Yes, having a working brain with an open mind is a serious impediment to happiness these days. The Internet has made it possible for the evil to find, misinform, and motivate the foolish.

It's sad to admit how important apathy is to the successful operation of a democracy. The best political strategy for "ordinary" people should be to vote for the incumbents, because the incumbents should be doing a decent enough job not to be noticed. But our Congress has not been doing a decent job, because resisting compromise has become a ticket to re-election now that stupidity can be weaponized.

I think it all goes back to the filibuster being made too easy after the Civil Rights Act in 1964. If the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington filibuster rule were still in place, the government would still be run on comity and compromise. But the virtual filibuster was just too tempting a tool for assholes like Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell. They so destroyed our government so badly that people could actually believe a bozo like Trump couldn't be worse. And maybe he couldn't, which is not to say that he had any useful skills or admirable virtues whatsoever.