> fish rots from the head
Does it? Did it? We elected the "brazenly corrupt pedophiles."
This question seems complex and important enough to not be resolved with a truism.
Hard to say for certain. Though I do think it goes both ways. People at the bottom influence culture from bottom up, folks at the top from the top down.
It really doesn’t. Trump wouldn’t survive election if the electorate didn’t seek, or at least tolerate whatever the hell you can call that. Americans will conveniently point fingers at him (as is their political tradition) but he’s a consequence of a much deeper disease.
Trump was not the beginning of the decline, only the terminal symptom.
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The brazenly corrupt also own the vast media ecosystem that can help swing elections. Should we all know better? Probably. But they control the education system too, so…