I’m a successful white retiree who feels like a liberal but not a left progressive. I’m shattered by the election and wonder how long the working bedrock will continue to destroy themselves by supporting the growing control by billionaire right wingers. I grew up working class-building machinery for General Motors to help fulfill my father’s dream to send 3 sons to college so we didn’t have to get COPD from breathing the hazards of the unregulated workplace, as he did. I was an educator my whole career and watch daily the destruction of public education pushed by oligarchs who want to control education to push their white supremacy agenda. That’s working rather well, by the way.

I agree that poor education contributes to contemporary malaise. The public stays poorly informed, unable to understand economics and government, accepts lies without question, and surrenders morality to despots, here in the US and abroad. Brexit is the English equivalent of MAGA politics. I am not yet ready to agree that the collapse of western democracies is necessary for improvement, but I fear for families like I grew up with that are swamped by antidemocratic messaging of right wing media, led by Fox News, that is successfully solidifying the power of the Koch family, Musk, Adelson, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and the rising right wing oligarchs who appear to have been elected to power this month.