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Realistically the general population endure so much misinformation, manipulation, lies and deceit that i find it hard to not blame the people who produce it for how their victims behave. They'll tell you a narrative over decades about some bullshit to get you to say, vote Democrat, and don't really care what else that disinformation campaign does to people. Bunch of vicious, selfish and cruel pieces of shit manipulating us like we're just things. Or the GOP which has intentionally made red states dumber, less educated and easier to manipulate for themselves to get elected, but it also made them easier for others, like Putin and Trump, to manipulate. They don't give a shit about how much suffering their strategy has caused their voters or America.
That's a fair evaluation, but it removes agency from the American populace.
From my time in the US, I got the impression the roots of the current oligarchic regime mostly lie in the cultural attitudes of the American population. It's not like the US got invaded by an external force or it had to deal with extraordinary circumstances.
Just one example, is the superficial attitude to things like "freedom of speech" or "free markets". IMO, that is the real source of oligarchic/criminal power in the US.
It's perfectly fair to debate the degree of responsibility individuals have. However, there is a limit to the effective resistance and wisdom each individual is capable of when constantly bombarded by propaganda all day every day. Its in our schools, our media and entertainment, the news, the marketing campaigns of corporations shoving ads in our face everywhere we go, in the political messaging, even academics and science is used to propogate falsehoods and distortions. It is not reasonable in my view to expect an individual, especially in the education and science hostile red states, to be capable of navigating the labyrinth of propaganda and deceit to find truth. We are shaped and molded by our cultural environment from birth and just being capable of acknowledging your own culture is maybe bullshit is a significant feat.
We are not built to resist the intensity, frequency or repetition of the messages we are bombarded with. These groups are also pouring billions into finding more sophisticated and effective ways to shape our beliefs and behaviors. We are, from beith, under siege from a relentless attempt to make us behave one ways that benefit others and not ourselves.
I don't know how much is whose responsibility but the individual isn't the one who is creating the situation that necessitates the question. So primarily it's the fault of those manipulating that population for creating the situation in the first place. Their goal is control. The more effective they are at that, the more responsibility they have.