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?
Maybe, just maybe, it shouldn’t be an age but a knowledge requirement. Some 10 year olds know that there are (were?) e.g. 3 branches of government, while I kid you not there are some 20+ year olds that are not aware of that plain and simple fact fact. On average, older people tend to be a little bit more knowledgeable than young, if only due to having had more time to figure stuff out, although otoh also society does change out from under them - e.g. which is more trustworthy, something seen on the TV “news”, or something shared on TikTok?
It seems more like an attitude of responsibility to me than an age or anything else. Perhaps make college degree a requirement - while keeping the GI bill offering college funding to people who successfully serve (without being dishonorably discharged) in the military. Or just a test of how government “works”.
Or rather, used to work. We aren’t coming back from this, methinks.
Yeah all good points honestly.
I was thinking changing something age related would be more hard to argue with, but any “test” we give people could feel unfair. Like think about how many languages it would have to be translated to, and what if you accidentally entered the wrong answer?
I kind of love the idea but it’s just hard to imagine the problems at scale.
Maybe we should go after the electoral college instead since ultimately they make the decisions??
Omg, you might not have been paying attention lately, but I 100% guarantee that it will be solely in English. Assuming we are allowed to vote again, which tbf we probably will, it’s just that the options will be preselected for us. As it has pretty much always been, but moar so now.
Damn I didn’t see that news 😭 I’ve been traveling the last week and honestly trying to ignore the news a bit. Not sure how to productively consume it without just feeling upset!
I hear that. Fwiw, a lot has been broken for a very long time - not merely weeks or months or even years but rather decades, so this is more of a reckoning that is catching up to us than it is a total surprise.
Similar to Brexit I would imagine, and many other similar trends around the globe, with similar causes and effects. People got complacent, the wealthy ignored the plight of the poor, who reacted out of desperation, and now… we’ll see.