What you’ve described is Canada and a few other social democracies around the world. There is the sense, in Canada, that investments in health, education, social programs, infrastructure, etc. benefit everyone and that we are only as strong and successful as the weakest members of society. What is terrifying to those of us who believe in liberalism and social democracies, is the degradation of knowledge and understanding by the masses, and, therefore the easy manipulation of a society that is too dumb to recognize its vulnerabilities in favour of the illusion or promise of a better life with less taxes and more “freedom”. The emergence of the far-right and the myths they propagate aren’t easily identified by those who are misinformed or who don’t care to be informed at all. Elections are won based on emotions by a populace motivated by fear and the “other”. It’s truly a scary situation considering how much power corporations and the wealthy have over politicians and society in general. I’m optimistic about the future, but it’s going to take some serious work to move away from the pop-culture machine that seems to cloud the minds of the masses.
