And no, that's not exclusive to Trump and what ICE has been up to, vanishing people into deportation camps. Climate change, the increasing frequency of pandemics, PFAS/forever chemicals, the list of stuff being swept under the rug instead of being acted against grows longer by the day.
They will destroy their own lives if all they worry about is the bigger stuff. There is no clear path from what an individual can practically do, to addressing those bigger things either.
For example, politically - anyone trying to do the actual effective thing in this situation is going to be thrown in jail, often with praise and finger wagging by the nominal folks in charge of those who it would be benefitting.
And since everyone would rather yell and scream back and forth at each other rather than actually do anything that matters, what else is going to happen?
That goes for pretty much every one of these hot button topics. People can only control what they can actually control, and at some point, those things are in bad enough shape that they require 100% of a persons attention. Or more.
This is 'California politics' by the way - and it's spread everywhere. Nothing is good, everything is bad, no one can do anything that actually benefits them, etc, etc.
At the very least, vote for politicians actually taking the myriad of issues seriously. Millions of Americans couldn't be bothered to do even that bare minimum in 2024, despite knowing what shitshow the first Trump term was. And no, voter suppression isn't an excuse, the Democrats lost more votes from 2020-2024 than Trump gained.
And it's not just the federal elections where votes and engagement can and do make a difference. The book bans? Passed by school boards (crazy enough these are a thing in the first place, most other countries run that through regular civilian administration). That nutjob sheriff Arpaio? Voted and confirmed by locals. You get the point - the far-right has done local legwork and voting for decades.
And finally: stay informed about what is going on, so when Uncle John goes off on his usual tirades at family gatherings after a few beers, you can recognize what the lies are and call the lies out.
And notably, they also couldn't defend the constitution when it came time.
So it's a choice between 'delusional-we're-doing-good-everything-is-fine' and 'delusional-lets-not-look-up-and-blame-everyone-else'. The first group continuing to apply pressure in this non-working direction just made the second group inevitable.
Pretending people aren't people, and don't have their own reasons why they voted the way they did is exactly what led to the current situation. It's the pendulum swinging. Now we'll get 'people can only be their worst (except me), punish them, regardless of the evidence'.
Or as the old quote goes - "Democracy is the idea that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it - good and hard."
Or do you think those straw bans actually helped, or just let people think they were helping by doing actually nothing?
And how do you think all those people feel who spent decades faithfully sorting recycling who finally figured out it was all a scam and 90% of it just went into the same hole in the ground shortly after?
I’m not saying I have some better master alternative - rather there is a reason the pendulum swings.