[gthaman]

The citizenry in the USA (im assuming you are being specific to) are a good deal worse off than in the 1950s in regard to household families and being overtly manipulated and jerked around in regards to the political process with whatever little time they have to engage with it.

The governments (its actors, known or unknown) are the ones with considerable resources and power consolidated in a few hands and intelligence agencies leaders who write books about deceiving their own people saying "we'll know our job is complete when everything the american people believe is a lie".

USA is mired in military action in 76 countries that we know of - USA was at war for every single day of all 8 years of Obama's presidencies - Drone Strikes, Mass Heroin overdoses, San Francisco homeless & human feces poop map's but we finally got those plastic straws replaced with good old american democracy and know how.

What a contrast. What prioritizing.

With every passing day, more and more people are starting to realize it's not ineptitude, it's deceit. And the more heed paid to the government, the more reliance on and guidance from the government - the worse.

[root_axis]

You sound like you have an axe to grind. What's your point? Obama waged wars, thus it makes sense that people dismiss the fact that emissions are destroying the environment?

>the more heed paid to the government, the more reliance on and guidance from the government - the worse

What does this even mean? Are you ideologically opposed to mandating seat belts and fire codes and that kind of thing or are you only talking about climate change when you say "the more heed paid to the government, the more reliance on and guidance from the government - the worse."?

[whatwow]

The main problem in the US is that corporations and the wealthy have used populism to wage war on government. Thomas Frank's work on 'populist pro-business conservatism' is the reference on this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_the_Matter_with_Kansa... They try to get citizens to hate the government so they can shrink it and cut taxes on themselves. They use disinformation to do so.

The main deceit comes from right-wing populist disinformation.

You can also read Thomas Piketty on how wealth inequality allows the very wealthy to spend money to influence politics. In the US, that's taken the form of anti-government disinformation.