1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

I've soaked up American media and politics for the past four years. I originally got into it because I had some personal life events that made me interested in it. Since I started paying more attention, an attention that has risen both steadily and sharply over time, it has noticeably decreased my quality of life overall. I would get upset, frustrated, and overall I've been skeptical of connecting with people. The byproduct was that my awareness around narratives, misinformation, and propaganda has grown and I started to understand that this was largely just the status quo now. That view favors no political party whatsoever.

I'm from the South/Midwest but live on the coast and I served in the military. Because of that I have had this huge array of friends that hail from all walks of life whom I had no problem getting along with. I've now lost lifelong friends over their or my political views, I've felt disappointment in people (and they have felt it in me), and really it's alienated me very much from the American way of life in general. I've always had different views from my friends because I don't fit very squarely in many of our political categories and for a long time that was okay. These days disagreement comes part and parcel with some sense of morality and unfortunately in our political dichotomy that cuts both ways and leaves someone like me in the middle.

At some point I came to the realization that I could either become an ex-patriot or totally disconnect and buy some time. Surely some folks would find my disconnection so abhorrent that they may choose to alienate me anyway, but for my own mental well-being I decided to deactivate my social media accounts, block all breaking news, american news, and political commentary, as well as cancel my streaming services (other than Hulu, I can't miss Rick and Morty!)

I'd like to bury my parents before I leave this country, so if I can buy some time I'd like to do that and this has made a world of a difference in my day to day life. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to stay up on some statistics like this one. I'm still a citizen and I still want to help people where I can, I just can't be subjected to the daily onslaught of politically focused, shifting morality.

I have more interesting observations, like how the news looks without being able to see Twitter, or things my friends have done to keep me included on the more positive sides of things happening on social media, so feel free to ask questions.

The book was a satire meant to be a warning (which needless to say has not been heeded) against what might happen to Britain between 1958 and the imagined final revolt against the meritocracy in 2033.

Much that was predicted has already come about. It is highly unlikely the prime minister has read the book, but he has caught on to the word without realising the dangers of what he is advocating.

Underpinning my argument was a non-controversial historical analysis of what had been happening to society for more than a century before 1958, and most emphatically since the 1870s, when schooling was made compulsory and competitive entry to the civil service became the rule.

Until that time status was generally ascribed by birth. But irrespective of people's birth, status has gradually become more achievable.

It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others.

Ability of a conventional kind, which used to be distributed between the classes more or less at random, has become much more highly concentrated by the engine of education.

...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

The US has pursued a spectacularly inept constellation of policies that have killed granny and created an economic disaster.

The economy can't recover until the pandemic is controlled. Doing nothing about the pandemic to 'save the economy' will only make both the pandemic and the economy worse.

Making enough N95 masks, and forcing people to wear them, would have both kept granny safe and saved the economy. But, that didn't happen, so the US is stuck with the worst of both worlds.

If unintentional, perhaps you should consider your life and behavior in view of the three ghosts referenced in that novella.