I think they realized a long time ago, either overtly and planned, or just organically, that it’s easier to keep the largest political capital bloc, the median voting middle-class, pacified rather than engaged.
The powers that be are no longer trying to fight for that political capital, they have learned it’s far more effective to court the extreme ends of the bell curve, to get smaller but more violently radicalized groups. You notice how in political rhetoric they don’t even try to win new people over anymore, it’s all about saying things that their existing base already agrees with and can feel validated with. Farmable clips and sound-bites that get algorithmically delivered to those who already want to see it.
But the median-class, they’re still the majority, they’re just sleeping. Tuned out on consumerism trends and addictive drugs in the form of internet algorithms and AI chat friends and a constant stream of media offerings showing simplified stories of emotional validation.
When staying in Southeast Asia, in a small town in the Philippines I was doing shots of gin with the local “captain” which is somewhere between a sheriff and a local community leader and he pointed to the gin bottle that cost less than 25 cents USD and he told me, that the government there deliberately floods the country with cheap alcohol and then shows everyone that the “good life” is being able to afford alcohol every night, and the people then drink and pass out and go back to work in the morning, tired and waiting for the evening so they can get a drink. That it’s a big reason why nothing changes, and the other reason being that the whole system was now designed around an “end goal” of having just enough to get by
This is a tactic that’s been used over and over again in various authoritarian nations to keep people pacified long enough to get to the next big struggle, the next big narrative. And it’s what’s happening in the US, it’s just like everything here, it’s a lot more complicated and shiny.
I think they realized a long time ago, either overtly and planned, or just organically, that it’s easier to keep the largest political capital bloc, the median voting middle-class, pacified rather than engaged.
The powers that be are no longer trying to fight for that political capital, they have learned it’s far more effective to court the extreme ends of the bell curve, to get smaller but more violently radicalized groups. You notice how in political rhetoric they don’t even try to win new people over anymore, it’s all about saying things that their existing base already agrees with and can feel validated with. Farmable clips and sound-bites that get algorithmically delivered to those who already want to see it.
But the median-class, they’re still the majority, they’re just sleeping. Tuned out on consumerism trends and addictive drugs in the form of internet algorithms and AI chat friends and a constant stream of media offerings showing simplified stories of emotional validation.
When staying in Southeast Asia, in a small town in the Philippines I was doing shots of gin with the local “captain” which is somewhere between a sheriff and a local community leader and he pointed to the gin bottle that cost less than 25 cents USD and he told me, that the government there deliberately floods the country with cheap alcohol and then shows everyone that the “good life” is being able to afford alcohol every night, and the people then drink and pass out and go back to work in the morning, tired and waiting for the evening so they can get a drink. That it’s a big reason why nothing changes, and the other reason being that the whole system was now designed around an “end goal” of having just enough to get by
This is a tactic that’s been used over and over again in various authoritarian nations to keep people pacified long enough to get to the next big struggle, the next big narrative. And it’s what’s happening in the US, it’s just like everything here, it’s a lot more complicated and shiny.