Some Americans will hedge and deflect, but they accept shooting random children

Here are two stats in today's Washington Post, under the national Politics tab on their site: in 1964,  Americans gave the federal government a positive rating of 77 percent. Since then, public trust has fallen to a disturbing 20 percent.

Another poll finds that 70 percent of registered Republicans favor protecting gun rights over reducing violence. Dig in a bit further and we see a disturbing 44 percent of Republicans say that school shootings and over 40,000 gun deaths annually as the "price of freedom."

I don't have all the raw data but the results seem completely logical. If a person has little to no trust in authorities, even schools and local government, it makes sense to cling to the myth of gun ownership as a key means of protection for them and their families.

There is not a shred of evidence for that view, of course, and lots of data that argues the complete opposite -- does anyone not firmly in the gun cult not believe that if ALL guns were removed from civilian hands our country would be safer? It would be radical to suggest such a thing, and no politician stands a chance with either party if they campaign on simply confiscating all handguns and semi-automatic rifles. 

Heck, even Dems lead off their comments on gun safety with anecdotes about dad teaching them to shoot at targets and about friends and family who enjoy hunting. "We don't want to take your guns... we just want to tinker with some timing and availability and training requirements."

If only 20 percent of Americans trust the government, that means the mistrust goes far beyond politics. It leads to a level of cynicism that precludes hope, welcomes disruption, and encourages despair. 

My guess is that lots of people worship Trump, for instance, because he entertains them in a twisted way while reinforcing their views that it just doesn't matter who is in charge of things. 

After all, for millions of Americans, life is just not great and they feel on their own. It wasn't great under Obama. It didn't change much under Trump. It is the same old under Biden. It will be same under DeSantos or whatever autocrat takes over. Does that sound too cynical?

The group I mistrust is rich people... and I mean "really" rich people. You know, the ones who own and buy and mislead and get elected to public positions at all levels. The ones who make record profits as they quickly raise prices and offer fewer services and less quality. The ones who greedily grab even more, with no limits.

The third stat that pertains here is the one that reminds us that only the rich can afford to run for most political offices. It doesn't matter what political party. Rich people get to play the game. The rest of us just watch, helpless.

And it's not just politics that gets twisted.

The Broncos are now about to be owned by a son of the founder of Wal-Mart, and he is reportedly worth over $70 billion. His group will pay over $4.5 billion for the team. I assume their business plan is NOT to lose money, so this is not just an expensive hobby.

If you want to watch the Avs or the Nuggets on TV in the Denver area, it's not easy. Another billionaire owner has been feuding with Xfinity and others for over two years about rights to broadcast. Sometimes you can catch the teams on TBS or ESPN. The Nuggets set the record for lowest audience share among all NBA teams, all-time, mostly because most people had to go to a bar to see a game.

The team we CAN watch is the Rockies, and many are not excited about spending a few hours most days with a mediocre, and sometimes comical, team. They are also owned by a multi-millionaire who could care less about fans... beyond getting them in the ball park to pay high prices for everything from admission to Dip-n-dots. 

Seats for the Avalanche hockey finals home games are going for as much as $10,000. The same will be true for the baseball All-Star game in LA next month. 

The amazing thing is that the millions upon millions who couldn't even imagine paying ten grad for a couple hours of entertainment continue to pay their taxes and vote for their politician overlords and generally follow the "rules." 

Some are so turned off that the rules don't apply anymore. We can watch some of them tonight during the House hearings on prime time as we relive what we watched on live TV about 16 months ago.

Insurrections are a fine spectacle, but they can't rival an NFL home game.

Still, I will be watching.