2020 Elections won't safe us.

The next election is over a year away, yet voters and candidates are already hoping and believing if just the right candidates are elected they will be able to fix things.  Most conscious or unconscious maintain economics and wealth as their highest value.  And it drives their choice of party or candidate… That will not end well.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again…expecting a different result.
Too few voters and candidates grasp the unrelenting truth that the greatest long term determinant of a nation’s wealth is its citizens health and education.  From all that I’ve learned in over four decades of living, reading, listening, and learning is that the foundation of any sustainable civilization starts with an unswerving prioritization of, and investments in, the twin engines of development …  health and education.
But most American’s measure wealth in dollars.  So we end up with a gross National Product.
So gross it should be diagnosed as terminally sick.   Examine our nation’s suicide rate, opioid death rate, obesity rate, divorce rate, rise in mass killings from gun violence, debt accumulation, involvement in endless war and weapons production, loss of species, graduation rates, math and science scores, rate of extreme weather events, loss of antibiotic arsenal, vaccination rates, political dysfunction, and social fragmentation… then ask yourself, how healthy can we be if we are well adjusted to a profoundly sick society?
Real health requires that move from simple thinking (direct causation as George Lakoff coins it) into deeper thinking (systemic causation).   It is not the guns, the drugs, the technology, the media, the advertising, the terrorists, the corporations, or the politicians that are the real problem.  What we value is the problem.  Compare teacher pay to CEO pay.   If you want to know what you really value…look in your check book, driveway, refrigerator, and calendar.  Do you spend your wealth on the immediacy of looking good and feeling good?  Or being good and doing good…for others and the environment that sustains us.  
Our way of thinking about things that happen to us… as if we didn’t know the outcome of overeating, smoking, texting while driving, selfishness, or disconnecting from politics…has got to change.  We are defending our concepts as if they were more important than the survival of our species and the natural world that we all depend on …until we can safely leave this planet to its ultimate demise when the Sun turns into a red giant, an asteroid catches us off guard, or AI figures out humans are more influence by stories and emotions, than logic, wisdom, and our children’s survival.
How many times have we said the pledge of allegiance to our flag…pledging “liberty and justice for all” yet rarely take any action that would suggest we are serious about this pledge?
Our politicians, military and police swear to protect the Constitution -- as if it (with its independence agencies) can protect us against the loss of our freedoms and our security in an irreversibly interdependent world.   It’s as if we think we are somehow disconnected from the billions of other people we share this planet and environment with.  And then think weapons and wall will protect us.
We need to think way beyond these ancient technologies.  I’m not sure we can.  Our minds seem glued to the same old, same old.  And it’s going to cost us dearly.