It’s no news to anyone that distrust in the government is at an all time high. No matter who you are in America, you are basically guaranteed to think that at least 50% of the government is irredeemably evil.
The MAGA crowd stands behind Trump against “the deep state” which they characterize variously as pedophiles, incredibly corrupt politicians, and bureaucratic money wasters.
On the other hand, even moderate democrats believe that the MAGA crowd is, at best stupid, greedy, and at least moderately bigotted.
More politically extreme individuals believe that the government is ignoring their interests, or actively working against them. There are plenty of chuds who believe that Trump is actively trying to hand America over to Israel on a silver platter, for example. And of course, troonies are convinced that Donald Trump himself is personally shooting every single tranny in the head on a daily basis.
But what does this all mean?
Well, first of all, I should clarify that I don’t really blame anyone for being so skeptical in the government. Even the most extreme skeptics have at least some reasonable justification for their skepticism. Obviously Trump is not “genociding” trannies, but he is working to reduce their influence (which is a good thing). And of course, Trump IS fairly Zionist (like all US politicians).
So I’m not here to say that you should have infinite goodwill towards the government and always “Trust The Plqn” because actually the government are the good guys. In fact I myself am not exactly trusting of the government, even of those nominally aligned with my ideals.
This skepticism isn’t even limited to the government. Virtually any major institution is now deeply distrusted by the American people (again, often for good reason). Mainstream media is now a laughingstock amongst basically everyone by liberals and boomers. Big Pharma and the food industry are becoming increasingly distrusted by the public (thank GOD btw).
What I am saying, however, is that this skepticism is very, very, bad for America. Especially because of how widespread and normalized it is. Virtually everyone, left or right, has some sort of bizarre conspiracy theory that they hold to today, even when they would have laughed at such a notion 10 years ago (if even that long).
The government and national institutions have eroded people’s trust in them so thoroughly, either by incompetence or malice, that it will likely be impossible to fully repair the trust of the current generation without some sort of major upheaval. Without some thorough house cleaning, the only way for a competent and well intentioned government to repair this trust is basically just going to be waiting for the current generation to die, without making things worse.
The distrust and skepticism of the average person borders (at least) on paranoid schizophrenia and in most cases is functionally identical.
We are at a point where outrageous and blatantly untrue conspiracy theories are openly discussed and supported by average Americans. Many Americans now openly support ludicrous ideas like Flat Earth, the Firmament, Holographic Moon, etc. Rarely do these people have any real basis for these ideas beyond the fact that they distrust the government and mainstream institutions so much that they are simply contrarians to anything they say.
Sam Hyde actually had a good point on this; Flat Earthers and other conspiracy theorists are openly advocating these ideas not (just) because they are retarded, but because they distrust the government and scientific institutions so much that they simply assume everything is a lie. And, when Redditors “epicly debunk” a Flat Earther, it isn’t some triumph over ignorance. It’s picking low hanging fruit on behalf of the government.
The average American is, essentially, like a battered housewife. After years of abuse and neglect, they have a deep-seeded trust in anyone resembling their abuser and have constructed these fantasy worlds as a form of escapism.
This is, obviously, very bad for the future of America. Nations are built on their people, and if the people distrust their government to the point that they would genuinely believe that the government is trying to kill them in absurd and contrived ways, or that NASA literally created the Moon using holoprojectors, just to deceive the world (and for no other reason than the deception itself), then you can’t expect them to support their nation when the time comes.
I’m not saying you need to go on a crusade against conspiracy theorists. Like Sam said, not only is it not going to work, but it’s basically the same thing as hitting a puppy. It’s essentially victim blaming.
I’m not really even proposing a solution to this issue, because this isn’t even something you can really fix unless you are at the head of these institutions.
What I’m saying is that this is one of the most pressing issues facing the fate of our country and if nothing is done to fix it, the level of atomization we see today is nothing compared to what is to come.
I genuinely think the best and only thing we can do is police our own side and try to keep as many insane conspiracies out of our dialog as possible, but this current state of affairs is the natural consequence of nearly a century of lies and corruption
Atomization and then tribalization at a lower (smaller) level.