It's not difficult to see (no pun intended) that it's manufacturing consent (and sentiment, purchasing preferences, and life decisions) by the authority of the boob tube.

'78 myself, social democratic Marxist now having been lied-to early by the billionaire con artists of the libertarians, disappointed by elitist suits of the neoliberal (Clintons), and utopian anarcho-syndicalists. My father was always a Murican Trumpists waiting for his day to open carry and strut the flag behind a Ford pickup. It's sad to say my mother has/had vacillating views, is a terrible judge of character, and was/is easily influenced by anyone around.

Here's my rant no one cares about for the year:

The answer isn't burn everything down, blame migrants, or irrational exuberance over Obama; it's look in the mirror and compare how the rest of the world does things better. American exceptionalism and triumphalism is a resting-on-laurels prescription for a has-been recounting their high school glory days to another junky in the alley with a needle in their arm.

"Defund the police", "stop and frisk", "trickledown economics", and "Big gubberment bad" are all stupid ideas. That there are QAnon-adherents, big coal DINOs, LGBT-washed DINO corporate phonies, CV liars, and worse representing The People, taking a salary from them, acting as tools of billionaires, and sitting in the same building as Greg Casar or Ro Khanna is shameful and disrespectful. It's clear to anyone not a moron that neither US political party can deliver anything substantial except more handouts to billionaires. Bernie Sanders was Henry A. Wallace'd because he was too weak, too nice, and let Clinton steal WV even though she completely lost every county. The only way is for millions of people to (nonviolently, obviously) take over Washington and convince those who support this corrupt corrupt regime to press the reset button. SCOTUS is completely in the tank for the Republicans and will deliver them cake on a silver platter for years. Again, Obama was weak and went over to the side of the corporatist neoliberals. Campaign finance reform is a pipe dream because too many politicians enjoy the benefits of lobbyists' and billionaires' cash and do their bidding. The US isn't a democracy (or a representative republic), it's a kleptocratic plutocracy. The middle-lower classes should be extremely motivated and organized to change the situation as tens of trillions of wealth were transferred (stolen) from them over the past 50 years, but no, Jan 9th was the Tea Party's "winning lottery ticket", an orgasm of disorganized, misdirected violence like that drunk, conspiracy theory-spouting uncle in most families. Voting in such a system legitimizes it when effort is better spent figuring out how to wrest control of it: 1. crowdfund billions to buy leverage to clean it up. 2. ten million people marching in DC. 3. (Maybe your idea here.)

If you don't want power to go to the rich, TV celebrities, or elect a populist fascist, then limited time sortition "jury duty" by competent civil administrator candidates as the Athenians did is possibly the only way to divvy out most roles. Until then, enjoy manufactured popularity contests.

https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20mater...

PS: Care homes are the most likely hotbeds of neofascist tendencies.