I'll comment under my own post about "why i think this is happening" - it's the fact that the average age of the population in the world is higher than it has ever been, especially in richer countries. Just like the "housing theory of everything" posts that circulated around some time ago, I think that is the core reason why so many illogical decisions are being thrown around.

I don't have deep knowledge, other than a bunch of "pattern matchings" I've done throughout my readings, but as people get older, on average, their wants/needs change over time. Older people, especially as they get closer to retirement age, have more free time as well. Implicitly, these desires eventually bubble up into economic/political action, that's more or less unprecedented. It would be very cool to research this more in depth, but unfortunately i'm in the wrong field.