My linguistics is pretty theoretical.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.

When I am at home, I never watch TV, but when I am abroad in a hotel I take a look at the BBC to find out what's going on.

I do not see how we can rationally oppose high speed rail because of the environmental and other costs without considering the social and human consequences of the radical elimination of transportation that this entails.

The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered. It's unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what's happening in the world. In fact, it's undesirable - if they see too much of reality they may set themselves to change it.

That's unfortunately common - to blame immigrants, to blame the African-Americans who are being helped by federal programs, to blame anyone available, to direct attention away from the roots of the distress which you're suffering. This combines with xenophobia, white supremacy, racism, misogyny, and other quite unpleasant phenomena which are far from being eradicated. All of this makes for a pretty dangerous brew. But economic issues are right in the center of it. And you can see this in the fact that so many former Obama voters now voted for Trump, or just didn't bother voting.

All public resources go to the rich. The poor, if they can survive in the labor market, fine. Otherwise, they die. That's economics in a nutshell.