I am no longer astonished at how they manipulate their base. It is a cult. They know they are lying. They feed the rubes with meaningless controversies to distract them. The former guy taught them well. Just repeat the lies over and over and over again. Destroy trust in expertise. Go after schools, government, everything but religion. Well, the selected religion. Rile up the marginally crazy to do crazy things. Censor opponents while screaming about cancel culture. Push silly iconography. Find fear and fan it into rage. And grift all day long. Sell the rubes things they don't need.

We have become an unserious culture. Perhaps we always were? I'm not sure it is true, but I saw a poll that indicated more than 50% of Americans are in favor of abolishing "Arabic" numerals.

Because we are stupid, we are exploitable. I fear this pendulum is nowhere near to the end of its arc.