@sickburnbro @boeswilligkeit I've known people who lived through the fall of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe in the late 80s/early 90s. At the end everyone knew the system was rotten and sclerotic. Ruled over by an increasing gerontocracy. We are seeing the same thing with our competency crisis and crisis in leadership, which was also corrupt, but they could rule effectively and had the backing of the people.
But people still had to live their lives. Go to school, get married, raise their family. They had to work in the system because that is all there was at the time.
And everyone I know who lived through that is alarmed at what they see here in the West, because we are repeating the same mistakes. A Russian friend couldn't get over the Canadian government's response to the popular truckers protest during covid ... "You learned from us! But you learned all the wrong things!!" Even Chinese friends see the similarities between our cultural Marxism and their cultural revolution.
You still have to live your life. But you can still be aware. You have to be a sailor watching the storm clouds on the horizon, judging the direction and precautions to take. It's never been any different.