Mike,
I listened to the first part of Thursdays podcast. I was going to listen to the rest of it and respond but I was responding in my head already and not paying attention too much to what else you were saying. There’s not much that can get my attention when you’re speaking other than your own words when you’re speaking. But I digress. To use your words, I don’t disagree with your assessment on people “don’t give a shit” and how it progressed that much in that short of time. I wish to offer my insight from my anecdotal life. It’s basic.
I think people have lost faith in the US government. It’s easy to look at the 2020 election and say okay it’s conspiracy theorists. Well it’s a little more mainstream than that. Even if they don’t think something was intentionally orchestrated, something was off.
The majority agree with that to some level or another and the fact that the government is dismissing it altogether is a big piece of the issue. Even if an official investigation showed nothing at least we could say oh they tied. Most republicans and some dems agree to some degree.
The dems who don’t, don’t until you bring up why Bernie Sanders never won a nomination and Michael Moore will say it was stolen. Covid certainly didn’t help either. Half the country didn’t believe the government or media right or wrong.
For the vast majority of republicans, especially those who listened to Rush Limbaugh, already had little faith in the media so it wasn’t that far to make the jump to the government and when they seem, on both sides, to have the media do their bidding it puts them in the same mind.
And then you had the vaccine which it seems, per a recent study, the majority of people feel is more dangerous than the government and media led us to believe.
If you lost faith in your government you either have revolution or anarchy. I don’t think anyone wants to pick a fight so anarchy is what we have. It’s an apathetic anarchy.
After Russia invaded Ukraine and we heard stories of people staying behind to defend Ukraine or coming back after they got their family to safety. The apathy that I’ve seen is nobody would do that in the US.
People I’ve talked to have said they would leave and not come back. Others have said they would just disappear into the Midwest and assimilate to whatever new government was established. There was a day in my childhood and even through September 11th where I die for the US.
I don’t think I would at this point. There’s a lot of people here in the Midwest who will garden, put up solar panels and wood stoves and move away from codependency on others as possible.
This is the country we have now. Even people on opposite sides of the aisle feeling apathy and it’s contagious. If the Keynesian economics of the last 100 years fails due to crushing national debt, the apathy and lack of faith in the US will be nearer to 100%
Whether you think there was interference in any elections or not, or what you think about Covid or the vaccines, there are people who think that way. I remember an interview you did a few years ago about people in favor of free speech unless it went against their values.
I would say this is the results of what that looks like. Whether right or wrong, people want to be heard and not shouted down or called terrorists. But without the right to discord they can never be shown the errors of their way. And maybe they never see the error.
Or maybe they were right. But without the freedom to talk about it you end up with a fractured country. And not all who believe the election was stolen believe vaccines were bad. But for one thing or another, Bernie or Trump supporters, faith in the US government is gone.
The views shared by those who I’ve observed may or may not be my views. But I suspect if there any responses to this on twitter they will prove the fractured nature of where we are as a country. Everything is polarizing even saying ‘everything is polarizing’.
Thanks,
C. B.
Thanks for sharing.
