Anyone else feel the weirdness of this unprecedented time?

[JHB]

97. The only part of that I'm not wondering as well is "how so many people have lost their minds"

The Right invested money into building an independent media-sphere that would pound their message 24/7/365 across the whole country and there was no response. They cowed the MSM into dancing to their tune, and nobody put money into a leftward equivalent unless you count Vladimir Putin and RT. During the Bush years it seemed the only opposition outlet, but since Vladdy-boy was only interested in undermining any US administration, it was only the "America can do no right" lefties that thrived there. There was no space to build a liberal-left counter-narrative.

So the Right had several decades unopposed to wank and diddle various people's bigotries, axe-grindings, and pet peeves. It became the background noise that everyone heard, and any other message had to swim upstream against it.

They've been actively working toward this since the 70s or earlier.