I have said this before and it upsets some people because it is scary.

[InformedElitist]

46. it's depressing

I see the American people, as a whole, like the boiling frog. It seems like sometime around the time of Reagan, people have been signing their own economic death warrants by voting based on bigotry, fundamentalist religious views, etc. I thought the effects of Bush 43's foreign and domestic policy disasters that people finally wised up for good. But look where we are now.

I think it has been, and will continue to be, death by a thousand cuts. By the time the shit really hits the fan (global warfare against who-knows-what alliance or a South American banana republic-like economic crisis), we'll be in such a weakened position that I don't even want to contemplate what would happen next.

George Carlin's routine on the American Dream says it better than I can, but even since then...
2000 -- the Supreme Court literally made FL stop counting votes when the guy they wanted was ahead - a few whimpers part basically no long-term consequences
2001 -- unified for just a few months after 9/11 and then back to the same BS
2004 -- Bush re-elected in part b/c somehow they made being a military veteran a weakness instead of a strength - and, just after FL 2000, we got Diebold
2005-2008 -- Katrina, Alito, the Great Recession in full force
2010 -- Citizens United, gerrymandering
2015-??? -- the literally exhausting shitshow that is Donald Trump -- as publicity-seeking asshole, then candidate, then President of the United States thanks to, for the 2nd time in 5 tries, a relic in vote-tallying from 200 years ago (a few protests here and there, but too little too late)


People are indeed too lazy to learn of their situation, willfully ignorant, tribal, and distracted by a lousy system that's helped cause their slowly declining standard of living. They've been underrepresented by the things above (in the original post and in this one), and Democrats aren't blameless. The party is recovering from an era of corporate centrism. Then there are tactical errors. Clarence Thomas could've been voted down, and Ginsburg should've retired before 2014. Nuanced messaging when people have no attention span. Obama trying to play nice and stay above the fray (surrounded himself w/ Goldman Sachs advisors, giving up on the public option too soon, not using the bully pulpit effectively re Sandy Hook, Garland, and Trump/Russia collusion and crimes).

Now, who knows what the US is going to look like once the Trump/Pence/Ryan/McConnell era mercifully ends. Will it be worth fixing?
Will it be fixable? People do have to rise up, hopefully not to the point of civil war and rioting, but certainly to the point that they can overcome the Kochs, the gutting of the VRA, gerrymandering, the Trump SCOTUS, etc. I've been very pessimistic ever since Election Night 2016, with one exception: The millennial and Generation Z's reaction to Parkland. They're engaged and willing to work. We have to do what we can to join them and keep them that way. I think that's the only way out of this mess.