After 40+ years of Republican-sponsored trickle-down economics (only brief punctuated by Democratic measures), our society has moved to unsupportable levels of economic inequality. A lot of guys feel like losers because they’ve been left behind in the race to a good life. And if feeling like a loser doesn’t come naturally to them, well… social media will certainly teach them: you’re not gonna get the big house & the fancy car & the hot girl - you’re a loser.
And then the Republican politicians teach them WHY they are losers. Using Fox and the rest of the right-wing media, the GOP tells their audience that they can’t have a good life because the Democrat-led government spends too much money housing immigrants, and on coddling criminals, and on implementing “woke” policies such as LBGTQ rights. It’s not your fault, says Fox… it’s the government’s fault. Put Republicans in charge, they say, and we’ll get rid of those programs so you can be a winner, and then those woke people will be the losers.
Lost in all the posturing is the ugly truth: our capitalist system has been levering technology to make small numbers of people immensely wealthy, and leaving most others behind.
Those left behind are taught to feel like losers. And they are angry. And they will vote for change, even if the promise of change comes from a wannabe dictator.
It’s getting worse with every generation. I’m sounding the alarm right now: what automation did to factory jobs, AI will do to lots of white collar professions. It’s already happening in certain fields, and it’s going to accelerate in the near future. Where will we be, as a society, when very few of us actually participate in the endeavors we’ve traditionally valued: in business, in medicine, in the arts, etc.
What’s the answer? That depends on what you’re focused on. There are political responses and there are sociological ones. I leave those topics for other posts, and hopefully other posters….