In the movie "Awakenings," the doctor played by Max Von Sydow insists that the people locked in a kind of mental stasis aren't conscious. When asked how he knows this, he simply states that "The alternative is unthinkable."

That's how I think the average American gets through their day. They see the signs all around them that they are living in a blighted hellscape on the verge of collapse, but they have to believe there's some kind of plan, that it's all going to work out, the bad things will never happen to them. Because the alternative is unthinkable.

They won't learn until it's too late.