Just Wonderin'
I haven’t lived in the States since 1974, and my last visit there was in 1999. So I have to wonder if the country was full of stupid people all along, and I just didn’t notice.
The people who are refusing to wear masks because Covid is a ‘hoax’ – WTF is up with that?
Do these people think that 200,000 Americans have faked their own deaths in order to “make Trump look bad”? Do they think that the families and friends of these people are feigning their grief and holding ‘fake’ funerals? And what about the dead all over the world – are they ‘faking it’ as well?
I wonder how people that dumb function in everyday life. Do they hold down jobs – and if so, what jobs can be performed by such dumb-asses? Are they sent to work each day with their names and addresses pinned to their clothing, so if they get lost on the way, they can be helped to their destination?
Are these people doing jobs that affect others – like teaching kids, or scheduling doctors’ appointments, or working in labs that determine who is infected and who’s not?
Maybe I’m just remembering my fellow citizens as being somewhat informed, somewhat intelligent, somewhat less crazy than I’m witnessing these days.
I feel like Trumpism has lowered the national IQ to a dangerous level. Facts don’t matter, science doesn’t matter – and above all, the truth doesn’t matter.
I am confident that Biden & the Dems will take over all three branches of government in January 2021 – but The Stupidity will still be there. Just how does one deal with that portion of the citizenry that doesn’t even have the common sense to come in out of the rain?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Expert on advertising say we transitioned from a "I need" society to a "I want" society beginning in the 1920s. The Great Depression and WWII reset that process for a while and gave America a huge dose of humility. However, post-WWII times placed us in a firestorm of consumerism. Most of that humility has been replaced by greed and "me-ism", or selfishness and self-centeredness.
My early education in the 50s and 60s concentrated on learning, reasoning and curiosity but that slowly transitioned to one focused mostly on just making money, the worship of acquiring "stuff", and a need to be constantly entertained.
There are many reasons for how that came about but it was driven by the right-wing and their control of our media and their building of a massive system of think tanks that have influenced political thinking and policy. They simultaneously created a hard left/right division among our people, using their ownership of media and ownership of Republican politicians.
During that time, they managed to influence the focus of our primary and secondary systems of education to concentrate on learning only for the benefit of a job or career and not for the sake of gaining a well-rounded open-minded education.
I'm not optimistic about our being able to reverse that decades-old baked-in cultural and educational deterioration.
Trump is just a very gross symptom of that decline.
KY rant done......
of change during the Nixon Era especially with the emergence of Milton Friedman economics, the real sea change began with the election of Reagan.
RW evangelicals continued their stealthy and steady progress in those years with their racist and misogynist agenda. Newt Gingrich ushered the real crazies into Congress in 1994. Things worsened with the stolen election of 2000 and the advent of the feckless Bush II and the truly evil Cheney. At the time, I personally thought there could be no one worse.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. With the 2016 election, the worst possible candidate ever at the worst possible time came into his own, by nefarious means and the stupidity of too many who should have known better.
It has only been since Nov 2016 that I have truly feared for my nation. The flaws and fragility in our version of "democracy" have NEVER been so evident.
*****
I too have resided outside the US, first for comparatively short periods (1964-1970 and 1980-82) in the "developing world," and since 1994 in Switzerland, although I return to the US annually and still pay taxes in MD as well. I am still a US citizen only and have not yet opted for Swiss dual nationality, although I have long been eligible to do so.
I literally weep for my country and am doing everything in my power from here to elect Dems in 2020. Like you, I am optimistic about the Nov election - but still wary of the many variables, the GOP-enabling M$M, and the ever-present Stupidity and Selfishness of too many of my fellow citizens that I have seen repeatedly demonstrated.
I received my MD absentee ballot over the weekend. I will complete it today and mail it tomorrow because today is a federal holiday here and I always take my ballot to the post office in person to ensure that I have the correct postage.
Naturally, I will be voting Biden-Harris and straight ticket BLUE. 
and put him in twice 
Raygun made trump possible!
We deal with them very carefully....at work is the hardest. They function normally in society but some cause
trouble everywhere they go. They walk and talk like they own the place and say anything they want...and if
you respond in kind the boss usually stops it there, unless he agrees, with them, then you are screwed.
They always get their way and I always got in trouble. NO ONE ever tells them NOT to say the hurtful shit
they say. only what I say in response.
Nance...That's how it goes down now...we deal with them very carefully.
Some may remember that Alvin Toffler published a book in 1970 called "Future Shock." His idea was basically that the rise of more and more media and the pace of change were creating "information overload" that some people couldn't deal with. It came out in 1970, and it envisioned a world in which rapid change made people go insane.
Twenty years later came the Internet and a few years after that Fox News. Information--and misinformation--overload on steroids. Stormfront, Breitbart, etc. made it possible for the KKK and other wackos to organize and spread their propaganda from their basements without any "adult" filters. I suspect many overloaded brains couldn't handle all the "chaos" and withdrew to the familiar bubble of Fox, Limbaugh, Breitbart, etc., that generally shared and reinforced their white male supremacist views. By 2016 a dictatorial white supremacist snake oil salesman was a perfect fit for a thoroughly brainwashed crowd of incurious, hateful bigots with a gun fetish.
Not since the Cold War and nuclear arms race have I pondered the notion that the human race may not be smart enough to avoid extinction.
