The mindset of the people dismantling our social and environmental protections is the mindset of people who go into National Parks and push over rock formations that took millions of years to form. It is a mindset that is incapable of awe, empathy, self-reflection, or vulnerability; that can only feel something when exercising power or control. There’s no point in asking why or trying to make sense of their actions–they will say one thing one day and the opposite the next. The only answer is a mindset of greed, hatred, and ignorance.
We can overcome this mindset in ourselves, through practices that promote awe, empathy, self-reflection, and vulnerability, and so spread these qualities through our interactions.
One of the things that makes the current crisis so difficult is that this particular class of disruptors as a rule do not mix with people who cultivate awe, empathy, self-reflection, and vulnerability. They would feel quite uncomfortable to find themselves among such people. Once this corrupted mindset takes hold in a government or society, it really takes sustained effort, a grand gesture, to overcome it. What will this grand gesture look like? Will we recognize the moment for action when it arises? Are we capable of such a grand gesture?
If not in this lifetime, then in the next.