Have to disagree. The rugged individualism image is still strong, everywhere here in the US, but has been co-opted by the political right as their own, poisoning it for the left to the point that it's become a mockery meme. But it's still there on the left. It's still valued. And we want it back. We just don't want the mega-size pickup trucks, gun racks, racism, and silly bathroom morality plays that currently come with it.

Let me say this, American open-mindedness was doomed by European authoritarianism. After two huge wars a deep belief emerged in the US that military might was a corollary of a commitment to freedom and individualism. The two went together. When that helicopter evacuated the embassy in Saigon, a huge swath of the country saw cracks develop in that belief. To fix it they passed ownership of that crack to the political left. It was the left’s fault. It was LBJ’s fault. And LBJ was a civil libertarian democrat. The left was WEAK (FDR and the strongly socialist policies of government control of corporations during WWII were, clearly, and conveniently, forgotten)

Then came Roe v Wade. It took time, but in that issue the religious right rose, and began to see the left as downright evil. We were baby killers. We were to be feared, and unforgiven.

So started the political idea that the Dems were an enemy to be undercut at every opportunity. With great help from an Aussie and his growing media empire’s ‘capture the right’ at all costs business model, it snowballed from there.

And here we are.

The trouble with rugged individualism is that it allows those with that self-image to justify their sometimes wildly divergent and ill-considered beliefs with their very ‘rugged individualism.’

I AM WHAT I AM!

So said Popeye the sailor-man, the rugged individualist.

Gotta love it. So you gotta deal with it! It’s who we are. (And btw, Joe Biden is leading us back from the brink of that awful precipice… Hallelujah!)

Take care!