Both the Catholic school I attended Kindergarten through 2nd grade at and the public middle school I attended in suburban NY had blacktop as the main rec area during lunches and other such breaks, so it’s not just a CA thing, I guess. Neither school was in a very build up area, either. The Catholic school in particular had plenty of land they could have had us play on that wasn’t the parking lot. Had I stayed there for all my schooling, they were even known for sending students into the marsh out behind the school to catch their own frogs for the full experience of preserving something in formaldehyde and dissecting it during high school biology labs.

They mostly seem to think something like “I’m not intolerant, I’m just stating uncomfortable facts that the liberals/socialists/etc are afraid to acknowledge!” I think @AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de is right in that certain topics being off-limits for acceptable discussion in liberal circles just serves to drive them towards the right. This, combined with right-wing dominance of media in the US and poor communications operations from the Democrats just serves to legitimize and invigorate the far-right here.

Just look at something like the discussion on crime and quality of life. Democratic leaders will point to statistics and uncritically say, “Crime is down, I don’t know what you’re talking about, things are fine.” Statistics require context to interpret successfully, and they also obey the rule of garbage in, garbage out. It would not invalidate the statistics at all if, for example, overall crime were down, but more crimes were being perpetrated out in the open where people could see them than occurred previously. They also only capture the crimes that are successfully reported. Sexual assault is pretty famously under-reported, owing to a variety of factors. Having lived in the hood for a long time, I’ve also experienced it first hand that cops just flat out refuse to take a report sometimes.

Whatever the case may be, if the topic of crime and safety comes up these days and you post something like, “I get the stats say its down generally, but my neighborhood/commute/city has deteriorated significantly over the last few years and I no longer feel as safe as I used to,” you’ll get a bunch of replies mocking you with a few canned responses like “The plural of anecdote isn’t data,” or calling you a Republican plant or something, and not one that actually tries to engage with it. You should be able to look at the Republican platform and realize this isn’t something that should cause one to overlook all the terrible things the GOP advocates, but many people will do just that when they feel that the Democrats have been ignoring them and their concerns for long enough.

If enough of your electoral base are voicing concerns that run contrary to your data, you really need to look into why that is and how to address it, or you run the risk of the opposition siphoning voters away when they acknowledge those concerns and validate them, even if you know for a fact they aren’t actually going to address them.

If capitalism is decaying, how will it continue to work as intended for capitalists?

I don’t think it necessarily will in their eyes, but as I see it, they view it in two ways that aren’t mutually exclusive. Firstly, as capitalism decays, it could give rise to a system that allows them to exploit others even more mercilessly than they already do, and they’re eager to reap the benefit of this development. Secondly, they think that their riches will allow them to escape the negative impacts of capitalism, regardless of what happens. Look at the billionaires buying up islands or building remote doomsday bunkers to escape to in the event things really go south. They fully expect that in the worst case scenario of extensive warfare, environmental crises and societal collapse, they’ll be able to retreat into their castles, pull up the draw bridge over the moats, and live out the rest of their days in comfort while the rest of us suffer and perish.