MAGA and Woke
As I said a several years ago, I'm done. The heart has gone out of me, and I find myself living in my own little world while letting others worry about the future. Given my family health history, I expect to die fairly young. If I don't, I'll just take it as a nice surprise.
Anyways, MAGA and Woke. The press has been covering the absurd ideas of the MAGA political lump. I don't need to go into it, and in any case, I don't have the energy. The press doesn't spend nearly as much time covering the absurd ideas of the Woke political lump, but they are just as bad. I spent years here and on associated sites talking about that, and I mostly received hatred for it. I don't have the energy to rehash it.
Thing is, there have to be a lot of people that aren't in either of the said political lumps who realize just how crazy those in them are. I've long estimated that about half the American population is nuts, broadly defined, but that still leaves half that isn't. My best guess is that they have been keeping their heads down for fear of being cancelled in one way or another.
The hope for the future is that the sanes will eventually work together to marginalize the crazies, but first-past-the-post voting makes political realignments take time. The present political split means that the sanes need to accommodate the crazies rather than hand them Binkies and put them in their playpens. Of course, some of the sanes are happy to use the crazies for their own benefit. "Why, another capital gains tax cut is just what we need."
During the rise of the internet, I had hopes for democracy. The net is the greatest information dispersal tool ever, and it provides essentially free forum space for thoughtful persons to discuss that information. A quarter of a century on, that dream has been dashed. In terms of public policy, most people use the internet to find echo chambers to support their biases, not to learn.
So the Founders were right. Democracy in its purer form still isn't going to work well. There needs to be insulation from the mob in order to get decent government. If we are lucky, we will get a realignment some time in the next several political cycles, but the sanes will need to step up.
On the other hand, if we are unlucky, the United States and the world are nowadays extremely wealthy in historical terms. That should give us insurance from disaster if the crazies remain influential.