Only two possible solutions I can think of. The first is balkanize. Let each group of like-minded people form their own, autonomous nation states, where they can all do things the way they want without interference from others. The second is the reasonable, rational, educated people take complete control of the federal government and force all the states to adopt the policies that have proven to work best.

Individual responsibility, bootstraps, etc.

Never.

Alright, well, keep hoping that they’ll stop burning their hand on the stove one day. Seems like a waste of time and energy, but that’s up to you.

Maybe. How many times does a kid have to burn himself on a hot stove before we accept that he’s just stupid and a lost cause?

Maybe. If people have been given ample opportunity to make the right choice, but they keep making bad choices, choices that continue to cause them to suffer, is that not what they deserve?

They need to find a way to silence the Republicans, then. They need to ensure that people are only getting the right message.

Mocked, yes, but saying they deserve to suffer…

Well, is it not true?

Exactly. They’re idiots and they deserve what they get.

At this point people should be mocked…

That’s what I did.

I know. How does that make my comment wrong?

Oh? What is?

Yeah, fuck those Oklahomans! Those idiots deserve to suffer and struggle.

The theories I’m talking about are neoliberal theories, they are the theories that essentially all economic policies have been based on for the majority of time most of us have been alive. Even if the establishment has recently decided to embrace some changes, you can’t expect people to just forget the last fifty years or so.

That’s not the message working people heard. They heard, “we are the establishment whose theories have been fucking you over for fifty years, but in our infinite wisdom and benevolence we have decided to make some changes that WE have determined will make your lives better, and so you must vote for us. After all, we are your intellectual superiors.”

American exceptionalism created Donald Trump. When you create a culture around the idea that “we are inherently superior to all other groups,” you get people like Trump.

Good, it needs to end. Supremacist thinking is dangerous.

The big problem is decades of attacks on education.

A lot of Americans have been voting to attack education, too.

I consider myself a staunch democrat (notice the lower case “d,” I am not a liberal), in that I am a strong advocate for democracy. But, maybe I, and others, need to rethink our positions on democracy. It doesn’t seem like a very good idea to have people who are generally ignorant of climate science, or science in general, deciding what US climate policy should be. We shouldn’t put questions like, “is climate change real,” to a vote. We have the scientific method for determining that, and It works so much better than popular opinion.

My defense of democracy generally comes down to: “yes, there are some ignorant people out there, but most people are well enough informed and reasonable enough.” Maybe that’s not always true.

But Russia and China are both capitalist countries.

They’re certainly not ideologically liberal, even if they have embraced some liberal economic principles, albeit under significant state control and direction.

Of course, I should have said the Western liberals are defending their position atop the global hegemonic order, and the MLs are trying to unseat them.