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Can I thank the government for all the sunny days as well? I don't understand how this work, can they only create bad weather or good weather as well?

Billion and a half.

It's truly unbelievable, isn't it. It illustrates the degree to which people are truly a slave to their impulses and delusions. No external factors will ever reform this guy, and it's really a sad thing to watch a person trapped in their own kind of hell.

That's the only thing he knows and sells.
How else should he get money now?

Decades undermining and underfunding education. They want dumb consumers just informed enough to work a shit job and earn enough to survive but not thrive.

Decades of propaganda painting opposition to the GOP as literal Satan worshipping baby killing pedophiles, and when that's who you're running against, how could not vote for the GOP no matter how uneducated they are?

I've usually pointed towards our education system but I'm not so sure anymore. I think there's more at play.

I think it's more about the inherit individualism in America, "the American dream", capitalism, and the definition of The United States. There's a strong rejection of community support and social services. There's a desire to have more than we need. There's a fear of "others" who threaten your domicile and prosperity. The country was founded on a distrust of government with the formation of semi-sovereign states and multiple forms of checks and balances.

I think there's an argument that to "be American" means to be in opposition to and skeptical of government. At first, in wake of the revolutionary war, this seemed reasonable. With slow moving news and a journalistic industry maintaining the fourth pillar of democracy, without the temptation of ad revenue or competition with social media, Americans were, frankly, sheep to a small group of organizations. As a 21st century first first world country, we really need to get together and reassess what the role of government should be and how to draft a constitution that meets the needs of a nation in an increasingly connected (and shrinking) planet.

We are not afforded the tools to be competitive with the future of humanity.

I actually believe our lack of faith in religion has had a negative impact. We used to be more connected with our community. We largely trusted one another. It was not that long ago that hitch hiking across the country was a normal practice for teens. I don't believe in gods but I have respect for some aspects of some religious organizations. What seems to have replaced this is social media bubbles or tribes. Or internet forums like this.

We're an increasingly fractured nation that holds distrust of all things in high regard.

Also, we're a nation that defines wealth as the ability to acquire rather than the ability to give.

Because the Republicans have spent the last 40 years slowly demolishing public education. That combined with a steady feed of propaganda on AM radio and Fox News, plus mild lead poisoning from leaded gas usage prior to the 90s has resulted in multiple generations that lack even the most rudimentary critical thinking skills or scientific knowledge and are primed to believe whatever absurd conspiracy reinforces whatever their pastors and favorite talking heads are saying.

They're absolutely convinced that the US government has been infiltrated by "communists" that are engaged in grand sweeping conspiracies to destroy the US, and the only solution is to remove all power from the US government. They've been steeped in propaganda for decades that tells them all governments are corrupt and only corporations can be trusted, that the "free market" is the solution to all problems.

He needs money to live now that the courts have started selling his business to pay off the last people he hurt by spreading insane conspiracy theories.

He’s a one trick pony, only thing he knows how to do is lie and sell snake oil pills that turn you red.

And some, or at least one, of them is a member of Congress.

That's a human nature thing. We are really much happier as people when there's a "logical" course of real events that lead to any disaster. We can understand "evil group did evil thing" better than "the collective actions of humanity over the last 200 years caused a fundamental change to our world that we cannot reverse in our lifetime."

We aren't good at nuance.

Some random wacko deciding to kill Kennedy because of mental illness and a general hostility towards his world view is harder for us to accept than a secret plot to seal power. Bad guys make sense to us. Chaotic elements just don't.

Any idiot can "broadcast" from a smartphone.

2000's conservative: "Climate change isn't real".
2010's conservative: "Climate change is real, but it's not caused by human activity".
2020's conservative: "Climate change is caused by human activity, and IT'S THE LIBERALS AND THEIR HURRICANE MAKING SPACE LASERS".

This, it's free advertising for the prick