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?

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
        1·
        8 days ago

        People are downvoting, but Russia isn’t having a huge effect on our education system. White christian nationalists and billionaires are. The call is coming from inside the house, people.

        That doesn’t mean the orange bad isn’t a puppet of the Russian state.

        • Bloomcole@lemm.ee
          1·
          8 days ago

          That doesn’t mean the orange bad isn’t a puppet of the Russian state.

          There is zero evidence for this, if not you can show me.
          On the contrary, the wildly irresponsable and aggressive move of unilaterally retreating from the missile treaties, followed by putting them in Romania doesn’t sound very Russia friendly to me.
          And he (officialy) stopped aiding the Ukros for 2 minutes. They still are using Musk’s satelites too.
          So what’s he waiting for?
          Imperialism, eternal war and Russophobia is a bipartisan characteristic.
          The US is never going to friendly against anything threatening their hegemonic position.
          The plebs however are so blinded by hate for the other side of their ruling party they fall for anything that fits their narrative.
          Even this laughable conspiracy level garbage.
          That doesn’t mean the orange bad but he isn’t a puppet of the Russian state.

        • nitramek@lemm.ee
          0·
          8 days ago

          Agreed, it probably didn’t have an effect on the education system.

          I am from Europe so i wouldn’t want to make an assumption on that part.

          But the hybrid information war part with Russia is just also correct. At least in my opinion which has formed from security agencies like the CIA from different countries. Many of these operations were revealed, it is not secret.