Over and over, the American answer to crisis has become: Nothing can be done.
now that Joe Biden would win the Democratic primary because Americans were exhausted by the onslaught of catastrophic news to which they were constantly being asked to respond. Thathad become enough of a factor in the lives of ordinary Americans that it materially affected their moods and lives, and that a presidential candidate’s approach to news-making might—under these specific conditions—itself operate as a political platform.
as political solutions. People didn’t tune in because it was pleasurable; they tuned in because it seemed like they might need to do something.If news consumption is down, then, it follows that the perceived need to respond is too. It would be a mistake to say that anger has diminished—people are still mad on the internet for all sorts of surprising reasons—but the kind of organized political rage over matters that should really matter to Democrats has unquestionably decreased.
to one party and the other party won’t do anything to stop them? After all, Republicans have packed the Supreme Court and Democrats have demonstrated that they have no intention of correcting that imbalance.These things aren’t linear, of course.
But then it was accepted. The biggest protests in American history were not enough to achieve even minimal changes. They didn’t get rid of qualified immunity. Police have not reformed. They have certainly not been defunded. This became just one more untenable thing, along with the pandemic, that has been accepted. Over and over, the American answer to crisis has become:Here is where I say that this isn’t an entirely correct impression, however widespread it is. Some thingshappened.