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?
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.