The MAGA Kingdom dream machine is in existential overdrive. Propagating exceptional myths and serving bullshit-laced Kool-Aid by the gallon. Human history's biggest circle jerk, trapped in human history's most toxic echo chamber. 100% self-inflicted by a shared belief in fraud, corruption, and incessant lying...
Let's say you're Amish. Therefore, you are highly skilled in multiple disciplines: construction, farming, equipment repair. As are your neighbors. When anyone needs a hand, everyone pitches in. Any amount of government interference is strictly an overhead burden. An unnecessary encumbrance. It's a man's world of course, but that's part of the allure of it all.
What I am describing is the libertarian fantasy world circa. 1850. Little House On the Prairie.
Now, let's say you live in the real world. You don't know your neighbors, your skills are highly specialized. You have few if any survival skills in the Amish context. In this world, job turnover is frequent. Without a social safety net, anyone or any family can fall into dire straits very quickly. Therefore a strong social contract is necessary to allow the economy to continue functioning without falling into depression. For example, without multiple bailouts from the rest of society, the farm sector could get obliterated by trade wars.
Unfortunately we live in a real world, run by people who like to pretend this is still an Amish country. Which is why they've been strip-mining the social safety net to further enrich billionaires. These are people who lack the social conscience of a true Amish person because they don't give a damn about the plight of the rest of society. Their view is that we are a transactional society wherein no one owes anyone anything. Which is why the first thing that dries up in the case of economic calamity in the U.S., is charity. Charity being relatively abundant when it's least needed and non-existent when it's most needed. In other words, the libertarian fantasy doesn't actually work in the real world, because it doesn't have to - it only has to be believed long enough to sell another tax cut to useful amnesiacs.
What I am describing is America's now toxic mythology - the hyper-Darwinian cult of self interest taken to its logical self-destructing endgame: no social safety net. An ever further rightward shift towards refugee camp status whereby caring about anyone else in society is now deemed "socialism". Serial monetary bailouts for the rich no problem. One dollar in corporate taxation is "redistribution".
This is going to be a very hard lesson in terminology and amnesia.
For that we have the right wing echo chamber to thank. No clowns will be laughing when they realize that 2008 was their last chance to stop lying.
“The economy is running on one engine, and that’s the consumer.”
“Suddenly the idea of stall speed is much more important today than it has been for most of the expansion”
