This is not just an American issue, we definitely have it in Europe as well. Open some German (even non-tabloid) newspaper's comment section on an article about something inconvenient (including but not exclusively Corona, Climate, the lunacy of our automobile culture), and it's going to be have its share of whiny, egoistical, unempathetic and inconsiderate 40+somethings feeling not merely inconvenienced but sooo oppressed - and, not all but not too rarely, spewing conspiracy theories about literal the antichrist in the flesh Merkel, China and 'the left-wing mainstream', sometimes mix in Israel, GeOrGe SoRoS and even Hillary, usually without any factual or nuanced substance to their arguments but just poorly channeled emotions.

A tendency that, in a way, is very frightening despite these people by themselves being fairly ridiculous, they are voters, legal full adults. Facts may famously not care about feelings, yet it's ignorant of them not to as these feelings may create facts of their own.