That’s why I’m not very optimistic about the future of the US at least in my lifetime (20 yrs or so).
California has always been a bellwether for the country as a whole 10-15 yrs out. Maybe that’s moved faster now that we have saturation media / internet, but the principle will still be the same.
I’m the same way. I used to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, talking about the country reaching its “end days,” and how many actual years it might have left. But after the 2012 election, I’ve noticed so many of my rather ‘average joe’ GOP-voting friends and relatives basically say the same things, and they are dead serious. Some of them because of the “takers overwhelming makers” argument, some because of the insane federal debt, and some (actually quite a lot) because of the moral degeneracy as represented by things like homo marriage.
It’s really an amazing little sea-change, actually hearing so many people tell me “the country is over.” People I never would have imagined this coming from. Not in their nature. And that’s not even going into the other topic of how these once “rah-rah-Republicans” are now so totally alienated from their Party.