I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Kinda like the adult equivalent of learning that Santa isn’t real or finding out your parents are getting a divorce. I believe that we put too much faith in our “bedrock institutions” because we were taught to. Now, the facade is gone, and we’re left to figure things out as best we can. I don’t have a clue where the future will take us (nobody does). But, there’s usually some good that comes with the bad, and I do have the feeling that we’re living through history, much more so than I ever thought we’d get to. If we are truly witnessing the downfall of the United States, well… it’s going to be very interesting to say the least.
It's certainly not like it was perfect here in the past or that the mythology reflected reality, but it felt like there was a fairly long arc of 'getting better in fits and starts' The cold war was over and we stopped supporting heinous dictators. Everyone could vote. Gay people got the right to marry. Things weren't perfect, but we had the means to work hard to make them better.
Yeah, it felt like the U.S. was stumbling towards a more just and equitable future, and media and popular culture perpetuated a narrative that we were MUCH further along as a country and culture than we actually were. To the point of just representing a false reality. Then, all of the sudden, reality came crashing down, and it became pretty evident that a huge chunk of the country doesn't give a damn about any of that stuff, nor can they be bothered to waste a minute worrying about the consequences of re-electing a felon, etc. They just want cheap eggs, which they're still not getting, but they are getting an entirely new type of governance, which looks pretty darn authoritarian, but who am I to say...?
