This sounds a little far fetched, but my current hypothesis is that Americans have developed a co-dependent attachment disorder on a societal level around sociopaths that transcends ideology, whether they are certain presidential candidates or violent criminals. It's an enablement/abuse cycle that you typically see with alcoholic or abusive partners. Books on attachment theory have hinted that this type of disorder can occur on a macro level, which I was initially dismissive of, but when you apply it current events it really helps to explain a lot of irrational behaviors.

In the country with 21,000 homicides a year, it's hard to ignore the connection to attachment disorders while watching people wring their hands and make up exotic concerns that would be more fit for a Ray Bradbury novel over anything designed to address the world leading rates of violent gun crime, up to and including the literal concept of laws and the enforcement of those laws.

I don't know what the solution here is, because I don't know how you send an entire country to therapy and/or Al-Anon, but not continuously enabling the people that are hurting us is a great start, and that necessarily requires shifting empathy from the people that don't deserve it (violent criminals) to the people that do (their traumatized victims).

Apologies for the throwaway account but a lot of people get ridiculously emotional over this topic, and that's when I'm not accusing them of being societally co-dependent.