If you are trying to start a restaurant, and a black or latino, or god forbid, female AND black or latino city worker comes to inspect and finds a small problem, or the government is telling you what the minimum wage must be, or the ADA is requiring a ramp when you've (ct'd)
never had a customer even once come in in a wheelchair can feel like the government is solely in the business of making you fail. And then charging you for it in the form of your tax bill.
The most vitriolic pushback I get is when I speak out about preserving the estate tax, even though 99.8% of estates owe no tax at all. That is because the people swearing at me online are thinking that I am trying to take away the imaginary money they aspire to make.
I am pissing on the dream of them being my Uncle Walt going from rags to riches in the American Dream. Because the dream is so real to the people who hold it, but so unreal in practical life, the disconnect between how great it sounds and the likelihood of it ever happening ct'd
raises the temperature on their rage. They've been told that if you are good enough, smart enough, hard-working enough, you'll succeed and therefore if they don't succeed they are none of those things. Thus, anything that threatens to get in the way of their success is ct'd
bearing the very unwelcome news of their unworthiness and can't be abided. Compounding the trouble, but also amping up the dream is the hyper focus of Americans on individualism. This hyper focus might not necessarily eliminate an interest in the collective, but it sure ct'd
as shit bumps the interests of the collective all the way to the bottom of the list of priorities. Thus the spluttering, irrational fear of socialism. What is socialism but a lid on your dreams? Forcible collectivism? A limit to how far you might, maybe, one day soar? ct'd
It also explains the insane resistance to the idea of collective consequences, even in the face of ample evidence. Hence climate denialism, hostility to the ADA, the covid reaction. Greeted with the news that no matter how shiny your dreams you nevertheless owe the world ct'd
at least some consideration and even behavior change that might inconvenience you or more, they make one of two choices. Denial: covid is a hoax, climate change is a hoax, no wheelchair is going to need to get in here. ct'd
Or defiance. Irrational and even childish temper tantrums about "freedom"--even with the knowledge of the deadly ramification of this not at all accurate idea of the human reality that any society has to restrict at least some freedom in order to function well. ct'd
Add to all of this the basic human need to never be wrong, an understandable need, but a stupid one nevertheless. That even now climate deniers persist, that people on their deathbeds are insisting they don't have covid, is a testaments to how far we will ct'd
To defend the narrative that gives us a feeling of legitimacy and wow that is a toxic cocktail that can only end with something like this storming of the Capitol building. Given all this, I think it is highly unlikely we are not in for more violence, for a long time.
