outside of the economic sphere. He marked the transformation of the Democratic party away from representing the interests of labor and towards the beast that it’s become today, with it’s obsession over norms and procedure and technocracy.
The result of Carter’s messaging and policy was one of the greatest blowout losses in history against Ronald Reagan. Reagan would do all the same things as Carter, but he at least had the decency to lie about it. He focused on how much more you’d be able to afford with cheaper goods, conveniently ignoring the fact that with lower wages, purchasing power would actually decrease. However, thanks to the Democratic party completely abandoning labor and the common people, there was no real pushback against this, there was no alternative explanation or solution or criticism of the broad direction of policy. In fact, economic policy was moved out of the sphere of democratic accountability altogether by leaving it to the Federal Reserve to set interest rates. Instead, the culture war kicked off and that’s what elections would be about from then on.
Why did the Democratic party abandon unions? Because the unions like the AFL/CIO stripped themselves of power and radicalism by purging communists during the Red Scare. The Carter administration didn’t view labor vs capital in terms of the fundamental struggle of society but as just another set of competing interest groups and lobbyists, which is honestly pretty much how the unions saw themselves and wanted to be seen anyway.
So what happens when more and more important questions are taken out of the hands of the voters, who then watch conditions gradually decline? Well, the voters get mad about declining conditions - and at the same time, get dumber from not being engaged in any important questions. There’s a sense that we can just fuck around and do whatever because our actions don’t have consequences, because most of the time what we say and believe seems to have no real effect on policy anyway. Nobody gets to vote on whether or not to keep arming Israel and bombing Yemen or on whether to raise or lower interest rates or anything like that - the only thing we get to vote on is stuff like whether trans women can play sports.
Trump’s popularity is very easy to understand in that context - he is a rebellion against that declining status quo and a desperate attempt to reassert the power of elected officials over technocratic institutions. Of course, since the left has been purged and is devoid of power, this rebellion can only come from the right. A similar thing happened in Iran (which Carter also fucked up btw but that’s not important right now), where after being installed by the CIA, the shah hunted down and exterminated everyone on the left, and then conditions declined and people wanted change, only that change had to come from the right because the left was powerless. And if the American left can’t materialize and offer an alternative vision, both to Trump and, more importantly, to the failed bipartisan status quo that existed before him, then we’re headed towards the same future as Iran.
There’s a fantastic documentary by Adam Curtis, called “I can’t get you out of my head”. It explores specifically the transition from the ‘then’ system of thinking to, well, now. It’s long but give it a watch.
Why do you think America was leftist in the 1960s?
The Vietnam War draft was very unpopular and that War coincided with MLK’s push for equal rights. There were a lot of vocal protests. Also, you had the hippies and ‘Woodstock Nation.’ Those weren’t overtly political, but they were counterculture, which the Right took as an attack on them and their values.
The counterculture was very small. Nixon’s approval ratings were high throughout the 1960s and only take a dive when we find out about Watergate. The fact is America was never particularly left leaning.
People weirdly think everyone was a hippie. Truth is most people were squares and those people still are
“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.
People who seem reasonable still say there are good people on both sides. I don’t understand that at all! My hairstylist moved here from vietnam as a kid. Last week i made a comment about bezos and he actually said, “both sides…”. I thought my brain was going to pop.
Vietnamese people are very conservative people, not surprising. When I was a public speech course, we had a Viet guy speak and he was very pro war and Republican( this was pre trump(
They’re talking about the moderates on both sides. I can probably assume you aren’t.
Probably? I haven’t been very impressed with American adult society since I was in high school witnessing how easily they followed Bush II into war.
I think most of this is being driven by personal vendettas. if you look at each person on the right, it seems they all have a grudge of some such and this current administration promises to deliver based on revenge.
The biggest player being Elon: His son Xavier has transitioned. And when his (now daughter) called out Elon’s nazi wave as being legitimate, Elon tipped his hand by saying the woke killed his son and he is out to kill the woke mind(aol.com/…/elon-musk-estranged-daughter-responds-1…) - So Elon sank a tonne of money to sway this election to his own vendetta.
For Dementia donald : it’s Biden winning the 2020 election.
For Vance it’s repressed feelings you can see he’s trying to break out the drag queen smokey eye: although he’s an opportunist at the base of it. So he’s getting two things met here. I think because he’s at odds with himself(still eyelining everyday) his soul has vacated, he has much self insecurity and is unhappy with himself as a person and projects that as anger and revenge on everyone who he views is as weak as he feels. Sort of a projected self hatred.
For the speaker mike johnson: he’s a gay convert, big proponent of the conversion therapy so lots to unpack there. even lives with a reverend while married to a woman. to simplify it : He’s against the ‘woke mind’ because he has a lot of self hate. He’s against himself. Likely why he drinks so much as well and does wreckless shit : nbcnews.com/…/speaker-mike-johnson-chief-staff-ar… - this person is self destructing.
For Hegeseth: he’s an untreated alcoholic that self medicates rather than face a true recovery.
JFK Jr: wormbrain. his worm is against anything that would kill parasites. I don’t think there’s much of a human being in that brain anymore. I think it’s all parasite now.
For Leavitt: greedy and sees this as an opportunity(as do most of the party) - and while we can say she’s young and easily influenced I’m not prepared to let her off the hook on this. There are too many progressive young minds to prove this was a choice of her’s. Not simply ignorance. It’s stupidity for sure. but not from not knowing any better.
For the speaker mike johnson: he’s a gay convert, big proponent of the conversion therapy so lots to unpack there. even lives with a reverend while married to a woman. to simplify it : He’s against the ‘woke mind’ because he has a lot of self hate. He’s against himself. Likely why he drinks so much as well and does wreckless shit : nbcnews.com/…/speaker-mike-johnson-chief-staff-ar… - this person is self destructing.
You better have actual proof of Mile Johnson being gay otherwise this us the most homophobic thing I have seen in months.
The idea that people who hate gay people just closeted is at odds with the simple fact that straight people vastly outnumber non-straight peoples. The fact is most people who hate gay people are just hateful people.
When you suggest that these homophobes are actually self loathing homosexuals you shift the onus of dealing with homophobia from the straight communities that are homophobic on to the victims of homophobia. That’s not cool.
It’s a typical nationalist-authoritarian pipeline that can sadly happen to any country - but it’s only now that people get to realize their islands of democracy are no exception.
You either get vigilant early on - or get to reap the consequences. This machine doesn’t show its head before it is already too late to alter this route.
Ask yourself what you think your country would look like if the Internet was hyper fixated on every single bad example anyone could find within your borders.
no, it’s been a thing brewing since effectively the end of ww2 and the rewriting of “american culture” more broadly since then. It’s only gotten worse over time as we have less and less of a defined and agreed upon societal structure.
Which has eroded the importance of institutions like the government over time. Which the right specifically has aggressively capitalized on.
Mustakrakish@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
This is the furition of things Reagan and Nixon put into motion. There’s been a concerted effort to attack our public education and stoke reactionary sentiment for the last 40+ years to bring us to this point, the dumbing down is deliberate
ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
Also the villification of experts as people hell bent on leveraging their expertise to dominate our control non experts.
I recently right that a useful counter to that conspiracy their is to point out that experts should be thought of as tools to be used for different purposes. Like any tool, experts can be misused in a variety of ways, including accidental and purposeful.
CannedYeet@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
For further details, see “The Master Plan” podcast series from The Lever.