You got nutjobs like this saying stupid things …

Idiocy and the far right has been normalised in America. I’m not a conservative (don’t think I would ever be) but I have been downvoted before when I said there are smart conservatives but the dumb ones are being propped up instead. That’s why people know Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, rather than Roger Scruton and David Frum. There is a well-funded far right propaganda machine going on for decades and it normalised both idiocy and what would have been considered extreme before. That includes propping up idiot far right personalities that I mentioned. The oligarchs know these mouthpiece personalities are dumb and want that stupidity to trickle down stupidity to ordinary people’s minds.

… and the rest of the country that just idly sit by and either say little or do nothing about it all.

A lot of Americans are conditioned to pick the lesser evil. Sorry to American liberals, but that notion and “vote blue no matter who” slogan are thought terminating clichés. Placing high value on always “pick the lesser evil” is, a matter of fact, a conservative talking point prevalent in other countries (so yes, American liberals, you are conservative for repeating those silly slogans). It paints the idea to stick with the status quo and it is better to deal with “the devil you know, than the devil you don’t.” The Democratic party is like “look, we are giving you breadcrumb policies or you will get the fascists.”

It isn’t like there is no precedence for Americans to mobilise and think outside the box. They used to be good at it and holding their politicians accountable. Third parties used to get into both senate and congress. The first Gilded age and the reign of monopoly barons ended because of people’s collective will. What happened is that there is brainwashing since the advent of mass media to think within certain acceptable thoughts and under capitalist framing. A Singaporean diplomat opined that the worldview of American people and their media are just as insular and self-referential as those who are in totalitarian regimes.