On winners, losers, conspiracy theories
It is true there is considerable nihilism that has been exponentially increased by social media that amplifies and validates - or even celebrates - ignorance. Some yearn for religion, a 1950's white America with a quarter acre block, guns with all sorts of delusions; other crap on about trans-gender soy beans and pet lefty causes with big "In our America" virtue signalling wankery. All use cliches and ask rhetorical questions. All hate hard science and critical thinking and allowing evidence to lead.
But. There are huge areas where things really are rigged, like LIBOR, REPOS, bank bailouts and pay-for-access to change government policy, rich kids somehow always get into the Ivy league and so on. Structural inequality is real. Being black in America is no joke, malnutrition and hunger exists, and crap access to medical care. The tax system is definitely rigged. W2 earners simply have no concept how it works and neither party will breath a word about tax free capital. Blaming the victims is a straw man argument. People can do hard work, but if they have fetal alcohol, poor nutrition, crap role models and crap education, they start way at the back. The winners at Goldman Sachs are at the apex of a very corrupt rigged capital markets and tax system. I'm pretty high in in the APEX, but it is an accident of birth and yes, some hard work. But mostly access to opportunity and expectations. "Playing the game" or money is not a good measure of worth. Neither is virtue signalling and herbal tea leaf / patriarchal bullshit, just as confused at the other side grab bag of nationalism, gun rights, religion, racism. Whilst they fuck around, the real game, the property party, really does party whilst the population in fights.
These are highly corrosive to institutional trust, and this in turn fans the flames of almost universal distrust of the "government", meaning puppets of the elites. We had the Capitol invasion. The first of many meltdowns as the USD collapses as a reserve currency, inflation and global warming because we have too many people. It will get ugly. COVID is a major inflection point in history that just put things about 20 years fast forward.