Why are Americans such gluttons for punishment? Why do they keep voting in these jerks?
Why are so many Americans “checked out”?
Why have a shocking number of Americans become so ignorant of facts and science?

Probable answers: first, long-time continuous Republican cuts in funds to education; next, talk radio and cable TV; then, social media and various ideological/nihilistic message boards.

These “advancements” have shut down the critical thinking capacity of susceptible individuals— in some corners, there’s no longer much interest in learning, when a talking head can spoon-feed information (served up in an addictive brew of fear and outrage) that lights up the cortex like a Roman candle?

Worse, the disinformation gets reinforced and embellished in like-minded message boards. How does one unplug this insanity? And if it can’t be disconnected, how does one reality coexist with a vastly different reality, without the eventual breakdown of one of them?

I’ve lost some sleep over this impasse, as it saddens me that my country — the United States, in my lifetime, has reached a crossroads, one with a severe potential for realigning everything familiar into something dark and destructive.

It’s Orwell on steroids.