I disagree that 'comfort' was a cause. That line of thinking comes from the same puritanical austerity narrative that has been used to tell the working class that our circumstances are due to poor character rather than because we were talked out of demanding more.

It's victim-blamey, but like all victim-blaming narratives it has the virtue of restoring a sense of control, a sense of "this is the thing that I can decide to do that would have prevented this."

...which isn't to say that I don't think we can't identify things that could have stopped this. But I don't think a vague assertion that people here are more distracted or 'comfortable' than elsewhere helps. Also - a lot of people are not comfortable. But they may deal with that by at least enjoying the distractions or not staring into the sun of things they don't think they can change.

Ultimately, we ended up here through corrupt systems. The Trumpers were right to want to 'drain the swamp', they are just so blinded by antimosity that they fell for a grifter because he promised to hurt people.

All the pillars of democracy have been under attack since Reagan - high quality journalism and education to maintain an informed voter base, a voter base with enough time to research issues, and political campaign laws to keep government working in the public's interest.

Occupy Wall Street tried to sound the alarm, but journalism was already too corrupt and the movement was successfully sold to the public as 'annoying college kids demanding free things'.

So now we have a significant chunk of the voter base that doesn't know what habeas corpus is, or anything about how our checks and balances are supposed to look, and thinks what makes this country "a free country" is that we blow shit up with fireworks on July 4th - and doesn't see why authoritarianism would be so bad.

And the rest of us who are looking on aghast are honestly afraid of our police, of Trumpers openly talking about lynching us (and yes - they have more guns than us. Most liberals still refuse to consider becoming armed), and of losing everything and dying in a prison cell run by a for-profit corp.

This is a stage-4 cancer diagnosis on a social scale, and people are still figuring out if we want chemo or to try to ride this out as long as we can.

On top of that, while conservative social media spaces are full of people threatening violence, all of the platforms are coming down hard on any space that discusses anything more provocative than holding a sign in a nonn-threatening manner in a way that abides any police order given.

There is no place to organize, and no one is proposing or organizing any serious strategy. Seriously -- I've gone to local meetings, and all any activist org or politician will say is "organize with your neighbors (organize what?) and try to do mutual aid".

That is not a meaningful response to an organization like the Heritage Foundation.