I learned very early in life no to give veneration or much value to a person because of the products they produce or the successes they achieve without first learning as much as one can about their character, values, intentions, motivations, and whether or not they are capable of learning from the wake of destruction they like all of us leave behind them.

I believe that one of the fundamental sources for humanity’s inability to evolve other than materially is due to our base instincts for selfishness. Where that applies and to what degree on an individual level is taken into consideration. We are hardwired this way which is why expecting to simply move beyond this without consciously working at it is not only naive, it is lazy. Worse is that we Americans hold to a value system that opposes the idea of selflessness and to such a degree that we are bombarded with messages to that effect constantly. Whether it’s through the mass media, marketing, political, or culturally amplified amongst ourselves, it serves mainly one purpose which is to keep the wheels of capitalism spinning and those who benefit from exploiting our strivings very wealthy and powerful.

There are so many fundamentals that could be elaborated upon as to why a non cohesive society such as ours could either actively or complacently support not just Trump and those behind him (being only a symptom and not the cause for our collapse to come) but I choose the above mentioned reasons for our fall. As this is and has been part of our failures almost continuously since before the idea of a self governing state glimmered in any one’s mind.

We fail constantly because we like to separate and compartmentalize individuals from who and what they are as people and whatever material progress and benefits they may give us. As if to say that whatever horror stories their beliefs and values may cause become minimized if not outright insignificant because they made our lives more comfortable or pleasurable by bringing automatic washers into the world.

To cut this short, writing this in early 2026, two years after this post, I am amazed how many still hold someone like Elon Musk in high esteem simply because of his outward material success; now very very close to becoming the world’s first trillionaire. This, despite all that we know of his being a beast of a person and long before the present day. As if to say we value a person more on their material success, far more than their ethics. We couldn’t give a rats arse over the man’s behavior and values, some even acting as apologists for such a personality. This very same situation can be seen amongst those who idealize someone as hideous in personal character as Trump and the many that raise him to the status of some kind of savior. Just as some like to give Hitler kudos for raising Germany from the economic crisis it fell into all the while sidelining if not denying outright his unspeakable legacy.

This has everything to do with the actual values and ethics we hold as Americans, not the mythologies we’re taught to believe about ourselves beginning before we even begin kindergarten.

One being the hype of our rugged individualism as part of our national character, which ironically hasn’t been part of our national character for three or more generations. But it certainly makes us feel good about ourselves to be fed this flattery continually from every direction.

This twisted value system that we so cherish and to such a degree is so deeply rooted in the American psyche that to speak against it often elicits either glossy eyed stares or outright hostile accusations of being anti American. A value system that is perhaps a very large factor why we as a nation and a people have been in decline since the 1980s, due to a severe lack of higher qualities that we should have fostered within ourselves long before then.