Many in our systems of education, our courts, our national news organizations, and our halls of government are growing more fearful, annoyed, and defensive regarding the cascade of citizen anger directed toward them, but the truth is these foundational institutions—the ones that teach our young, enforce our laws, provide our information, and ensure our safeguards against tyranny—are hopelessly compromised by political and cultural beliefs that have rendered them all but useless in protecting our American way of life. Our young learn little in our public schools and colleges other than self-destructive victimology, judges and prosecutors often prefer to ignore the pain of the victims of vicious crimes, mainstream news media daily mistake innuendo and personal attacks for journalism, and our elected officials fill their days with collecting campaign cash instead of governing.

Of course, those working in these important institutions of democracy insist they are not responsible for any of the problems that grow more obvious by the day—and there is a ring of truth to some of their excuses. Educators, judges, and prosecutors are correct when they point their fingers at stupendously incompetent parents, who produce damaged children that turn into adults notable for their ignorance, anger, and irresponsibility, but their habitual repackaging of this harsh fact into the flagrant and comforting lie of institutional bigotry only worsens the problems faced by these lost children and young adults. Journalists are sometimes correct that they must now cater to an audience that is more interested in scandal than analysis, but gossip and speculation are also easier for the lazy and undisciplined to write compared to carefully researched work that might take weeks or months of effort to produce. Elected officials have, of course, pitched their messaging to the lowest common denominator of idiocy since the founding of our Republic, but our national standards of discourse and behavior are damaged still further by outrageous lies and misrepresentations that are shamelessly peddled to appeal to fears that politicians often go out of their way to incite—while blaming everyone but themselves for the rage that makes civil conversations nearly impossible.

Unfortunately, the worst is that these four arenas of public trust—education, our court systems, journalism, and politics—many times seem to be one malignant and symbiotic organism that is dedicated to exciting the worst among us and discouraging the best. If you have ever wondered why often only the clownishly narcissistic are running for public office, where they can spew and preen at the taxpayers’ expense while exacerbating our country’s problems, ask yourself if anyone other than a brainless provocateur has any hope of winning an election in the toxic political ecosystems that now exist in so many states. Why would any sane person willingly subject themselves to unending—and deeply unfair—personal attacks and lawfare launched by self-interested interest groups on behalf of the TikTok generation of the pathologically disenchanted?

Sadly, politics across America today seems to consist of depressingly repetitive permutations of the same three questions from voters:

1)      Where is all my free stuff?

2)      Why are others receiving more free stuff than me?

3)      Who are the hateful, horrible people refusing to give me more free stuff?

A recent poll found that 30% of Americans have a positive opinion of Socialism, which includes a whopping 84% of Generation Z Democrats. The ideological balance in our nation is definitely undergoing a significant shift, which is impacting both our societal expectations and electoral politics rather dramatically. We should not be surprised that so many want so much—and expect others to somehow pay for it.

Let’s count the 40 trillion reasons why.

Thankfully, the conversations from American taxpayers are increasingly (if belatedly) revolving around the wisdom of bankrupting ourselves by handing out free stuff with minimal oversight and no discussion of whether that free stuff is merited or reasonable. Unfortunately, the “free stuff” segment of the electorate, should any effort be made to curtail their benefits, need to find only a single sympathetic judge to stop those efforts in their tracks—presuming that craven politicians and attack journalists have not already put an end to any common sense reforms. If all else fails, some looney professors can be found to wail about any effort to take away the free stuff; in their minds fiscal restraint only provides more evidence of the entrenched bigotries still plaguing our nation by producing yet another example of White Supremacy.

Besides, in America today it really doesn’t matter who you are or why you need it—all free stuff is, apparently, created equal. An illegal immigrant with a rap sheet and an injured combat veteran are equally entitled to benefits. To ask whether someone is even deserving of public money is impermissible because the very question requires a value judgment, which is a real problem in a political, cultural, and social environment where value judgments are the worst of all possible sins, although, of course, our elites, who always bray about rights (but never anyone’s responsibilities), consider themselves too enlightened to bother with a construct as subjective and oppressive as sin.

In addition, a lot of the free stuff is essentially fraud, and many politicians, professors, and prosecutors are benefitting—either directly or indirectly—from the thievery, so they prefer to ignore it. Whether it is scamming the taxpayers for hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on Green Energy projects, admitting students to college who are egregiously unprepared so you can skim off their student aid money and keep your classrooms filled, or freeing felons to reoffend in order to burnish your social justice bona fides and collect some campaign cash for your re-election bid, it is all about robbing others to enrich yourself and advance your predatory career. Everyone knows exactly what they are doing but don’t really care about the consequences because climate change, school funding inequities, and our bigoted society are the real culprits, right? Me? I’m just doing my job.

It is clear that rewarding stupidity is the most crooked game around, but the psychological shell game behind unending entitlements requires that we be convinced—by those teaching in our schools and colleges, judicial officials, journalists, and elected leaders—that America as a whole must be to blame; those individuals taking the cash are, however, blameless for their own disasters. Any individual foolhardy enough to question or doubt these precepts can expect that the full rage of America’s insane and intolerant Left will crash down upon them, so many remain silent in the face of our obvious decline.

And so our nation shuts up and suffers because too many are too afraid to make a stand.