I apologize, I stopped reading about halfway through your post.
A lot of the call outs in this thread to delete your social media go outside and touch grass are spot on. You’re way too deep in social media and the 24hr news cycle.
I work in an industry that is very much conservative. Even the devoted MAGA people I meet are generally very nice if you speak with them outside of politics. A handful of the ones that seek out and want to talk politics (which is rare) are calm and I usually can get them to acknowledge the shortcomings of Trump when I start questioning the inconsistencies of his policies.
Our politics have grown courser and more extreme because of social media and the news cycle. The MAGA politicians of the Republican party take extreme positions to get attention. Moderation is ignored because it doesn’t grab headlines.
Yes Republican policies and very bad for our nation. But it doesn’t mean common citizens share those views. Usually it is much more nuanced.
It’s more than that. Russia is in terminal decline. The last batch of properly educated engineers graduated from Soviet schools in the late 80s. They are now retiring which leaves a huge skills gap. In the past Russia used Western expertise todo the work of building and maintaining oil fields etc. but that is cut off now. Chinese engineers can fill some of the gaps but they don’t have expertise in oil fields and certain types of engineering to replace Western expertise.
The war in Ukraine has only accelerated this process.