A friend of mine subscribes to Joel Skousen's email newsletters. He forwarded me a recent one that included this quote:
"I told them frankly that we don’t have enough time to change where this country is headed, given how limited are our capabilities to reach the people via mass media, and the growing wokeness and moral corruption of Americans which makes them resistant to these kinds of hard truths. But the great advantage to telling the truth, however negative, is that they will someday remember who told them the truth, and that opens the door for future leadership."
I agree with Joel in this assessment of the lack of time to change where the country is headed, and the reasons he gives.
I am not so sure that people are as inclined as he hopes to remember and recognize those who told them the truth before they realized it was true.
There have been oh so many examples of truths told by individuals before they were accepted as such by the majority--usually through sad experience rather than reason. It seems to me that people completely ignore the few who told them the truth before it was well known.
Look at recent examples with financial and social Marxism, the covid vaccine or lockdowns, cancel culture, and gender disorder. There were people warning of all of these things, dismissed as dangerous cranks. Did people reverse the damage done to their fortunes and fame through the public reaction to their stand for truth once they were proven right? Were they rewarded? Or did each individual just begin pretending it never happened, moving on with the smug overconfidence that caused the problems to occur in the first place?
This is nothing new. It's human nature. For a study of how society treats heroes, read "The Savior Generals" by Victor Davis Hanson. Or read about the actual Savior in the Bible. Or read about any of his prophets. Or this essay penned in 1936 and posted online in 2008.