re: How the hell do you all cope with all of this idiocy?

Sure it seems at times to be overwhelming, even confusing, but not upon closer examination.

There can be no solution to any problem unless enough of those within a society are willing to identify and admit to how it arrived at that point.

For us, it wasn't happenstance or coincidence.

Although already having been discussed on here at length, maybe it's time for a rehash.

Beginning with this list of "critical theorists" with some brief legends added for the most high-profile ones.

Beginning with the prime originator/mover of it all:

In 1843, some five years before his Manifesto, Marx wrote to a friend - probably Arnold Ruge:

"Here is what we have to accomplish: ruthless criticism of all that exists.

Ruthless in two ways: the criticism should neither be afraid of its own conclusions nor of the conflicts with the powers that be."

Here are just some of the more notable members of the legions he produced with that very basic statement, many of whom over the years managed to work themselves into critical positions within the West's institutions:

•Theodor Adorno - an "original" of the Frankfurt School and author of the definitive work The Authoritarian Personality explaining the ostensible goals of the cabal.
•Giorgio Agamben
•Karl-Otto Apel - coined "transcendental pragmatics" critical theorist and professor emeritus at Frankfurt University. Worked with Habermas on the theory of communicative action for hermeneutics which is the methodology of how to interpret wisdom texts, religious texts, and philosophical texts certainly from the perspective of the neo-Marxist. Hermeneutics has been broadly applied in the humanities, especially in law, history and theology. It includes the relationship between language and logic.
•Louis Althusser - French marxist philosopher. Member of the French Communist Party
•Michael Apple
•Hannah Arendt - an "original" of the Frankfurt School
•Alain Badiou
•Mikhail Bakhtin
•Étienne Balibar
•Roland Barthes
•Gad Barzilai
•Jean Baudrillard
•Zygmunt Bauman
•Walter Benjamin - an original member of the Frankfurt School of neo-Marxists
•Lauren Berlant
•Michael Betancourt
•Ernst Bloch
•Homi K. Bhabha
•Susan Bordo
•Pierre Bourdieu
•Stephen Bronner
•Judith Butler
•Cornelius Castoriadis
•Hélène Cixous
•Angela Davis - remember her? Think all the worst out of Berkeley in one persona along with her mentor and enabler Herbert Marcuse
•Hamid Dabashi
•Antonia Darder
•Guy Debord
•Michel de Certeau
•Manuel de Landa
•Teresa de Lauretis
•Gilles Deleuze
•Paul De Man
•Jacques Derrida
•Enrique Dussel
•Terry Eagleton
•Mikhail Epstein
•Norman Fairclough
•Frantz Fanon
•Paul Feyerabend
•Ramon Flecha
•Else Frenkel-Brunswick - an original of the FS and collaborator on The Authoritarian Personality
•Paulo Freire
•Sigmund Freud - psychiatrist and favorite of the Frankfurt Schoolers of the day. The uncle of Edward Bernays, the acknowledged Father of Propaganda (Now referred to as Public Relations). It was Freud's concepts that the FSers attempted to combine with Marx's concepts.
•Betty Friedan - protégée of Kurt Lewin of the FS and Tavistock Institute
•Erich Fromm - one of the "originals" of the Frankfurt School whose essays have been seen in college textbook courses - particularly Freshman exposition courses.
•Andrew Feenberg
•Hans-Georg Gadamer
•Henry Giroux
•Antonio Gramsci - the first high profile neo-Marxist whose original principles were among so many others co-opted by the Frankfurt School operatives.
•Félix Guattari
•Jürgen Habermas - one of the "originals" of the Frankfurt School and among its highest profile members.
•David Halperin
•Donna Haraway
•Michael Hardt
•David Harvey
•Alamgir Hashmi
•Axel Honneth
•Max Horkheimer - virulent, doctrinaire neo-Marxist "original" of the Frankfurt School and originator of "sensitivity training." Wrote the Foreword in one of the neo-Marxist "handbooks" The Authoritarian Personality written by his FS friends and confidants Adorno, Frenkel, and Sanford.
•Luce Irigaray
•Marie Jahoda -
•Fredric Jameson
•Morris Janowitz -
•Henry Jenkins
•Kojin Karatani
•Joe L. Kincheloe
•Karl Korsch - among the original founders of the Frankfurt School
•Julia Kristeva
•Thomas S. Kuhn
•Jacques Lacan
•Ernesto Laclau
•Bruno Latour
•Paul Lazarsfeld - patron of Theodor Adorno; also of the Frankfurt School
•Emmanuel Levinas
•Daniel J. Levinson - social psychologist at Berkeley, and collaborator on The Authoritarian Personality
•Claude Lévi-Strauss - social psychologist at Berkeley and associate of the Frankfurt School
•Kurt Lewin and Eric Trist- key "bridges" between the Frankfurt School and the Tavistock Institute
•Alfred Lorenzer
•Leo Löwenthal - "original" member of the Frankfurt School
•Timothy Luke
•Rosa Luxemburg - member of the Frankfurt School who received Trotsky's most sincere admiration and condolences upon hearing of her untimely death.
•Jean-François Lyotard
•Herbert Marcuse - Frankfurt School "original" and Architect of the New Left" at Berkeley
•Hedda Massing
•Peter McLaren
•Chantal Mouffe
•William Morrow - protege of Kurt Lewin and another "bridge" between the FS and the Tavistock Institute
•Antonio Negri
•Oskar Negt
•Franz L. Neumann - Frankfurt School "original"
•Martha Nussbaum
•Claus Offe
•Friedrich Pollock
•Nicos Poulantzas
•Jacques Rancière
•Desire Shaka-Momoh
•Modjtaba Sadria
•Edward Said
•R. Nevit Sanford - social psychologist at Berkeley
•Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
•Barbara Herrnstein Smith
•Trinh T. Minh-ha
•Alfonso Valenzuela-Aguilera
•Paul Virilio
•Norbert Wiener - associate of the Frankfurt School who coined the term "Cybernetics"
•Gene Youngblood
•Slavoj Žižek
•Bertrand Russell - British social iconoclast who associated with members of the Frankfurt School
•George Lukacs - "original" member of the Frankfurt School; a Hungarian from a wealthy banking family associated with the Hapsburgs. And Minister of Culture under the short-lived, ill-fated Kunn Bolshevik ruling government in Hungary until the people threw them out. He began this new approach of exposing children to deviancy as a way to disorient them and soften them for marxist indoctrination, which we're seeing residuals of even today.

Add Tavistock with its Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann and it almost completes this witches' brew.

So there's another "wall of text" that barely approaches just how entrenched is this malignancy.

And another reminder of why it's a situation that at this point - 80-plus years into the slouch - we're in an untenable position that we won't be able to pray or vote our way out of.