Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

Is it, though? Establishment interests spend huge sums of money and often lose. The Republican party was an elite country club party, but when evangelicals emerged as a political force, the party had to jump on that wave, no matter how distasteful the old party elites found it. Then Trump came along, giving blatantly shallow lip service to religion, and now the party is beholden to him. That wasn't in anybody's plan except Trump's, and his personal wealth was paltry next to the Republican Party's resources.

But maybe the elites who do the manipulation are happy to pander on a few issues if they get what they want on the issues that are really important to them. Let's think about that. If there was one core tenet of the GHWB-era Republican Party that its elites would have wanted to protect above all else, what would it be? If there was one core tenet that united all American economic elites, one thing above all others that they would want to instill in voters' heads, wouldn't it be economical liberalism? More specifically, free trade? Well, they've failed at that. NAFTA was a banner achievement for the Republicans. Now Trump calls NAFTA a Clinton disaster and promotes trade war with China, and he runs the Republican Party, because it does matter what the voters want, and you can't outright buy their belief in anything.

We blame voters for being bought and manipulated when someone speaks to them in a way they find compelling but "shouldn't" according to our worldview. We assume that the superiority of our worldview gives us a natural advantage, and we look for special reasons why our views don't prevail. "What's the matter with Kansas?" in other words. What's the matter is that Trump's voters really do care more about Trump licking their wounded egos more than they care about anything else.

[0] no, not in a nice "let's all remember to treat LGBTQ+ compassionately and with respect" way

And a general vibe from the public and the government that generally despises public sector unions and would almost certainly backlash against nurses and teachers should they sensibly decide to go on strike.

For two years they busted their asses for the public in tough straits and now COVID numbers in the hospital system are still crazy but the public is pretending they aren't, and basically expecting the health care system to "deal with it."

A prov government here in Ontario that screwed the public health care system and nurses in particular all through the COVID crisis, and has every intent on doing more of that ... was just re-elected with a landslide majority.

If you put foxes in charge the hen house, it's not a surprise when the nurses^H^H^H^H^Hhens start to disappear.

It's putting the source in the proper context.

It probably doesn't help that a lot of the medical staff were from the EU and just before COVID were PTFO.

I'm still waiting for those hospitals to be built by all the money saved by Brexit.