Today we topped 6.6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 200,000 COVID-19 deaths. Think about that for a moment. By the end of the month we will have sustained almost 4 times the number of deaths we saw of our military personnel in Vietnam. People were outrage over Vietnam yet we have far too many Americans labeling the COVID-19 pandemic a hoax.
I need to make sense of things. I pick things apart until I can figure out what really holds them together. For almost four years I’ve been trying to figure out what made ordinary people worship an orange calf who cares not a whit about them. The racial aspect of it wss clear but there had to be more to it. The question that plagued me was what else was behind the embrace of a charlatan. Finally I think I’ve figured it out.
MAGA is about bringing back the days of Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best. A time when you did see black or brown leople unless they were the help. A time when indigenous people were the bad guys who had been vanquished by the good guys. A time when the women of the house wore high heels and an apron while she cleaned the house. That was all part of what drove Make America Great Again but there was more.
In 1960 it was possible to go to work in a factor and pay for a house and have two cars in the driveway. You didn’t even need a high school diploma. While college graduation rates have gone up college graduates still account for only about 45% of 24 to 36 year old citizens. No longer can the guy who just managed to finish High school or get a GED experience t to have the standard of living their grandfather or fathers had. There are no more pensions at retirement and the rat race as gotten significantly tougher.
Along comes #BunkerBitchakaDJT and tells all those people longing for days gone by that he feels their pain and that he can bring back the good old days. They don’t want to deal with the reality of the situation because it means that they have to do something about it. They don’t want to fight with the people responsible for their plight. They want to vent their frustration on the usual suspects. We know who that is.
The next thing is really important. We have ignored basic education for Americans for far too long. In the 50’s and 60’s educational development was basically a two tract system. We prepared kids for the factory or College. Today we are doing the same thing for the most part which limited exceptions. What’s different is that the kids leaving high school on the labor path don’t have the job opportunities that their grand parents and parents had. Even the young people attending college are dealung with frustration because graduating with a liberal arts degree dosen’t get you much these days.
Trumps message is that he feels their pain and he’s going to fix it by repatriating manufacturing jobs that have gone abroad. It’s the fantasy that they want to embrace because human beings find adapting to change difficult. The promise of a benevolent leader telling them that they don’t need to change and adapt is to good to pass up. They want to believe it so badly that they will embrace every conspiracy theory that can be manufactured when the promise can not be kept.
Over time we have become far too willing to embrace mediocrity. We resent being forced to think critically. We don’t want to be bothered with things like sentence construction and basic language skills. Those are just a few of the things that make #BunkerBitchakaDJT so attractive. After all he’s a “Billionaire” and he taljs just like they do. There is a malaise plaguing a segment of our populace. #BUNKERBITCHAKADJT has tapped into it and turned grievance into an all consuming destructive force.
I should feel a sense of satisfaction at finally figuring out what’s driving this collective madness. I should but I don’t. I still don’t know how you fix it. People only learn when their open to hearing the lesson. I have no idea how you make a mob in an echo chamber want to learn.
THINK!!
EYES WIDE OPEN!!!