If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

by momentmaker on 4/23/2026, 4:05:30 PM

https://www.derekthompson.org/p/if-americas-so-rich-howd-it-get-so

Comments

by: Taikonerd

The article is smarter than the title makes it sound. He's not seriously proposing that being rich makes you happy. And he notes that there's a big drop around 2020 specifically, which long-term trends don't explain.Just to state the obvious: 2020 was the year of COVID, which played hell with peoples' social lives.And I think it's been pretty well-proven that happiness is largely driven by the strength and quality of our social relationships. Anything that cuts us off from our friends, or prevents us from forming new friendships, is going to be visible in the happiness data.Judging by the stats, we haven't dug ourselves out of the post-COVID hole yet.

4/23/2026, 4:49:31 PM

by: xyzelement

I feel like this is an easily answerable question, but I can see this because I grew up an atheist (and travel in those typically atheist/educated/professional circles) and have become much more aware/educated in/embracing of religion later in life myself.If you compare apples to apples - say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG and also my religious friend who is also a director in the same FAANG.The former lives by themselves, spends their money on fun things like cars and "toys", etc. Don't get me wrong, wonderful guy (hence friend) but doesn't have those traditional things that historically have been correlated with a fulfilled life.Meanwhile my religious-FAANG friend has 4 kids, lives in a community where everyone knows each other, lives much closer to family (intentional choice) and just overall sees his life, both the ups and the downs, as part of something purposeful and meaningful.I would say my religious friend has much more intensity and drama/richness in his life, and maybe no time for "sadness" which I actually think is the right way to go.I like talking about these 2 guys because outwardly they are apples to apples (same career, similar degree, etc.) but I think this generalizes well to my other friends too. At whatever level of "secular" success and safety, my religious friends just somehow seem more grounded, more belonging in their lives compared to my atheist friends, deal with setbacks better, take a more long-term view and in that traditional sense have more "to live for" than themselves which is very healthy.America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization. When I came to the US in mid-90s (as an atheist) over half the population attended religious services regularly. Obviously that number is nothing like that today. So what registers to us as an overall change in society (fewer kids, less happy) is actually the proliferation of non religiosity in society and the corresponding magnification of the kind of challenges non-religious folks face.As a sort of comical but sad example, most my atheist friends "would want kids" but have 30 reasons why it's impossible, between economics, politics, etc. Meanwhile my religious friends just have kids.

4/23/2026, 4:41:34 PM

by: eBombzor

I do feel this trend in my life. I have a job which I'm grateful for but nothing feels satisfying anymore, and I feel like it is much harder to connect to people or form deep relationships, especially in this field, unless you already have a clique in your workplace.On top of that, AI is generally a demotivating entity to the majority of people. Despite all the hype of Altman and whonots, I feel like people just don't have a positive view of the future of their careers due to AI. And once you lose hope it's just downhill from there.Also I feel like society still hasn't recovered fully from COVID, so many third places gone, restraunts closed, etc. It's getting there but people are isolating more and more. I'm in my late 20s and I just haven't felt like my social life is even half of what it used to be before COVID.

4/23/2026, 4:39:32 PM

by: Induane

Relentless striving without any kind of real meaning isn't healthy. Even people who aren't deeply Christian in the religious sense are still inherited of much of the values. I.E. people must prove their value via an extraordinary work ethic.

4/23/2026, 4:20:50 PM

by: MattGrommes

The specific decline in happiness in English speaking countries is very interesting. My first guess is that non-English speakers have to use their own news sources and don't fall prey to the same doom and gloom, everything is terrible, "news" sources on cable and the internet.Seems like there might be a good lesson in there.

4/23/2026, 5:32:40 PM

by: rootusrootus

When I see a sudden drop in 2020, my first reaction is "COVID." For a lot of people that was a pivotal moment with persistent consequences.My second guess would be politics. I have met few people in the last few years that do not seem unhappy as a direct result of our political battles. Families actually breaking up over it, etc.Now I will go read the article ;-)

4/23/2026, 4:20:05 PM

by: yalogin

One thing I realized over time America is very expensive to live in. Everything is so expensive that only the rich are rich and everyone from middle class and down are on the poor spectrum. It’s done purposefully under the cover of freedom, choice and taxes. It’s impossible to change now at least I am very pessimistic about it. It doesn’t help that the population density is very low and so many of the services just don’t have the ROI they do in other countries.

4/23/2026, 4:52:03 PM

by: lambdaone

I once aspired to American citizenship, and was dazzled by its wealth, opportunity, can-do attitude and freedom. Now I can't imagine wanting to go there - everything I see or hear, from both American and other sources, right or left, suggests a deeply unhappy country at war with itself.

4/23/2026, 4:39:54 PM

by: anonu

The earlier NYT article on the topic was interesting: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/opinion/economy-attitudes-republicans-democrats.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/opinion/economy-attitudes...</a>It was succinctly put: the top 10% of earners - those making 250k or more - do 50% of the spending. If you're a company with a product or service, are you going to cater to the 90% or the affluent 10%? Clearly the latter - so as a result the bottom 90% of the country just feels like they're "keeping up with the Joneses" all the time.Probably a lot of hand-wavy behavioral economics here and I am sure the answer to "Why are we so sad" is more complex...

4/23/2026, 4:36:11 PM

by: pkilgore

It's getting to the point where I search "K-shaped" and "Cohort" in these kinds of articles before I even read them. I'm not even saying these are why, exactly, but failure to wrestle with the intellectual effort of rejecting that as a hypothesis is a frustrating omission.

4/23/2026, 4:25:34 PM

by: netcan

> If you are looking for a sympathetic ear to explain this phenomenon, certainly do not seek counsel from your local economistFunny, considering this is an article by an economist. But, isn't "psychology" responsible for investigating this?> It’s probably not just about phones and social mediaThe other reasons were eliminated with confidence. This one comes with a "just."Is it really improbable that "The Sadness" isn't just phones/SM/etc? These do act on core levers of happiness, optimism, anxiety and suchlike. They are social or social-like. Our relationships are big levers on happiness. Otoh you can think through a crude neural stimulus lens. Being someplace noisy, dark, unpleasant or whatnot can also affect mood. Tech usage is pervasive enough that it can plausibly be the factor. It's uncertain, but I don't think this can be eliminated as a possible cause... even a singular cause.It's also parsimonious (I think) with the anglophone stats,"permapandemic theory"and most of the article.I'm actually intuitively sympathetic to the writers' economics argument. I agree. Structurally, there is a structural difference between a "chill" economy and a "highly stressful" that isn't much related to GDP (or inflation). I don't think stratification or inequality affect people as much as risk/anxiety... I imagine average happiness will be higher.But... as this article itself points... the evidence is kind of pointing at "it's not the economy, stupid"Luckily (or tragically, as the case may be), I think we're at the start of a new media paradigm shift. AI may replace current mediums in large parts of people's lives... and we shall see what changes.

4/23/2026, 5:23:37 PM

by: hiAndrewQuinn

I like how the graphs suggest that prior to 2020 a certain "holy trinity" for happiness existed of being married, graduating college, and voting Republican. This passes the sniff test even though I am only 2 for 3, I was not having a great time at 1 and was downright glum at 0.

4/23/2026, 4:25:53 PM

by: mbfg

The top 10% of American families own close to 70% of america's wealth. So if "America" is rich. Those are the folks who are rich. 90% of Americans are not rich.

4/23/2026, 4:45:01 PM

by: 1vuio0pswjnm7

This discussion skips any consideration of the underlying premise that "self-reported happiness" is always significantPopulations in different countries often have very different pyschologies and societal customs, including propensity or reluctance to be outspoken, to express "feelings", to complain, etc. Populations may differ in how they respond to questions about "happiness"For example, a country with relatively high "self-reported happiness" may also have a relatively high rate of suicideIf a "happy" population is the objective, then there may be more to examine than simply "self-reported happiness"

4/23/2026, 5:21:58 PM

by: functionmouse

because America's not rich; like 100 people here just have more money than most countries

4/23/2026, 4:17:59 PM

by: comrade1234

I feel like wealthy americans live like poor Europeans - they live far outside the city in crowded suburbs, no amenities walking distance so they have to drive everywhere, having to commute an hour to their job, eating bad manufactured food... I'm American but moved to Europe years ago. It may be even better being poor here because at least you might live in a village and you'll have healthcare and your government won't be trying to kill you with polluted air and dangerous food standards.

4/23/2026, 4:21:38 PM

by: greenie_beans

we'd be better off if this type of liberal read mark fisher

4/23/2026, 5:49:48 PM

by: mykowebhn

There's a mentality I see in Americans as well as in the big European cities where everything has to be goal-oriented or you have to have accomplished something, even when taking vacations.There's a stigma against just doing something for nothing, or even doing nothing and being lazy.

4/23/2026, 4:48:03 PM

by: czscout

So the whole mechanism of capitalism is based on the fact that there are haves, and have-nots, albeit with freedom to move upward. The system literally does not work with everyone being a "have", if that happens, the newly minted "haves" just bring down the existing "haves" into a new class of "have-nots". That's essentially what's happened, the lowest of the "have-nots" have risen, which has led to everything being more expensive for the preexisting "haves".

4/23/2026, 5:41:27 PM

by: lastofthemojito

Kinda lost me when he got to the bit about English proficiency.According to the first ranking I found[0], Germany is in the the "very high proficiency" group, and actually ranked ahead of Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. And Denmark isn't on the graph. Smells a bit of cherry-picked data.[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index#2025_country_rankings" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index#2...</a>

4/23/2026, 4:43:02 PM

by: woodydesign

Trust is a major theme & I agree. Beyond trust, I think individualism is another major theme, especially from the perspective of an Eastern cultural background. If too much of my time and energy is spent turning inward and focusing on myself, that feels completely opposite to what Buddhism teaches: letting go of self-grasping is the path to happiness.

4/23/2026, 4:49:08 PM

by: detourdog

The wealth of America may not be the money held by the average population but the buying power and choices available to the average population. I just spent 5 months in the richest country in the Caribbean and the purchasing choices are limited in all but the largest cities. The largest cities still don't have selection of consumer products available in most of the USA. I understand that this doesn't buy happiness but it is eye opening. I never really understood this measure of consumerism before but it is clear to me now.

4/23/2026, 4:25:47 PM

by: MattRogish

I find it interesting that all the trend lines start going negative around 2001. I wonder why that's not remarked upon? 9/11 itself was - obviously - epically terrible, but the impact of the event was recoverable.Our response to it (Iraq war, forever wars, etc.) combined with the realization that the USA are be "the baddies" and we've been lied to since forever, probably might have been the thing that set all the dominos up.COVID was the straw that broke the camel's back. Had we _not_ had the disastrous response to 9/11, I suspect we could've weathered COVID better (like the rest of the world has.)

4/23/2026, 5:36:01 PM

by: testplzignore

> What’s more, Peltzman’s analysis finds that some of the largest declines in happiness seem concentrated among well-to-do demographics, like older people, white people, and college graduates.The same demographics that are the most likely to have gone from working in the office to working from home...

4/23/2026, 4:28:38 PM

by: kilroy123

It all shifted in 2012:<a href="https://wtfhappened2012.com" rel="nofollow">https://wtfhappened2012.com</a>I am an optimist, so I do think things will improve eventually, and we're going through a tough transition.

4/23/2026, 4:46:29 PM

by: amadeuspagel

Life is about habits. The pandemic interrupted many good habits people had--going outside, doing sports, meeting people--and many people haven't restarted these habits, in part due to a collective cold start problem.

4/23/2026, 4:36:30 PM

by: manoDev

This is the expected result of a society optimizing for GDP and quarterly results.

4/23/2026, 5:03:43 PM

by: zepppotemkin

Interesting, have they not tried youtube?

4/23/2026, 4:22:59 PM

by:

4/23/2026, 4:26:41 PM

by: slackfan

Our per-capita SSRI consumption is lower than more than a few EU countries'.Also sadness is a natural and ok state of being. Being a gronked out happy zombie is unnatural and should be suspect.

4/23/2026, 4:29:24 PM

by: lbrito

Good article with a weird title. Why assume wealth and happiness are correlated?

4/23/2026, 4:22:55 PM

by: anovikov

I see one real thing here - since 2017, the sense of stability in everyone's lives has been throughly upended - and perhaps, stability really matters for people to the point that rich, but unstable and precarious life feels worse than poorer, but predictable one. Too many things change too fast and no one knows what comes next. A lot of those things were actually positive changes, but people are afraid and bitterly unhappy anyway.Maybe policymakers who come from wealth and are thoroughly insulated from life upheavals, just don't get that and should take that into account - public information/propaganda system should project some sense of stability.

4/23/2026, 5:32:15 PM

by: themafia

Wealth inequality.

4/23/2026, 5:16:33 PM

by: slopinthebag

Very interesting article, and I can't help but compare with Canada.Canada has fallen from 5th in 2015 to 25th in 2025 on that same World Happiness Report, but if you break it down by age demographics, over 60 are still in the top 10, and under 25's are 71st. That is the largest demographic gap of every developed country. During that time, Canada's economy has been propped up by debt, high levels of immigration leading to cheap foreign workers, and the housing market, all of which benefit the older demographics and sacrifice the wellbeing and future of younger generations.I agree strongly with the author that inflation pays a massive role. Canada has seen even worse inflation than the USA, especially with housing and food prices. The youth unemployment rate is 14%. Canada is different from the states it appears, where the rise in unhappiness is mostly coming from the youth whereas in the States it seems to be a more general phenomenon. It's interesting how split Canada is on age demographics.Interestingly enough, the author points to Quebec as an outlier. While they point to the language spoken as a differentiator, I think it's more likely that Quebec is simply shielded from some of the economic factors facing the rest of Canada since they hold massively disproportionate political power over the rest of Canada and receive a ton of extra federal funding from other provinces.

4/23/2026, 4:34:34 PM

by: tyleo

I listened to a podcast recently which mentioned a rich person living in Florida for tax reasons but really wanting to live in New York. They had an app that counted down how long they needed to be in Florida day-by-day. They hated Florida.I like to think being rich is FU money to do what you want, “fuck being taxed, I have enough wealth to live in NY anyways.” I feel that the culture pressuring you to hoard wealth even at loss of happiness obviously makes for unhappy people.

4/23/2026, 4:30:26 PM

by: alsetmusic

What an asinine question. The wealth is all in the hands of a tiny fraction of the population and they care nothing for the rest of us beyond how to exploit us for even more. Sure, we have a ton of nice stuff that benefits ordinary people like access to some of the coolest consumer gadgets at effectively-subsidized prices through exploitation of the workers in other countries, but that doesn't nullify the high visibility of how we're being treated by corps and the mega-wealthy.When your streaming service subscriptions keep going up and up and up and up, you tend to notice that you're getting the same product at a crappier value. What's more, most products and services are actually declining at the same time that prices go up as profits extract more by making the goods cheaper and the services less responsive. People are aware they're getting the short end and it's really piling up in ways that are hard to ignore.

4/23/2026, 4:51:25 PM

by: threethirtytwo

Because it creeped up on us in the last decade, the US is not the technological powerhouse it was once before. It's not that it's so sad here, overall America is a declining country and losing dominance along every possible vector.We remain dominant in aerospace and computer science but we're losing edge. And for computer science aka programming the techniques are easily learned and replicable so having an edge here doesn't really mean shit. Not to mention a good portion (aka majority) of the top CS engineers are either indian or chinese.IQ in the US has also been declining in the last 2 decades as well. It's all going down. This article shouldn't be about a contrast between a great country and happiness, it should be about overall decline of an empire and a new one that may or may not take it's place (China).

4/23/2026, 5:04:54 PM

by: bjourne

At the US hotel I stayed at they had a waffle machine so that you could eat waffles for breakfast. To make waffles you took a plastic cup to the "faucet" of the waffle machine, filled it with paste and then poured it into the waffle frying pan. Then you threw the cup away. Apparently, there was no need for a more efficient way. Americans seem to be very, very good at working very, very hard but not so good at efficiency.

4/23/2026, 5:02:06 PM

by: FrustratedMonky

Hello. Inflation. Wage Contraction.Sure, money doesn't buy happiness. But you need some minimum. The Maslow's Pyramid. Food, Shelter.

4/23/2026, 4:51:35 PM

by: intended

This was a great article. I particularly like that it even identified English speaking nations as a cohort.There is no particular reason my personal preferences matter, but I have had a nagging feeling that all English speaking nations have been bedeviled by the fallout of the journalistic disaster that Murdoch has fostered.> It’s not that I think the decline of institutional trust and the rise of solitary individualism ought to produce unhappiness for all who experience it. But trust, companionship, and community are shock absorbers in times of personal and national crisis. And the final thing that must be said about the 2020s is that it really has been one damn crisis after another.

4/23/2026, 4:49:08 PM

by: Joel_Mckay

Every man, woman, and child... are $113k in debt.<a href="https://usdebtclock.org/" rel="nofollow">https://usdebtclock.org/</a>In terms of global trade currency policy, many are drafting a long term policy to trade in Yuan.Pokemon cards and Bitcoin are better bets than most current bond markets.People that can do the math, are less happy with the obvious implications. =3

4/23/2026, 4:48:12 PM

by: cynicalpeace

One of the clear detriments of a secular culture is you lose the source code that tells you in clear words: pursuit of material wealth is only a small part of a full lifeAnd when you only pursue material wealth, well... that is "the root of all evil"

4/23/2026, 4:34:21 PM

by: regularization

The average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US has fallen over the past 50 years. With productivity and wealth gains, the median worker working for an hour is making less. Meanwhile, the heirs and rentiers and "rich kids of Instagram" are doing better than ever. Trump just sued the SPLC for investigating neo-nazis and the Ku Klux Klan while Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Lebanon, Gaza etc. are bombed, blockade and whatnot. We"re not living under the Bew Deal or Great Society any more. Things are not going back, this is the new future. Meanwhile, Democratic Socialists of America just cracked 100,000 members, and people might be surprised how active they are in many smaller (and bigger) cities around the US.Average median hourly wage is not everything, but it is a sign of where the priorities of the US is, and it's not fir those who work and create wealth. As property prices soar and young couples can't afford to buy, the heirs and rentiers are doing better than ever.Being as the bedrock of MAGA'S base is white evangelical Protestants, as Michael Harrington pointed out long ago it leads to a continuing cycle of Christianity becoming more reactionary and politically reactionary, as the rest of society secularizes. Whether or not that is a good thing, it is what is happening.Also, with regards to phones, social media etc. and circling back to young couples, studies show married couples met 30 years ago via friends, family, church, school, bars etc. Nowadays the majority, with the number only growing, are meeting via corporations - swipe left and swipe right apps. People stay honest and play video games and watch Netflix instead of going outThe three things said not to be it are part of a shift to increasing alienation, as working people are immiserated. There was an economist 150 years ago who predicted this happening.

4/23/2026, 4:50:23 PM

by: jazz9k

Social media destroyed people's happiness. It not only created echo chambers for people to reaffirm their mental illnesses (instead of getting real help for it), but also a real loneliness epidemic.I'm probably the happiest now than I've been in my entire life. It's all about perspective.

4/23/2026, 4:23:16 PM

by: mbgerring

Every time I read one of these it’s the same. No one ever even tries to look at quality of life measurements, or cost of living relative to income, or measurements of precarity (e.g. How secure is my job? How secure is my housing?).What I think everyone in this country knows intuitively is that relative quality of life is constantly getting worse, there’s no indication that it will improve any time soon, and there are plenty of indications that it will continue to get worse.How do you measure that in a way economists can understand? I don’t know. But I trust my own intuition, and the lived experience of myself and my peers, more than an excel spreadsheet of aggregate GDP.

4/23/2026, 4:58:08 PM

by: stronglikedan

crony capitalism is the root cause

4/23/2026, 5:14:49 PM

by: ChrisLTD

Having to read about the crazy things Donald Trump is doing for 10 straight years hasn’t been good for my emotional health.

4/23/2026, 5:00:40 PM

by: etchalon

Healthcare.The answer to this shit is usually healthcare.

4/23/2026, 4:31:26 PM

by:

4/23/2026, 4:28:12 PM

by: CPLX

Important thing to know about Derek Thompson is that he has a very specific job in the culture.His job is to present compelling, interesting narratives about why the world is the way it is and what we should do about it that have one specific attribute.The attribute is that we must never actually do anything to address the real problem, which is that the lion's share of the wealth and resources are being claimed by a tiny group of people who use monopolies, coercive tactics, buying up politics and technology to hoard and protect their wealth and power.Needless to say his job is a great job to have because those people will be happy to pay him and promote him. It's how he makes a living.The reason people are so sad is because they realize there's one set of rules for them and one set of rules for the people in charge with money and power. It's become absolutely obvious that if you ever get any kind of edge or get ahead on a smaller scale level, one of those people from the Epstein class or Wall Street will soon come along and take it away from you.They'll make you pay a subscription to use your own car. They'll use algorithms to increase your rent. They'll get you hooked on streaming services, buy up all the competitors, and then raise the price. They'll take away your rights to complain about it through an arbitration clause, use non-competes to stop you from hiring people if you're a small business trying to compete. If you do manage to compete with them directly they'll use access to incredibly low-cost subsidized capital to undercut you. If you somehow navigate all of that and manage to succeed they'll buy you and turn around and consolidate your company with what they're doing to go back to their extractive profit model.The delusion of this article is the idea that people don't really understand what's happening to them, or what the causes are, or that it's this big mystery. People actually are pretty intuitively connected to what's happening, and they'll lurch towards anyone who seems to be, at least sort of, trying to do something about it.The problem is they don't have any choices who will actually fight for them.

4/23/2026, 4:43:06 PM

by: theowaway

America's a shit hole

4/23/2026, 4:52:39 PM

by: jdw64

I partly agree with the argument that American unhappiness cannot be explained purely by economic indicators, and that the “Tragic Twenties” emerged from a combination of pandemic shock, accumulated inflation, declining trust in institutions and other people, increasing isolation, and a negative media environment.However, I think this explanation is too simplistic in that it tries to compress everything into a single recent event.From the perspective of an outsider, I believe there is a more fundamental cause. To me, the core issue lies in the structural illusion created by capitalism and meritocracy.Capitalism, at its core, operates very differently from the moral frameworks that shaped pre-modern societies. In earlier narratives, labor and virtue were tied to value. In capitalism, value is increasingly tied to capital itself — capital generates more capital. In that sense, the subject is no longer the human, but the holder of capital.The problem is that this creates a legitimacy gap. To justify this system, meritocracy is introduced as a kind of narrative “MSG”:“Anyone can rise if they have the ability.”But reality increasingly diverges from that story. Within this framework, people are encouraged to interpret failure not as a structural issue, but as a lack of ability.Of course, ability matters. But what counts as “ability”? Even on Hacker News, people disagree. Some argue that only low-level programmers are “real” programmers. But I work at a higher level, assembling systems and libraries to provide convenience for others. Does that make me less of a programmer? I don’t think so.This is where the real problem begins: how ability is defined, and whether that definition actually justifies who gets access to capital and power. In my view, it does not.From what I can see, those positions are only open to a very small minority who were not born into them. That “opportunity” functions more as a symbolic opening — a narrow door that exists to legitimize the system, rather than to truly enable mobility.From my perspective as someone from Korea, the U.S. appears deeply unequal. It often feels as though your path is largely determined by which family you are born into, which in turn shapes which university you attend. Beyond that, the only visible escape routes seem to be extreme outliers, like becoming a YouTube star.If I reflect on my own experience — working outside formal academia and taking contract work from Western and Chinese clients — I see similar patterns. In academia, lineage matters: which professor you studied under. In industry, being part of certain organizations confers authority, which is then passed down and reinforced. What we are seeing now, especially among those born in the 1990s and 2000s, is the first generation fully experiencing the consequences of systems that were solidified during the baby boomer era.Capital has a gravitational property. Once accumulated, it attracts more of itself. Initial conditions matter more and more over time.Within this structure, individual effort and ability are not meaningless — but they are no longer decisive.Yet society continues to maintain the belief that success is determined by merit. This creates a gap between expectation and reality.People begin to feel:“It’s not that I failed — it’s that I was placed in a game I could never win.”At that point, what emerges is not just dissatisfaction, but resentment and cynicism.And this feeling does not come only from those at the bottom. In fact, it can be even stronger among those who are educated and who believed in the system — those who tried to play by the rules.This helps explain why unhappiness in the U.S. is not confined to a single class, but appears broadly across society.The hostility we see on platforms like YouTube or social media — and even the strange satisfaction some people feel at the decline of other groups — can be understood in this context. It is less about simple malice, and more about a reaction to a broken promise.From this perspective, the pandemic and inflation are not root causes, but triggers. They exposed tensions that were already present.And this is where meritocracy becomes particularly problematic.Meritocracy appears fair on the surface, but in practice it reduces failure to individual responsibility. It reframes structural problems as personal shortcomings, leaving people without a language to explain their situation.What remains are two responses:self-blame or anger toward the systemAnd that anger rarely expresses itself in a clean or rational way. It can manifest as political extremism, hostility toward other groups, or deep cynicism.So the real issue is not simply that “the economy is bad.”It is that the belief that “this system is fair” has collapsed.And once that belief collapses, no amount of positive economic data is enough to restore people’s sense of stability.From this perspective, I also begin to understand why communities like MAGA can become so extreme. As people are pushed to the margins, they lose not only economic stability but also social connections. Without work, it becomes harder to meet others; as people age, their social world narrows. What remains, at the edge, is often religion — one of the last forms of community that still provides meaning and identity.I do not believe in God. But I can understand why they do — and why they fight to defend that sense of legitimacy.

4/23/2026, 5:22:29 PM

by: quantum_state

This trend will continue as long as tax payers money is wasted in useless and unnecessary wars …

4/23/2026, 4:32:08 PM

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