Do you think audiophiles are the most gullible hobbyists

jafreeman, in the most macro terms I can think of offhand, Americans will tolerate massive corruption , poverty conditions not seen in other developed countries , elections stolen for all to see, endless wars and virtually anything else with a shrug of the shoulders as they have internalized this is always the best country in the world no matter what .
This is not reality .
What you describe is the madness coming from the cognitive-dissonance
created from not being happy as you should be in the best of all possible worlds.
Consumerism is a drug for this as the social psychologists working for marketers are well aware . Most of country music is written by them .

We copy the German model.  

Well stated, Shubert.  The greatest country in the world is great only in some regions, and this is often due to massive consumer debt.  Propping up the facade of affluence is a stack of credit cards, loans and cash-out re-fi's on endless mortgages.  This is how the middle class willfully hands over trillions of dollars to the wealthy. We should not speak of such things here, but go ahead. Most of these threads are boring, anyway.   

Schubert,

I am not a historical scholar. But from what I understand as a layman the policies have not changed since 2008. If that is true the same thing could happen again.