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?
The quote of Asimov is on point. As a non-American, I remember rewatching “Friends” after Trump came into office and suddenly noticed this subliminal anti-intellectualism even in this rather progressive left leaning TV show: Ross is often ridiculed as boring or arrogant when he talks about science or just trying to be factual, whereas the stupidity of Joey and the superstition and denial of reality of phoebe are glorified as funny and quirky and often shown as equal or even superior to Ross’ intellectualism.