Conservatives construct elaborate mythologies to explain the social and economic injustices they inflict upon themselves--or more importantly, which they allow others to inflict upon them. They are the victims of the very people they wish to become, or which they have convinced themselves they are. The enemy is always convenient and carefully devised for the historical conditions at the times--the Jews, the immigrants, the blacks, the intellectuals, the Libs, the artists and scientists and "politicians". And when the information they receive contradicts these fantasies, then the purveyors of that information also become suspect. The perfidy of mainstream media and treachery of the Deep State, the elitists in academe, are the organs of deceit they feel can be the only reason their experience so contradicts their expectations. The politicians and corporate leadership THEY support, of course, are always innocent of these crimes and exempt from punishment. After all, you can't very well criticize the people you want to become, even if they are the ones who are doing everything they can to stop you from becoming like them.

This self-deception, if artfully encouraged, can be quite effective until something new and unexpected enters the scene, some external catastrophe or natural disaster that perhaps no one can be blamed for. The virus is something no one is responsible for, shit happens, but the same old bogeymen must be blamed, the health authorities are the Deep State, the warnings in the press are treachery from the MSM, all those long-haired elitists in white lab coats or corduroy jackets with leather patches on the elbows are the same ones who tried to foist trade unions, National Health Care and Civil Rights and the New Deal on us. They are the ones who really took our jobs, not the ones who profited mightily by shipping them overseas, or giving them to illegal aliens. British Imperialism exploited its overseas Empire, America has managed to successfully colonize its own population. America after COVID will quickly start to look a lot like Britain after Suez.

We are the nation that landed men on the moon, and today we can't even manufacture our own computer chips, rubber gloves or surgical masks. And even when we import them, we can't distribute them efficiently to our own people. After all, it just can't be done profitably.