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They Made You A Moron & It Made You Happy

Jonathan V. Last / The Bulwark: America's Authoritarian Exceptionalism 

Digby / Digby's Hullabaloo:   Decadence  —  I find that the Bulwark's JV Last has a dark view of current events that often fits …

P.M. Carpenter as well:

What in hell is wrong with us? Too much cable or live-streaming? Excessive alcohol consumption? Inadequate alcohol consumption? A collective unconsciousness? Congenital gullibility? A lack of civics education? Or just a determined flippancy toward serious politics that borders on Trumpian criminality. That would seem to be the case. Put another way, learned idiocy.

If we nevertheless manage to stumble our way to dictatorship-avoidance in 2024, should we then pat ourselves on the back? I think not.

For this WSJ poll profoundly suggests that the American electorate is suffering from more than ignorance and idiocy. It is afflicted with a characterological illness, it's teetering on the permanently absurd, it's potentially quite willing to throw overboard more than two centuries of self-governance — still the greatest experiment in the history of political systems.

Heat death of the universe, baby. Nothing lasts forever.