Thread by @jzellis

OK, let me solve American "economic anxiety" very quickly. I'm gonna sort it out for you in less than ten tweets and then you won't have that excuse anymore. You ready? Here goes.

The cause is capitalism and greed. That's it. Nothing else. Just that.

1. Your job went away because some prick figured out he could pay a guy in China or Mexico to do it for a tenth of the wages and keep the difference. He doesn't care about you or your job or your town or your family or America. Just his bottom line.

2. But you voted for politicians who let him do it. Why do they let him do that? Because he gives them money. Why can he do that? Because other politicians you voted for appointed judges who said giving money to politicians was protected free speech. Look up. "Citizens United".

3. You voted for these politicians because they told you they believed in the same things you did and you didn't care enough to find out what they actually believed in, because you'd rather believe bullshit that's what you want to hear than put in the effort to not do that.

4. You believed that it wasn't your responsibility to educate yourself about the system and the people who run it before voting for them. As long as they showed up at your church for a photo op and said they hated commies, you were happy to give them power to destroy your life.

5. You don't actually know what communism or socialism are. You think it means everybody wears gray and can't have their own car, which is actually Maoism/Leninism, but you don't know what that means either and mistrust anyone who does know.

6. But you hate this thing you don't know what it is because the guy who owns the newspaper said it was evil. You hate lots of things you don't understand or that has nothing to do with you, like other people's sex lives. So anyone who hates what you hate, you'll vote for.

7. Even if they sell you out over and over, year after year, decade after decade. It's like you're incapable of recognizing bullshit, which is a bad handicap for a working person to have.

It's how you ended up here, with stagnant wages at a precarious job in a rotting community.

8. At this point, there are about five people in American politics who don't vote to let capitalists pimp your job to China, but none of them hate gay people and minorities like you do so that's definitely a dealbreaker.

So you vote for the job pimps. That's why you're fucked.

9. You could stop all this by stopping capitalists from doing whatever they want, but you think you're going to be one too someday, so you vote for people who let them do it. And then you're surprised when they do and it fucks you over, because you're dumb as shit.

And that's it. Mystery solved. Too late to matter now, of course, but don't ever say nobody explained it to you or that it's complicated. It's easy.

You're just, as I said, dumb as shit.

Here endeth the lesson.