Some of that's very true, Pepperwort - though I'd disagree with the 'Ivory towers' bit.
Yes, it's easy to forget how unseriously the referendum was taken: the air of carnival and license and lack of consequence surrounding that bloody vote. Carefully cultivated by some, we'd suggest - with the gift of hindsight. The lack of scrutiny, the misinformation unchallenged, the equal weight given to nonsense ...
That should never, ever be forgotten - it was deeply corrosive. And part of that corrosion lay, of course, in its effectiveness.
And, yes, you are right: track blame to the source.
I'm still bitter, though. How can I not be? It seems that the anxiety and care falls disproportionately and is still unacknowledged. Along with the effort, which also fell disproportionately, of wading through that mire of disinformation and resisting it - and losing.
And then, this: now living with the consequences of a government led by the most rank and immoral people, whose one goal (enrichment by disgraceful means of an already bloated few) is wholly at odds with the traits and determinations necessary to deliver the U.K. through a pandemic with least human cost. And that cost is not just economic but actually, really is a matter of life or death to some.
It's grotesque and quite literally at the very edge of what is bearable.
And I guess it's made worse because I'm still seeing many of those same dynamics in play. As though we learn nothing, even when the consequences are the most material and evident: when actual, real lives are the cost.
I've learned about propaganda and ideology. I know now - because I see it in front of me - that 80% of the power of propaganda is gifted by the recipient. Propaganda doesn't 'brainwash'. It's power lies in being seized upon by recipients who are desperate for any half-plausible reason to cling on to what they have already chosen to believe.
And 'half-plausible' is often the sum of it. If you are outside the circle of belief, the lies are frustratingly transparent and illogical. And the fact you are dealing with chosen belief is a tear-inducing horror.
We see it now with Covid. We watch people still insisting it's just flu, that herd immunity is the way forwards, that everything's going to work out. More bleakly, we see people dismissing deaths as inevitable for those with underlying conditions, or the elderly. Most worryingly, we see people dismissing the death figures, in the entirety, as an overestimate.
And we see people choosing to cling on to charlatans - exposes charlatans - and continue to choose to not hold the government to account or demand better. To make their excuses for them.
And ... you can't wish that element of 'choice' away. It really does exist.
But, you are, of course, right. Blame lies with those in power, who will benefit.
I know that the decision to 'choose' to believe is often not a choice at all - it's an element of powerlessness and the human capacity to survive. But sometimes it's also cruelty. For example, one friend astutely said that the whole point of the NHS promise was not to dupe people into believing it but to give a polite cover for racists, so they could vote for racist/xenophobic reasons but mask that with the more socially acceptable ' I voted to give money to the NHS'.
Nevertheless, I'm watching a similar madness unfold with Covid. And it's instructive. The need to hope, the desire to believe that things are not as awful as they seem: it's powerful. It's a really charming desire in many ways: it often expresses itself as a will to makd things better for others.
It's coming out as a desire to ignore the news and cling on to positive spins at the moment.
But, my goodness, that element of 'choice' is frustrating.
Anyway, the tl:dr is that I'm still exhausted and sad. And still in a place of deep worry about where we're headed.