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?
Like most (all?) big counter-culture movements, most of the people who were “in” it were not really there for deep seated beliefs. It was cool, there were parties and music, sex and drugs were plentiful. Then it was time to grow up put all that stuff behind them.
I don’t mean to disparage the whole hippie thing. Lots of people really believed in it and do to this day. I just think the majority were there for the fun then got back to “real life”.