This is the trap politics in an Age of Extinction falls into. Is falling into. As people get poorer, they’re lured in with fantasies that nobody much will have to pay for anything, and things can go on as they were. Erasing your own tax base is one way to deal with the problem of permanently falling living standards thanks to climate change — but it’s not a very good one, because, LOL, it won’t work for very long. But it’ll work for long enough. Long enough for the demagogue. The lunatics and fanatics backing him. The bigots and supremacists who want to implode democracy. As people get poorer, they’re seduced like this — and ultimately, they turn on one another. In that process of implosion, demagogues surf the chaos, and peace, prosperity, nonviolence, equality, truth, liberty — they all become distant memories.
