-Sometimes, we even look at existing negative social and political conditions and make sweeping assumptions about economic conditions, because we assume these things are closely related It's all wrong and dangerous analysis, and it has crippled our ability to respond to social/political crises
The American economy is capable of providing for everyone. The fact that it doesn’t is a policy choice made by economic and political elites. And those same elites often have their hands in the media, fostering a sense of economic grievance, but aimed at the marginalized instead of the powerful.
Well we are going to test the material conditions thesis now as it seems no country in history with a world-leading economy has ever fallen into fascism. Is there even one counter-example? So, if the US democracy falls, at least we'll have solved a problem in political science.
So it's worth, in my view, trying to highlight for people that even the historical crises that they assume were primarily a reflection of the material conditions existing in a given society (e.g., the French Revolution) were often heavily caused by the spread of ideas and beliefs
Ideas and beliefs based on? What is driving the ideas and beliefs. I agree that many people voted based on vibes created by right wing outrage media, but why is RWOM doing that? Whatever that is is the material condition driving the vibes/
What do you suppose the material conditions behind the anti-vax movement are? What about the chem trail movement? Flat earth?
I don't know, that's why I ask. They are motivated by something, unless we just see them as all mentally ill. Understanding what that is, even if it is not entirely based on actual conditions, seems useful.
Beside the most illuminated cranks, the material conditions are the break down of institutional trust due to technocratic neoliberalism decay: inequality, corruption, crisis of intermediary institutions like labor unions, authoritarianism and disinformation emanating from governments
Populations have "gone bad", conditioned to perform or tolerate evil, over and over again in history. Attributing something like the Rwandan genocide, or this embrace of authoritarianism and fascism in the U.S., to material conditions is nuts.
The cultivation of people's tribal impulses, resulting in demonization and dehumanization of other group(s), is probably the actual common thread.