I see "grievance culture" as a side-effect of America's role as a global leader in the 1940s. I always contrasted America's "victory gardens" and "industrial ma

I see "grievance culture" as a side-effect of America's role as a global leader in the 1940s. I always contrasted America's "victory gardens" and "industrial machine" during WWII to the Afghan and Iraq Wars, where the government merely expected the average citizen spend money and bolster the economy. In between those two periods, you have ceaseless military campaigns whose purposes were muddled and a widening gap between the government and its constituents. It's a gradual enfeebling of a culture known for its "Frontier spirit", that was fueled by a mixture of individualism and a collective good. Now these bored, helpless people are trying to form coalitions against overblown (or outright fictional) adversaries as if pushing such a fabricated purpose will personally help against the crises in their lives.