Yes. This is day to day life. And it is insane. But there’s no point in us here on SDMB wasting further electrons on it. Y’all can help yourself as much as you’re willing, but I won’t. Since you’re the OP it sounds like you won’t either. You’re frustrated, but you’re not in a head-banging mood any more.
IMO:
Until we’ve had a revolution and new constitution, and following the deaths of millions, not thousands, nothing can change. Because the idjits who like things as they are now are simply too powerful. And growing more so by the day. The time to have stopped the “gun culture” was in 1945 when the veterans came back from the war. They could have agreed to a “well-regulated militia” that really was such a thing. We missed that train and now we have this monster of private clubs of thug-fetishists, most of whom were never subject to the military’s moderating influence about the limited actual utility of fetishism and violence.
They will be on the upswing for another 50-70 years before things start moving the other way. Recall the Shah was deposed and the Ayatollah installed in 1979. That was 44 years ago and still most of the rural less-educated population wants to keep the theo-klepto-authoritarians in charge. Plus a lot of younger more urban people as well. And most of the oldsters wherever they live. Enough that although protests are commonplace, nobody expects real change for another decade or 2, maybe 3.
When the Reactionary Right eventually wins the presidency again, whether that’s in 2024, 2028, or 2032 and regardless of who their candidate is, that will be our 1979 moment. And that’s when we can start the clock to our eventual get-well date long after I’m dead and forgotten.
Rabid authoritarianism doesn’t lose enthusiasm and crawl back in its box. Especially not when fomented by modern for-profit propaganda 24/7. It has to rampage and destroy until it’s a spent force and the survivors vow “never again”. Which vow lasts about 100-150 years until anyone whose parentss lived through the chaos is dead and forgotten. Then collective amnesia sets in and the cycle repeats.