The last place anyone expected this to happen is America
I don't really understand this. In my circles, I have heard people warning about the direction that the US was heading in since the 90s. The US government has been working for We, The Corporations instead of the people for decades (Bayh-Dole, repealing Glass-Steagal*, zero repercussions for the subprime mortgage crisis). The militarization of police forces didn't happen overnight either, and neither did the anti-intellectual bias in US corporate media (for example, I remember when Sarah Palin was hyped up as a viable presidential candidate).
So no, from my point of view none of this is unexpected nor unforeseen. The only thing that could have surprised some people was the timing (directly after Obama), but the direction was communicated loudly.
* sidenote: the Glass-Steagal act was enacted just a few years after the 1929 stock market crash which caused the Great Depression; and within ten years of repealing it, we got hit with the largest financial crisis since 1929. Lessons were unlearned and not learnt again.
I don't really understand this. In my circles, I have heard people warning about the direction that the US was heading in since the 90s. The US government has been working for We, The Corporations instead of the people for decades (Bayh-Dole, repealing Glass-Steagal*, zero repercussions for the subprime mortgage crisis). The militarization of police forces didn't happen overnight either, and neither did the anti-intellectual bias in US corporate media (for example, I remember when Sarah Palin was hyped up as a viable presidential candidate).
So no, from my point of view none of this is unexpected nor unforeseen. The only thing that could have surprised some people was the timing (directly after Obama), but the direction was communicated loudly.
* sidenote: the Glass-Steagal act was enacted just a few years after the 1929 stock market crash which caused the Great Depression; and within ten years of repealing it, we got hit with the largest financial crisis since 1929. Lessons were unlearned and not learnt again.