Sick - Poor
& STUPID
That’s how authoritarians want their populations to be. They want the people they control to always be struggling.
Tired.
Desperate.
Because that’s how they’re easier to control.
You’re much easier to manipulate if you can’t think for yourself and don’t have access to any information that contradicts them.
attack the press - attack public education - eliminate truth
Once they’ve got you good and ignorant, then they make it harder to get healthcare. And if you do get it, you probably can’t afford it. At least, not without being indebted for life. Then they attack and discredit any form of social safety net. While also encouraging lavish spending on cheap bullshit that you don’t need. Then they encourage you to have more kids than you can afford. And why? Because the people can’t pool their resources when no one has anything to spare.
The Evidence
Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise:
But before we get into how exactly authoritarians pursue these aims, consider the solutions to each of these problems that a modern, democratic government might want to implement. The solution to poverty would involve both a social safety net of sorts, as well as built-in mechanisms for social mobility – a way out of poverty. Widespread sickness (of the many varieties it might take) requires a functioning public health system that approaches disease and illness through various means of both prevention and treatment. And then there’s our collective stupidity. The solution is not just a better K-12 education system (although that’s the obvious starting point), but also better journalism, efforts to minimize and mitigate widespread misinformation and disinformation, and incentives for continued learning into adulthood, even (and especially) among those who aren’t pursuing advanced degrees.
What do all of these solutions have in common? They require institutions.
The US Government, since at least the 1980s has employed various tactics and strategies at local, state, and federal levels that one could describe as efforts to keep the US population sick, poor. and stupid. This is compounded by an aggressive rhetoric, often manifesting as attacks on various institutions. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the inexplicable vendetta against public education by a large segment of the US population and elected officials. And when they’re not trying to discredit or eliminate anything that works (or might work), they’re actively avoiding any efforts to solve the problems.
On the Venn diagram of efforts to keep you poor, sick, and stupid. the strategy of the Epstein Class pays the highest dividends, and is the most insidious, where the circles overlap.
Poor & Stupid
Poor & Sick
Sick & Stupid
ALL THREE
Beginning of the End
All of this creates a state of clueless desperation. Your health is deteriorating. You can’t pay the bills. That stresses you out more, which compounds the adverse effects on your health. And the whole time, you have no idea what to do about any of it. You use social media to trick your friends and family into believing that you’re “living the dream.” But deep down you know it’s a nightmare. Then a smooth-talking man, one who exudes confidence, comes along and starts telling you he can fix it all for you. (The confidence is complete bullshit, as it turns out, but he sells it well, so you don’t notice.) He also tells you who’s to blame for all your problems.
Them.
The people who’ve taken from you. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s probably things you already believed, or at least suspected, about those people. But this guy. He’s just a little different from the people who were telling you these things before. And this is how the demagogue takes power. Knowing full well all along that he has no intention of helping you. He just wants in on the scam.