>massive drop in the average standard of living if the US maintains their current trajectory.

Very rich people control the narrative in the US and get poor people to repeat their claims. Hence where we get statements like this from.

>“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

The thing is the billionaires/trillionaires don't care as long as they get more power. They'll eat the goose that lays the golden eggs.

You see a ton of this with Trump voters like my grandma that are getting screwed over with medicare changes and live in some kind of grand delusion that Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do in cutting benefits, and yet somehow it's all the democrats fault (???).