According to my observation, the UK has an electorate that is similar to that of the US in many ways, with its wealthy conservatives and its underclass. However, there is a significant difference in that almost everyone in the UK has a minimum standard of grace, class, good humor, charity, and honesty that is absent in many Americans.
Trump could no more become Prime Minister of England than he could become King.
Human civilization finds itself at a crossroads, where it needs to choose between things like democracy vs. authoritarianism/fascism, and environmental sustainability vs. eco-collapse.
Until and unless “the good guys win,” I’m just as happy for this planet to remain unengaged with alien intelligence.
As shown here, there truly are cultures around the world that are based on care for one another, and for environmental sustainability.
Of course, it’s possible that the United States may one day head in this direction. Right now, however, the U.S. electorate has descended to a point that about half of Americans are illiterate scientifically, and think that intelligence, compassion and decency is for woke, communist sissies.
That’s just sad.
There’s something going around social media that asks, “What does America do better than any other country on Earth?”
A good answer is, “Using childish behavior to destroy relationships with long-term allies.”
The graffiti shown here is in downtown Calgary in western Canada.
We need to hope that the Canadians live up to their reputations as gracious and forbearing, and that they understand that the United States has made a huge, though reparable mistake in electing Donald Trump–a sociopath whose lifespan in the White House is limited.
It’s impossible to know exactly what chicanery is being inflicted on the common American, though it does seem reasonable that our news cycles are loaded with content whose sole purpose is to distract attention away from the real matters of the day.
As suggested at left, the central news item is transitioning the United States from a democracy and a staunch supporter of democratic states around the globe to an oligarchy, in the style of Russia.
During the Biden presidency, Trump had four long years to prepare his attacks on the U.S. government and the people it served. How to destroy public education, healthcare, rule of law, relations with allies, and environmental regulation. How to further enrich himself and his billionaire donors at the expense of the American people.
As suggested at left, part of the reason for his success thus far is that he sprang all these traps in a matter of less than two months from the moment he took office, using the element of surprise to overwhelm us.
The answer to the question posed at left isn’t incorrect, but it’s rare, and perhaps even weird.
We all “live here,” but that’s not the reason most people in the early 21st care about the Earth’s capacity to support life. After all, very few relatively affluent Americans are personally threatened by environmental collapse.
The probability that you or I will suffer and/or die prematurely due to some issue associated with human society’s apathy to climate change, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity is very low. On the other hand, the probability that future generations will face unprecedented suffering from these phenomena is close to 100% We either care about these people, or we don’t.
There are a ton of indicators as to how pathetic American society has become. One is that people actually care what Elon Musk thinks about what the Japanese and Italians should do.
Jack Daniels’ home county in Tennessee voted overwhelming for Trump (obviously), but how happy are these people today?
The whiskey-maker’s largest customer, Canada’s province of Ontario, just cleared its shelves of their product and returned it without payment. The result (thus far): 650 lost jobs.
Normal people do not elect leaders who inflict extreme damage on the voting base. What’s going so wrong with these folks?
