which has created a super wealthy class that, coincidentally, SCOTUS has said can buy elections.

A criminal President is not able to be indicted. Crazy.

A criminal President can claim executive privilege. Crazy.

35%-40% of the voting population supports a criminal President regardless of what crimes he has committed. Crazy.

Climate change, sixth mass extinction and homo sapiens as a self destructive failed species round our the insanity.

And we wonder why extraterrestrials avoid contact with US.

Trump played to the fears of his supporters.

Fear that someone is going to take what they have

Fear that someone else is going to get what they deserve (think they deserve)

Fear of change

That's it in a nutshell.

The hate has been passed down since the Jim Crow days. The ignorant bliss of RW'ers who also teach their kin to hate & discriminate. They were in the woodworks all along. This monster gave them reason to come out from the fringes of society. We cannot allow this to happen another 4 years or we will lose this democracy.

The Jim Crow Days or long before. Ultimately it is about keeping folks fighting over the scraps as the big money laughs all the way to the bank.

Big business influence.

With some exceptions, they've never really warmed to the idea of democracy. They prefer an easily-bribed Mussolini (who was himself installed by Italy's business and royal interests).

And boy, they finally got one.

This has been a progression since the 1970s as the business/RW "Christianity" complex pushed back on what they saw as dangerous creeping equality and social justice.

The infamous - but long-ignored - Powell Memo. They play for keeps.

In the end, they'd get more done for themselves - an everyone else - by learning to work with society, rather than on it.

But then, that would require being a little less self-absorbed. And that might just be too much to ask.

Just ask Cheeto.

General move to trying to memorize key objective facts and a general avoidance of critical thinking.

Because they buy our politicians.
Big buisness is sucking us dry.

This was an interesting piece from a couple of months ago. In general, the richer a country is, the more nervous and angry its residents are. If you'll notice, Canadians are actually more nervous about health care and illness than Americans.

So, basically, we got rich and started making bad decisions. In 2008, with unemployment in double digits and the economy collapsing, Americans chose Obama. In 2016, with unemployment at 4% and a strong economy, they chose Trump. When you take away people's actual problems, they start inventing them.

https://www.axios.com/nervous-angry-rich-countries-90036353-9758-42f4-95a9-7340cebfdc10.html

America has never recovered

And I do blame St. Ronnie for many of today’s ills. That said just like the reality star currently in the White House, Reagan was capitalizing on what sentiment already existed. He was just a very good actor and salesman.

model is I think quite a lot of it. And then, with increasing signs of looming crises in many areas, fear and uncertainty, and the seeming loss of the old-timey, white-centric fantasy "good old days" of America being unquestionably at the top of the world--and the increasing diversification of American culture, and all signs pointing to 'Leave it to Beaver'-style unquestioned white supremacy in society being on its way out, people who identify with that sort of thing get upset, and being of an authoritarian mindset, they want some kind of big Daddy-figure to fix everything and make it all go back to how it used to be, etc....

Their pursuit of greed over the decades has prevented governments from enacting solutions to economic inequality to health care to climate change to gun control. The rich have prevented people from putting food on the table and a roof over their heads and caring for a sick loved one which have forced people to lash out and blame the poor, immigrants and people of other races for those problems. The rich - whose wealth and status are maintained and strengthened by Republicans - have convinced those people to vote Republican as they blame everyone but the rich for the problems. When aggregated on a national scale, we have the current president and mess we're dealing with him because of people lashing out at others whom he said he would stop and seek vengeance against.

Frankly, we're fucked until more people wake up and realize the rich are the root of all of our problems.

To a system of government designed to allow tyranny of the minority, and a corrupt party taking advantage of every facet of this. To the point where the party in power DOES NOT CARE what the majority wants - they don’t have to.

President Obama didn't fix all of America's problems within a week of taking office, and even had the gall to not deliver ponies as demanded.

We decided that the way to make America "more progressive" was to sit out the 2010 Mid-term election (A CENSUS YEAR), and allow unhinged racists with tri-corner hats and Medicare provided "My Scooters"...screaming like banshees for 14 months about getting "gubmint out of my Medicare", to take over 65% of all State Legislatures and Governorships, as well as a majority of the Federal Government House and Senate.

Then, we sat back as a racist fucking orange circus clown spent the next 14 months demanding to see the first African American President's Birth Certificate. We never showed up to protest at the studios of ...NOT ONE SINGLE one of the 1,500 Hate Radio stations, (MANY BASED ENTIRELY WITHIN THE CONFINE OF 80-20 BLUE TO RED CITIES), who spewed racist birther shit 24/7.

Then, it became perfectly normal for CBS, NBC, ABC, the NY Times, the WA Post, and of course Faux News to present the entire racist birther shit as nothing more than a "he said-she said" issue.

Then we gleefully watched "Game of Thrones" and wondered how people could allow such a fucked up...but totally entertaining...leadership structure take hold in Westoros.

Then we got busy with our kids and our lives as our newly empowered T-baggers drew state and federal congressional districts that looked like a sheep fucking a housecat...we expressed a little bit of concern when all of these "snake swallowing a shriveled penis" districts ensured our new overlords could win 45% of a states voters, while getting 86% of its representation...coincidental, of course.

Then we nominated a fantastic candidate, and one that was probably the most qualified ever to serve as President, but all anyone wanted to talk about was some "scandal" about some "email" bullshit...except for some of "us"...who preferred talking about how "our wonderful, started from nothing and worked her ass off to get where she was, truly historic candidate, was just EXACTLY THE SAME as an orange colored, racist freak-show, carnival barking, used-car-powered-by-snake-oil selling, serial unwanted pussy-grabbing moron".

Then, just to ensure we went completely through the Looking Glass and were using the broken shards to slit out wrists, we enabled the party of the "orange colored, racist freak-show, carnival barking, used car, snake oil selling, serial unwanted pussy-grabbing moron", to be the only check on his power.

There's something in there about some Russians doing some shit, but truly...THIS SHIT SHOW IS ALL OURS.

and that's the story of "How we ended up in this shitshow?"

It might be too late. About 30 years worth of new issues have not been addressed by Congress--from school shootings, to cyber security and Internet related issues, genetic testing, climate change, voting rights, immigration, the rise of autism, etc. If we don't don't have a democratic Senate by 2021, it's over for this country. It's really sad.