One Small Bit

...of good news (a guy can hope anyway).

The Pluralist:

Breitbart's online traffic declined in May for a seventh consecutive month, marking a rapid fall from grace for the one-time right-wing darling.

Politico reported the traffic numbers Saturday, citing comScore. Over the past year, Breitbart's readership has nearly halved, from 12.1 million unique users in May 2017 to just 6.4 million last month.

Conservative commentator Matt Lewis told Politico that Bannon's departure is indeed part of the reason for Breitbart's decline.

And the big take-away:

“Nationalism and populism always requires a charismatic leader,” he said. “The ideas are not persuasive enough to work without a cult of personality.”

(Sweeping Generalization Alert)

Rubes follow. That's what they do - they're joiners and they're followers. As adamant as they can sound when denouncing everything they construe as political, eg: "the stoopid gubmint"; and as much as they insist on being perceived as fiercely independent-minded, they vote for leaders who do their thinking for them - who can provide them bumper-stickers and t-shirts and simple 10-word answers for every gnarly complicated problem.

Because thinking can be very difficult. And a political discussion can spoil the groove, and ruin your whole picnic.

So they're really not all that dumb, but they can be intellectually lazy in the extreme.

They just want to spend their free time playing with their toys &/or hangin' with their buds &/or just straight-up loafing.

And none of that is necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that you can get real good at not thinking.