This was a comment on a post I saw yesterday.

And this is my response:

You forgot one:  Terrified of education.

When I went to college, I was “warned” that they would put ideas in my head.

The folks described above are not the majority. They are simply the least educated. They have bought in to the propaganda that has been driven into us from the cradle, that ours is the greatest country in the world because we have democracy, which has come to be synonymous with unfettered capitalism.

I have a very intelligent and well-educated friend who loves to refer to “The Greatest Generation.” If you don’t know, The Greatest Generation refers to the generation that fought WW2 — the parents of Boomers.  Men volunteered to serve, women took over the work force at home. Children participated in Victory Gardens and recycling drives.  Winning that war was truly a team effort.  I understand why it’s gilded for so many.

What I have repeatedly pointed out to him, however, is that that generation was the last generation for whom a single income could support a family. That generation could have a home, enough to eat, they could send their children to college, and see a doctor without going bankrupt.  They lived in an America for which almost anyone would be willing to fight.

War makes men rich.  Big war makes them big rich, and greed is the rot that is destroying us. Trump was elected by about a third of eligible voters – those would be the ones who prefer to cling to  the myth of the American dream.

We in the U.S. have been trained to revere the wealthy.  We are not a Christian nation.  We are a capitalist nation.  If you want to know why our money says, “In God We Trust,” it’s because our money is God and we have no option other than to trust in it.  The American Dream is still achievable, they tell us, if we could just keep people in the roles “God” intended and if we all just worked a little harder.  The folks who voted for Trump still believe in that dream.

The rest of us are exhausted. We’re tired of working ourselves to death only to barely scrape by, if that.

More than anything, we’re tired of the privileged telling us that we should be grateful; as if this is their machine, and allowing us to be the cogs that keep it operating is a gift from heaven above. All they ask in exchange is that if we’re brown, we do our best to act “white,” while being treated as lesser. If we’re queer, we keep it in the closet. If we’re female, be ready to give it up on demand, but not willingly, because then we’d be sluts, and, while that’s what they secretly desire, that’s not “demure.”

And god dammit, show some fucking gratitude.

The folks you describe are not the majority. The rest of us are just too exhausted to be heard over the bluster.