General Discussion

It is the end result of what began in 1980 with the coming of the sainted Ronny. He started the Biggest of the Big Lies. He said that if you had problems, it was the fault of your government. The government was the enemy. He said that if you wanted your problems to go away and enter into heaven on earth, make your government go away. Of course that doesn't include the parts that keep rich people safe and comfortable.

Rinse and repeat relentlessly for 45 years. Add in a shrinking government commitment to financial support for all levels levels of education (adios Dept. of Ed.) which has resulted in an inferior quality of education and the simultaneous creation of a class of indebted collage graduates. You end up with a huge number of poorly educated people that have never learned how to reason and think for themselves. They don't have the ability to tell fact from propaganda. Echo and amplify the lies endlessly in the right-wing media sphere.

Add in a massive disparity between the super haves and the mostly have nots. The roots of that disparity can be traced directly to Ronny's other Big Lie, known as Trickle Down, or make the richer richer and they might occasionally throw you a bone. The end result is a serious hollowing out of the middle class and the creation of multi-generations of frustrated and bitter people.

Eventually a demagogue shows up and promises a golden age, and all of your enemies will be vanquished. Trump is truly the greatest con artist of all time. He recognized that the there was a large number of poorly educated and/or naive people that would buy into (literally) his big con. He rallied a large base while the opposition couldn't get its act together. No one can say that he didn't tell everyone who he was. The true believers loved him for it. The truly naive wanted change, but didn't believe him. On election day the MAGAts showed up and voted. And the truly naive on the opposition side also didn't believe him. They stayed home, nursed their petty grievances, while ignoring the onrushing disaster, and gave us Trump.

This is the result of a long term plan by the financial backers of the Republican party. First they put enough idiots in both houses of congress to establish control even when in the minority. Then they straight up bought SCOTUS. Finally, they hired Trump to administer the coup-de-grace to the administrative state. The Democrats never did see the threat clearly. Many still don't.

Effectively the super rich were able to buy the U.S. government lock, stock and barrel at a bargain basement price.