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A thread today asked why, when people are asked "which candidate best represents your views/do you agree with/think would be best for the country," so many people answer differently when the question is "which candidate do you support/will you vote for."
There were many theories on this, one very popular one was realism, pragmatism, ectism, which bodes even worse than the disconnect itself, as it means that even those who cannot claim ignorance of the current crisis, or lack of the intellectual capacity to comprehend its significance prognosis, are so completely alienated that even the possibility of changing their government, in a country that claims to have patented the technology, no longer exists.
The outright cancelling of elections and formally declaring the US to be a military dictatorship could not have produced as effective, as final and irrevocable a result.
The very people one would suppose to have the fiercest determination and the most passionate committment to saving their nation have passed the point of no return.
The power of the people to change their government has become a 404 in the nation that made its reputation on Jefferson's pilfering the Great Law of the Iroquois.
And it's also about comfort zones. For the majority of even this rarefied pagoda-flap of the political bell curve of the voting class, things have simply not gotten bad enough yet.
Most are still comfortably ensconced in the security of relatively habitable dwellings, enjoying electric light and internet access, and the discretionary energy and time to post to a message board. The status quo, though they may decry it, has not as of yet caused helicopter gunships to fire missiles into their stately monkey grass nor has anyone except that friendly guy at the convenience store been led away, (and they didn't really see that, just one day he wasn't there anymore, but the new guy is nice too, so maybe he just moved to France or something.)
They have not yet had to choose between a 24 hour security guard or a college fund for the new baby, and few of them have been arrested because their car bears a regime-critical bumper sticker.
Whatever spark may be racing along the ACME TNT Co's string, headed for their well-appointed, if cluttered, Great Room is still some distance away, and even without realizing it, many are listening not to either heart or head, but to some barely audible but impossible to ignore primordial voice that says "don't rock the boat."
Others, quite a few, have become adepts at the art of Magical Thinking. The same policies, reworded and dressed up in something a little more metrosexual and upscale will TOO be an improvement, they chant, willtoowilltoowilltoo.
The phrase "change their government," after all, cannot exist without the word "change," and change is scary, change is difficult, change is messy, it is not guaranteed to be either predictable, controllable or devoid of surprises, and is quite fond of bouncing people cheerfully and unexpectedly out of their comfort zones, unwrapping fingers from security blankets and dyeing those blankets electric purple and hanging them in the window.
Going to school, becoming sexually active, getting a job, falling in love, becoming a parent, all involved change, and all its implications, but you survived.
The first time you change your government will be no different.
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