Re: your first sentence, I'm reminded not for the first time of the scene in The Dark Knight where Alfred tells Batman, about Joker: 'Some men just want to watch the world burn'. That seems like the mentality of most Trump voters, or at least the ones who aren't wealthy enough that they really profit from his policies: it's not about making the US a better place or doing anything to improve their own lives, it's just about sticking it to those damn smug liberals, whatever the cost.
Because no one, anywhere, is doing anything to make the country a better place, just one more conforming to their special interests. The establishment and the system have made it clear that there is no place for people who respect the principles of the law (as opposed to legislation passed by whims of an oligarchic political class), have traditional values, or do not accept being judged by the color of our skin or biological plumbing arrangements, and who don't support tearing down society because certain types of people do not achieve a certain degree of material success.
In general, people like that have other priorities anyway. It's like being a member of a minority religion in a theocratically governed country - anyone who might fix something for the better has to be part of the problem first. If the 2016 election did not prove that the system is rigged against genuine outsiders (Bernie Sanders is as close as you get in the Senate, except for maybe Rand Paul), nothing can. Hillary got shafted by the Democrats' mechanism for ignoring the will of their voters last time (she actually got more primary votes that Obama), so now it was her turn. McCain got his turn in 2008, because he'd been carrying water for the party, regardless of the fact that no conservatives had any use for him whatsoever, and then Romney was all but crowned in 2012, because he was a good soldier and waited his turn, and never mind that with Obamacare being the inciting issue against the incumbent, he was the single worst candidate in the party to run against the eponymous President. Similar to Clinton in 2016, trying to make an issue of Trump's alleged behavioral shortcomings. There was no Democrat eligible to run who had less of a leg to stand on in that regard. But these guys are all colleagues and friends and they protect their own interests and keep the whole thing going. You wonder why we're willing to get popcorn when the fire alarm sounds, instead of shitting our pants? There's also the point that from our point of view, it's not "watching the world burn" because we don't see government as "the world", merely a disproportionately intrusive corner of it.
Because it has about as much relevance to our lives. Win or lose, GOP or Democrat, we're still getting shit on.
Tell that to, oh, every hardline minority agitator, ever. Tell that to Malcom X, to the Black Panthers, to La Raza and to the people who have been refusing to accept the results of elections they dislike. Who on the one hand, rail against the electoral college every time they lose, but win by a metric that was never considered an acceptable means of choosing a chief executive, and on the other, try to exploit loopholes by trying to persuade electors to betray the trust of their evolved office. How many Republican legislators, EVER, made the scene that the Democrats did in the joint session of Congress to certify the electoral vote, repeatedly stalling the process on plainly spurious and partisan grounds, attempting to introduce oppositional legislation in spite of the increasingly frustrated explanations by the presiding officer, Biden, that a
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*