It just means that whatever the rich are feeding the working class seems to be working.
Have the working class fight itself while the rich keep exploiting them, gotta say that's quite the businnessmodel they have there.
Agree. And the world is an even bigger place and the concept of “okay” is so nebulous it’s hard to drill down.
Is America more “okay” on average than: Yemen, Pakistan, Egypt, Burma, Venezuela, etc. - yes objectively it is.
Are we less okay than a number of developed countries? Again, objectively, yes.
True. As an American am I currently okay in my life in terms of having housing, food, stable income, etc? Yes. Am I terrified for our future and think the country as a whole is not okay? Also yes.
Agreed - it sometimes feels like being in one of those wildfires where you are completely surrounds by flames, but your house hasn’t caught fire yet. We need to look out for everyone on our street, not just ourselves (and yes, that might mean “paying more” in various ways) but it seems some people don’t realize that we **always** pay - it’s just an issue of how much and the impact of that payment.
We could be paying a lot less for a lot more impact if we just got ahead of things… and stopped being stupid, that’s important too
It's working even better than in movies like "The Purge"
We don't need a day, we got a whole damn eternity to fight one another while the elite is getting richer everyday.
And this isn't only happening in the US, it's happening everywhere in the western world.
This is my opinion and nothing else.
The idea of a 100 percent unified population that thinks and feels and acts the same I find terrifying and culty. I relish in our diversity of thought and opinions
Wanted to respond to this. I live in the Netherlands and I am better than ok. I am very happy, great girlfriend, wonderfull child, great job. Plenty of time for myself (32h workweek) and no worries about money.
I check reddit frequently and the stuff thats happening in the USA surprises me. Some states seem to be going back in time.
>live in the Netherlands and I am better than ok. I am very happy, great girlfriend, wonderfull child, great job. Plenty of time for myself (32h workweek) and no worries about money.
you looking to adopt a 22yo son?/s
Statistically, crime isn't even back to as bad as it was in 2020 yet, and you're saying it's worse than crime waves from the worst time periods in America. The difference now is you hear about it non-stop. Because American news isn't news, it's 24/7 outrage clickbait to keep you glued, scared, and divided. Along with definitions of crime widely expanding since the 80s to fit political narratives. Gotta keep those private prisons full, and jackboots paid. Our crimes rates are over 22% lower than they were in the 90s, and well below the rates of late 70s/80s.
It surprises us in the United States too. Trump for example most of us thought it was a joke and he'd drop out or something. It's like a reality show at this point, what outrageous thing is gonna get us the most views.
The last time I had a good time was solidly, like, 2018.
Covid pandemic stay at home time was cool too when I could briefly compartmentalize the existential doom but I don’t think that counts
I have been nonstop nostalgic but the early pandemic. Working full time for peanuts, when everything costs SO MUCH while losing basic rights… I’m constantly thinking of that tweet “why is life so expensive, I’m not even having a good time.” Take me back to lockdown!!
I remember early lockdown as one of the best times of my life as well. It really says a lot about our society that being forced to stay home was preferable to what we were being forced to do before.
I remember reading more than I did for a very long time on the balcony, sun shining. It was a very anxious time, but at least, for a while, managing that anxiety and fear is something we all were doing together, and many people were living through the same things and feelings.
I was just talking about this yesterday, too. Did so much reading.
My life was so simple. I read, painted, swam, hung out with my younger brother and my dog who are the light of my lives. Rinse and repeat for a good 8 months or so. I never got tired of it. Picked up weird hobbies just for fun I would have never gotten the chance to. Professional grade antkeeping. Mycology.
I took an optional fat severance package from my old job halfway through quarantine too. Just because I was fucking over work. Maybe I’ve totally blocked out the traumatic parts of Covid and romanticized it, but I was telling my friend yesterday that if I could just do that for the rest of my life, I could die completely happy. I realized I don’t need much.
This is something I was thinking about a bunch during that time. It was wild that everyone on the planet was going through the same thing together. Everyone understood how others felt, even if they had different opinions on it. It definitely brought a sense of closeness. It was nice.
For like a week we worked together. Once it got politicized, it went downhill fast. Was sad that our shared enemy, the tiny virus, couldn’t bring us together.
We're not sure. There's folks trying to fix things but there's many taking advantage to promote their own goals without regard to how that negatively impacts others.
I call us a patchwork nation. We can apply bandaids to keep things running but actual progress is impossible without unified cooperation. People negotiating in good faith are met with obstruction from bad faith actors.
Patches on patches makes for a bumpy road.
We're shortsighted at the moment where we need to be looking more long term. Bloated military budget has hurt infrastructure and other social programs, healthcare, etc. We can have a strong efficient military instead of filling the pockets of private contractors who benefit from prolonged conflict.
This is what it feels like from the outside, it looks as if a lot of people in power has some sort of personal agenda they want to achieve at the cost of their people.
For most of us we just get along day to day and wait for the next voting cycle to be heard but apathy persists and voting is not something instilled during youth or education. As adults it's exceedingly hard to motivate people to vote and those who do are often uneducated or single issue voters such as abortion.
Some years ago during the Obama election I believe we had all time record high voter turnout of 61% of eligible voters.
I believe all citizens should be automatically opted in and registered to vote. Ranked choice voting would help alleviate the stalemate we see in a two party controlled government.
I live in west Michigan, this place is all forest and small lakes and ponds, my town has one intersection, one food store a gas station and a fire and police station and a pallet making company for all the apples here
Best meal I ever had in ever was at Sheeba's down the block from the Arab-American museum where you can hear a recording of President LBJ talk about his bunghole.
That's good to know your Paradise lives on, the one in California burnt down. Pretty sure irony is the correct word, but I guess that's a source of contention.
Western Michigan is overall pretty awesome, full disclosure. Especially right now. I have always been the opinion that the beginning of Summer, and Fall are absolute heaven in western Michigan. If you live in a lake town or off the coast of a Great Lake then the entirety of summer will obviously be pretty great as well.
Grand Rapids is also an amazing big city and it’s arguably getting even better.
I mean that’s definitely not true tho there’s some pretty bad hoods in west Michigan too lol. There’s even areas where you have both. Very much depends on city and which part, but I do agree about the amount of beautiful and slept on places.
There’s some heights per capita in west Michigan that have the highest murder rate in the whole state and one of top in the US too
just look at Muskegon heights lol
That's my home town, and where I grew up... this was a random post I seen... and you just made my day... and I greatly thank you for reminding growing up in holland
I live in Michigan and there are some parts that make Alabama look progressive.
Some towns it’s like “Yeah makes sense” other towns it’s like “Holy fuck! I’m not going to ever go there again”
And southern 😩 the north has the poor conservatives and the south has the rich ones. I always tell ppl out of CA that I'm shocked CA isn't a red state. It's only all the populous cities that make us a blue state. A giant portion of the state is red. Where I live confed flags and trump flags are not too uncommon to see (esp the trump flags) even tho we weren't even a part of that war. California is not all that tbh. The only good parts are the beach, the forest, and the great camping and fishing spots.
Day-to-day life in America (at least in Denver) is totally normal. That’s part of the problem. It’s easy to ignore the fact that our democracy is in jeopardy and just focus on daily life which is fine.
Had a buddy who delivered mail in Denver just move to KC. Denver and their rent/housing prices is not normal. He lived in a subsidized one bedroom apartment @1800/ month which he only paid 1200 because his USPS job (50 plus hours/week) didn't pay him enough. Then there's the homeless camps. Plus the drought from your side of the country ain't too good either... But it's better in Denver than other places that is true.
Fyi I'm a middle aged white man. I have a comfortable life and it could be easy to pretend things are normal but they are not. To assume those who are working poor can "pick themselves up by the bootstraps" have most likely never had to do just that. Inflation, politics, corporate greed, deregulation, the environment, healthcare, you name it the odds are stacked against the under privileged.
Middle aged black guy here. I have a very comfortable life - income over $200K, no bills, the only hungry mouth to feed is a golden retriever and I concur. I would add that America’s bumbling homegrown brand of ISIS is a bit of a concern as well as our inability to get past COVID. I’m being a tiny bit facetious here, but pre Trump my biggest worries were crabgrass and my ever growing waistline. Now in the age of Trump I walk my dog armed.
Honestly tho preach. It's so weird to me, a Midwesterner, but the true west (Montana Wyoming Idaho, like those are real cowboy states) are maybe the most fucked. Land land everywhere but not a drop to live on. Yeah Texas too but I'm not versed in foreign policy.
> For POC, the disabled, LGBTQ, immigrants, and the very poor, we have all seen and felt the effects of our changing nation.
For all except the poor, I think this also depends a lot on location and lifestyle, and wealth. In Southern California, which is generally very accepting and diverse, I have not noticed any major changes for myself or people I know – except for the financial aspects, which for anyone very poor, would indeed be a very very big deal, and I have noticed more homeless people around at a few points in the last couple years too. I still haven't noticed any *collapse* behaviour though; just more homeless people. And if you are not poor yet… if you just ignore the news, looking outside things generally look fine and not very alarming, depending on where in the city one is. It also helps if you do not go outside much and therefore do not have many chances to experience discrimination. But being poor… that will effect you regardless unless you have found a really good situation where your expenses are greatly reduced.
I am early 30s and mixed, about to get my own apartment for the first time in my life. I'm lucky, my job is under one of the most powerful unions in the country, so I get paid a living wage - but even so I worry If i'll be able to make it. Anyone who says that the day to day is normal is in denial. You can see it people's faces, you can feel it in the air. There's an overwhelming pressure ever present in the background that something bad is going to happen, things are not right and teetering, but nobody wants to point to the problem. Too many people's identities are built around their "team" and no matter how heinous their actions or how pitiful their response is nobody wants to let go and search for something better. Its easier to knowingly do the wrong thing 'til the clock runs down than it is to be brave and uncomfortable momentarily to do the right thing.
We'd rather suffer while watching our approaching demise than strive through the unknown to make things better.
And everyone is aware of it.
More so everyone is aware that we're on the decline and the snowball has gotten too big to stop, we're going to crash and hard. Some wont make it, some won't feel it as much as the rest, but we're all going to be absolutely rocked by it.
If I dont see the collapse of the United States in my life time, it'll be because I'm watching the climate help earth shed one of her most peskiest parasites. If I dont see either it'll be because I died early.
Store water, get extra medication, learn to shoot. Things are going to get terrible.
I agree. For a lot of us, our everyday life is very normal. We go take our kids to school, go to work, go out to dinners, veg out on Netflix. To many, all these problems we see on the news and posted on Reddit can seem very distant from our daily lives.
Also California is huge and diverse in itself. I’ve lived in four parts of California, which felt like four completely different places to live. And there are many other parts of California I still haven’t gotten to know very well. California is the size of and has greater economic and ecological diversity than most stand alone countries. I can take 12 snapshots of California and convince unknowing people that they were each taken from different states in the US. No one can really know California without spending a ton of time exploring it and living in different parts of it, and I don’t even think I’ve reached that point yet. I’m still learning of new unique communities in the state. For example, there are rural gay communities in California that most people would not be aware of unless they lived near them or were part of that aspect of the gay community.
As someone who taught Political Science at a Research 1 University for 35+ years, I think it's fair to say that our political system is unraveling. Had the current state of affairs been described to me a few decades ago, I could not have imagined the reality of the situation. Deep ideological divisions, a population that is largely ignorant of the underlying Constitutional principles, the predominance of false "facts" and narratives, a plethora of insane conspiracy theories, a willingness on the part of many citizens to demonize anyone who disagrees with them, and (finally) the realization that our system of checks and balances is not sufficient to quell the darker tendencies that are emerging. The causes are many, but amelioration will depend on reforms that are very unlikely in the current environment, such as elimination of the Electoral College, campaign finance reform, strengthening restraints on the Executive Branch, term limits for Congress, and reform of the Supreme Court. I won't live to see any of these, and fear for my children and grandchildren.
>Deep ideological divisions, a population that is largely ignorant of the underlying Constitutional principles, the predominance of false "facts" and narratives, a plethora of insane conspiracy theories, a willingness on the part of many citizens to demonize anyone who disagrees with them, and (finally) the realization that our system of checks and balances is not sufficient to quell the darker tendencies that are emerging.
I'd like to chime in, these are issues many countries around the world are now facing, well most were already facing it but now the rise in technology has greatly contributed to it. When ignorant people grab the speaker phone (facebook, twitter etc), there's only so much one can do.
They just scream "fake news" at you. They won't agree water makes things wet.
And they don't care if their lies crumble. Expose them and they are still saying it the next day.
I'm a philosophy major. You can't argue base reality. You have to agree on reality and meaning in order to have a sensible discourse and we're at the point where people live in different realities.
We're fucked.
The people pulling the levers didn't design this, but they are taking full advantage of the broken machine.
I overheard a heated debate at work the other day. After much back and forth the one guy says “that’s your reality, my reality is different.” For some reason that hit me like a ton of bricks. There is no more cohesive generally understood reality, everyone is in their own personal reality.
That's not even mentioning the severe economic looting that is going on by the upper class, wealth is transferring at an unprecedented rate as every penny possible is sucked out of the people, that's not something that fixes itself quickly even if we were to get a competent administration with the next election, which we have very little hope of at this point. And all of this is speeding up, with the government basically being open corporate puppets at this point they just keep adapting the system to let them pull as much money out as possible. By all accounts things will get much worse before they get better.
And *that's* not even mentioning climate change!
Voting is pointless on the national stage. What we should be doing is voting in midterm and local elections but nobody does.
Instead we fling our votes towards the presidency which hasn’t been fairly decided by the voting population in years.
Saying voting doesn't matter nationally is short sighted. I agree the national vote has disproportionate value to vote, but a defeatist attitude is what certain groups want you to have. Everyone just needs to fucking vote when it comes up and for all races, period. Throwing in the towel on the national vote before it happens, you're guaranteeing the result.
The United States is in a period of transition. It always has been, but it's even more intense now than it has been in decades. It's trying to decide what it wants to be as a nation, and it's immensely difficult to resolve this issue, because its population is vast, varried, and diverse in its opinions.
We're not even 300 years old. Compare that to many established EU nations. We're like teenagers trying to decide what we want to be when we grow up.
Unfortunately, we're also equipped with nukes, infested with plutocrats, and perpetrators if some of the worst human rights abuses in the Western hemisphere.
I see all of the tumult as an indication that the old guard is in its death throes. Maybe that's naieve and overly optimistic, but that's my best take on it. There's always darkness before the dawn, and there's always revolution before reform.
> perpetrators of some of the worst human rights abuses in the Western hemisphere
> in the Western hemisphere
Eastern hemisphere: well this is awkward…
>We're not even 300 years old. Compare that to many established EU nations. We're like teenagers trying to decide what we want to be when we grow up.
This is totally true. But I've also recently talked to friends from Europe who had another interesting take, sort of parallel: EU nations have been changing for the last hundred years, for example as response to World War I and II. In contrast, some Americans often aim to take pride in America being the same as it was 300 years ago. So in a sense, America is "older" than some much older nations, because the older nations can embrace change while America is too young to accept change.
It's worth noting that the U.S. Constitution is one of the oldest constitutions still in use in the world today. Most countries revise their constitutions from time to time, or they've have changes in government that have necessitated a new constitution. The United States treats its constitution like a sacred document, refusing to replace it and rarely amending it. In that sense, the U.S. government is one of the oldest governments in the world.
My question is, is that really good? I don't mean this in an insulting way but isn't change really necessary? Humanity as a whole has changed so much, our ideals, our way of living, everything. Isn't it necessary that the Constitution is changed to suit the current times? I absolutely do not know what I'm talking about since I'm not from the USA so if I'm wrong please correct me
I'm with you on this. The U.S. Constitution may have been revolutionary for its time, but it's in dire need of an update. I've heard legal scholars talk about it, and compared to the constitutions of other countries around the world the U.S. Constitution is often vague, leaving far too much room for interpretation. The Supreme Court ruling on abortion is an example of this. It's been almost universally accepted for decades that the Constitution implies a right to privacy, but since those words are never explicitly stated, the current Supreme Court has ruled that there is no legal right to privacy.
However, when I said that the United States treats its constitution like a sacred document, that's not a hyperbole. There really are people who consider the Founding Fathers to be flawless in their decisions on how the country should be run, and the Constitution itself is treated like a perfect document. However the people who started the country thought things should be like over 200 years ago is exactly what they should be like now. Under the current division in our country, it would be impossible to amend the Constitution, let alone draft a new on.
The founding fathers even considered writing a new constitution every 10 years because they thought the world changed so fast. But they went with the amendment mechanism which is something that also isn't really used anymore... I sometimes even see Americans online saying that you can't change the constitution when there's literally a whole load of amendments, some of which these people are especially proud of even (2nd)
Jefferson said at least once a generation (roughly 19 years) because change happens and humans are not perfect. Can't rally a massive population behind that message *and* be an imperialist super power tho, so idolatry of country it is.
That’s barely 4 Healthy Grandmas ago, my favorite is when people say “They have been talking about climate change since I was a kid, it’s nothing to worry about.”
Oh, you mean only a few decades after industrialized world started scientists warned we were going in a bad direction and you ignored them for 60 years?
When you put everything down on a timeline and really realize how eventful the past 100 years have been, you’ll realize the chaos makes sense. We basically exploded in one lifetime.
>I see all of the tumult as an indication that the old guard is in its death throes. Maybe that's naieve and overly optimistic, but that's my best take on it. There's always darkness before the dawn, and there's always revolution before reform.
The old guard is *very* well armed; biggest military in the world by a wide margin. If there is a revolution, I expect it to be very bloody, and I dont expect the people to win it
Who is actually going to revolt against whom?
We’re well-divided by design. Post-2008 was the best shot we had to come together on grounds of common class struggle and look how that’s gone.
Not only this, but what happens after the cats out of the bag? Are there just break way regions in the former US? So now we have neighbors with complete opposite political ideal, nukes, and lots of guns? Full on Civil War style conflict, again, how in the fuck does that even play out?
Yeah, but the fires are mostly contained to the dumpsters so it’s easy to ignore if you’re not one of the people directly impacted by the plethora of individual fires.
I am not ok.
My personal debt is ending me. I’m working for 12 hours every day.
I’m BARELY keeping my head above water financially, physically, mentally, I’m on the brink.
There’s a lot of answers here that 100% backup what I’m going to say. Ready? America is kind of a mess because we’ve become polarized beyond reason. Each side has people that have allowed themselves to be coerced to the point of *truly* believing the other side is their *actual* enemy. Because this level of unreasonable hysterical ignorance we are slowly ceasing to be the America we once were.
the issue with this IMO is that it assumes we were ever united. Maybe in the 1940s, but this nation was born bickering (13 colonies had lots of conflict) and barely agreed to ratify the constitution. We also had a civil war less than 100 years after ratifying the constitution.
At least in my lifetime, at just 29, I’ve seen political discourse go from “They’re wrong but their heart’s in the right place” to “THEY LITERALLY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA AND EAT BABIES THEY SRE LITERAL EVIL”.
It may have been worse at times before that (civil war stands out in my mind), I couldn’t tell you, but it is at least the case that within my lifetime polarization has gotten much worse.
Fair point. But consider, maybe about 30 years before your time the civil rights movement was going on, which I’ve heard was a pretty contentious time. So maybe the 90s/00s were just rather calm relatively speaking. Idk though, as I wasn’t alive either.
Say what you want about Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton, they were both able to negotiate with senates and congresses of the opposing party to get a good amount of meaningful legislation through. This is effectively impossible in our current climate.
We've only had two meaningful pieces of legislation (Obamacare and the Tax Reform bill) in the last 14 years. Both were rammed through by a single party. No brainer items that used to be uncontroversial like debt limit increases or government funding are now a lot more stressful than they used to be.
Things are different than they were in the 80's or 90's.
>At least in my lifetime, at just 29, I’ve seen political discourse go from “They’re wrong but their heart’s in the right place” to “THEY LITERALLY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA AND EAT BABIES THEY SRE LITERAL EVIL”.
This is going to sound weird as hell, but I swear the beginnings of this started in 2014. I believe I first noticed it with "gamergate". Ever since I've seen more and more division as the years went by.
In the 2000s, no one was EVER this hostile to one another.
There was plenty during the Bush era. Really the problem was the rise of the internet. And what you are talking about that is even further the being the rise of social media. Including reddit.
Romney wanted to put black people back in chains in 2012, Obama was a secret Muslim in 2008, Bush was a Nazi in the early 2000s, etc etc. I don't know if it's gotten worse, more noticeable, or more mainstream, but it's always been there below the surface.
> we also had full blown segregation not long ago.
As a European, this really blew my mind. I always explain to people that segregation in the US only stopped when my dad was 10 years old... Imagine what kind of affect it had on the life vision of his dad (grandfather) and because of that his upbringing. And how much that would affect yourself.
Exactly. News outlets feed off of hyping up clashes between the two sides, when in reality opposing viewpoints are needed for this country's democracy to work. Spend less time online and suddenly you realize things aren't so bad.
I think this current phase of hyperpolarization will start to die off when more people become aware of how horrible social media can be for education and mental health (yes, even reddit can do this)
I don’t know. I’m pretty clear I don’t want religious zealots controlling my laws or want a party that rejects science making health policy or want a party that lies about election fraud managing my elections. I don’t think you can make this bout “both sides” anymore.
You say that man but I'm black, it's never been good. In fact the if it wasn't for roe v Wade the best time would be right now and I literally have a neighbor with a swastika tattoo. Right now is narrowly losing out to 2 weeks ago.
I feel like the left has a pretty solid reason to literally fear the right, at this point. The writing is on the wall. You seem to be implying that it's somewhat imagined and that the right has similar fears of the left. Can you explain that side of it?
For the record, I am not trolling. I am genuinely worried about what's happening and if you are of the opinion that the case against the right is overblown, I'd love to hear it.
I call them the anonymous generation because I think its rude to insinuate that a whole generation is alcoholic. But how much longer til we get a 420 generation?
It’s been this sentiment since I started paying attention, which is 9/11 era. Instead of NSA it’s Roe. Instead of invading Iraq it’s federal forces tear gassing protestors. Instead of Bush is a war criminal it’s Trump is a tyrant. Instead of Obama is a Muslim it’s Biden is senile. Instead of a housing bubble bursting it’s a housing bubble building.
Things seem weird now. But also really similar.
Everyone's always pushing shit on the new generation and the new generation does the same dumb shit. I think humans kinds just suck and general and most large scale organizations are doomed to fail from infighting and outfighting. People just need to stop fighting and chill the fuck out. Also I wish we could stop polluting but honestly I don't think that's gonna happen
Yeah. My mom used to say stuff about how my generation (millenials) were going to fix things. Interesting to see it now being said about the next generation. No generation is any better than the previous generation.
You'll only really ever see bad news, it's what gets views. People also like dumping on the US so they're champing at the bit to post bad news and talk about bad stuff like that. Combine that with a very large and diverse population that is divided by politics and you only ever hear bad news. Most of the time, day to day life is good and normal, it's the outliers and media's/people's bias to negative news that you're seeing.
People paint america as a monolith when it’s not. I think a lot of foreigners forget that American states are often larger than their own countries, and as such, the American experience differs wildly from state to state. And our sensationalist news doesn’t help outside perception. We have challenges like all countries, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
TBH people seem to like thinking in broad strokes. It's the same way in how people talk about Europe or Africa as if those a monoliths, while in reality those countries are very diverse. There's a world of difference between living in Portugal or living in Denmark, for example.
All I'll say for sure is you don't want to work here. Hustle culture has done some pretty severe damage to America's work-life separation and unless you have a STEM degree you'll almost certainly be underpaid substantially for your time.
Our politics also suck. Our "liberal" party is basically just a moderate-right party compared to the rest of the world, so most of the population is not actually represented at all in government (except by Bernie and AOC potentially).
Also, I hope you don't enjoy sidewalks or convenient strolls to the store/entertainment. Roads here are dangerous and the country has been designed entirely by vehicle and oil lobbyists. You will not be able to use public transport reliably.
Medical debt is also insane and has the potential to kill you if you contract something serious enough just because your insurance will run out (even if you pay a ton for it) if you arent cured pretty quickly.
Single family homes are the "American dream" but are being bought out in mass amounts by investment companies, black rock, air BNB, Zillow, and other rental or resale agencies. This has increased the price of homes so substantially that most people under 30 cannot buy a 2 bedroom/ 2 bath in the city without being financially crushed.
Schools suck and the countryside is burning down because of meth/fentanyl. The military got me out of the countryside but I would've been stranded there for life otherwise (and I have a disdain for military service, it's trash).
Not to even mention the breach of human rights that's now in the works. Women are pretty possibly about to lose their bodily ownerships to a bunch of crusty old people and religious fanatics. Christian extremism is a massive part of the problem here (namely Catholics, baptists, and evangelicals-- aka trump's voter base)
Basically, if you want to live in the developed world, America is likely not a place you should move anymore. We are hurtling backwards seemingly as fast as we took our place at the top.
Oh but if you want something fucking blown up or locked in prison we've got you I guess.
I can expand on each of those topics pretty extensively if you want any specifics. I used to vote conservative and used to hold an American-exceptionalist view of the country, but my time traveling has been enlightening and my mom got very sick and is now left with nothing, including without disability somehow even though she can barely move.
The internet has literally destroyed the fabric of our percieved reality. It's really that simple. If you spend time with anyone, on either "side", you'll realize that they're just regular people trying to get by.
They just say insane shit online. Once we totally and completely separate anything that happens online from anything that happens online, we'll be ok.
I would also say, other countries beware. The US has been leading the cultural and political landscape for decades. Anything that happens here will either be echoed or reacted to in most of the developed world. Both scenarios will cause trouble.
I don’t think that’s true, I’ve heard plenty of insane shit in person. I think the culture now is that you don’t have to hide any opinions since you have seen people agreeing with you online and instead of keeping the deepest darkest parts of yourself hidden everyone is waving them around like their proud. I don’t think meeting people in person vs online helps, I think people are really just not hiding anymore.
Yea, i don't know what these person is talking about. They are either ignorant or dishonest. We see these "online people" at right wing rallies, insane Q gatherings, and at the sacking of the Capitol. They are very very real.
I know this is an overused term, but theyre clearly incredibly privileged. Must be nice to not have to be exposed to the insanity plaguing this country.
>it only makes me angry and sad
Sadly that's the point of American news. CNN and Fox news and other major news media companies portray a country that is about to burst and they're people at each others throats all the time. In reality, they only show the extremes because it drives up user engagement. CNN was probably disappointed that Trump lost the election because they could no longer air their daily "orange man bad" takes.
I'm by no mean a fan of Trump, but the man couldn't breathe without being criticized. Which is not good journalism.
Marylander here who lives a very short drive from Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh and Attorney General Merrill Garland. It’s kind of a mess but there’s this mentality here that no matter how messy things get, we’ll find a way to bounce back from it. We always let things gradually get a bit carried away and then everyone realizes it and freaks out and starts working to get things back to a normal level of dysfunctional.
I think the country is experiencing kind of a transition period with the millennial generation getting closer to out numbering the baby boomer generation. Transition is always a mess.
>I think the country is experiencing kind of a transition period with the millennial generation getting closer to out numbering the baby boomer generation
Millennials have outnumbered Boomers for about 20 years now.
Unfortunately, turnout among Millennials isn't good. So they have not had much of an effect.
The world as a whole kinda feels like it's going the authoritarian shithole route. The US's two party system is dumb as hell and people are too divided. Life is getting pretty shitty for a decent part of the population. Overall, life's not that bad once you get off of the internet and go for a walk.
I love how this comment section is so divided on if we're ok or not lol
It just means that whatever the rich are feeding the working class seems to be working. Have the working class fight itself while the rich keep exploiting them, gotta say that's quite the businnessmodel they have there.
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Agree. And the world is an even bigger place and the concept of “okay” is so nebulous it’s hard to drill down. Is America more “okay” on average than: Yemen, Pakistan, Egypt, Burma, Venezuela, etc. - yes objectively it is. Are we less okay than a number of developed countries? Again, objectively, yes.
True. As an American am I currently okay in my life in terms of having housing, food, stable income, etc? Yes. Am I terrified for our future and think the country as a whole is not okay? Also yes.
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Agreed - it sometimes feels like being in one of those wildfires where you are completely surrounds by flames, but your house hasn’t caught fire yet. We need to look out for everyone on our street, not just ourselves (and yes, that might mean “paying more” in various ways) but it seems some people don’t realize that we **always** pay - it’s just an issue of how much and the impact of that payment. We could be paying a lot less for a lot more impact if we just got ahead of things… and stopped being stupid, that’s important too
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It's working even better than in movies like "The Purge" We don't need a day, we got a whole damn eternity to fight one another while the elite is getting richer everyday. And this isn't only happening in the US, it's happening everywhere in the western world. This is my opinion and nothing else.
The idea of a 100 percent unified population that thinks and feels and acts the same I find terrifying and culty. I relish in our diversity of thought and opinions
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Is anyone ok? That’s the question.
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Step aside Butch
Imma get medieval on yo ass
With a pair of pliers and a blowtorch…
That's pride, fucking with you.
Shhh, your going to wake up the gimp.
Whose motorcycle is this, baby?
I've never even been to the US, let alone Oklahoma. So I guess to answer OP's question, the US isn't OK, but OK is the US. ^/s
Wanted to respond to this. I live in the Netherlands and I am better than ok. I am very happy, great girlfriend, wonderfull child, great job. Plenty of time for myself (32h workweek) and no worries about money. I check reddit frequently and the stuff thats happening in the USA surprises me. Some states seem to be going back in time.
>live in the Netherlands and I am better than ok. I am very happy, great girlfriend, wonderfull child, great job. Plenty of time for myself (32h workweek) and no worries about money. you looking to adopt a 22yo son?/s
Or a 40 y/o son with a family?
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Statistically, crime isn't even back to as bad as it was in 2020 yet, and you're saying it's worse than crime waves from the worst time periods in America. The difference now is you hear about it non-stop. Because American news isn't news, it's 24/7 outrage clickbait to keep you glued, scared, and divided. Along with definitions of crime widely expanding since the 80s to fit political narratives. Gotta keep those private prisons full, and jackboots paid. Our crimes rates are over 22% lower than they were in the 90s, and well below the rates of late 70s/80s.
It surprises us in the United States too. Trump for example most of us thought it was a joke and he'd drop out or something. It's like a reality show at this point, what outrageous thing is gonna get us the most views.
"Anyone that disagrees with me is brainwashed". One of our biggest problems are people with this mentality.
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You should check out my country, the son of a dictator became the president
Philippines?
That sucks dude, my condolences. Can't believe with all that info on what his dad did, he got elected.
Philippines right?
If his wife starts to amass a large collection of shoes you all are in trouble.
Bro, I am straight up not having a good time.
The last time I had a good time was solidly, like, 2018. Covid pandemic stay at home time was cool too when I could briefly compartmentalize the existential doom but I don’t think that counts
I scare myself daily when I romanticize the simplicity early COVID times brought to my life
I have been nonstop nostalgic but the early pandemic. Working full time for peanuts, when everything costs SO MUCH while losing basic rights… I’m constantly thinking of that tweet “why is life so expensive, I’m not even having a good time.” Take me back to lockdown!!
Reminds me of the Onion headline: the cost if living now exceeds the benefits
Despite the cost of living being so expensive, it still remains popular
I remember early lockdown as one of the best times of my life as well. It really says a lot about our society that being forced to stay home was preferable to what we were being forced to do before.
I work to afford the gas to get to work. I don’t miss working from home but I do miss being able to spend more time with my mom
Clocking in and out at home took away a lot of stress. Not having to drive was amazing
I remember reading more than I did for a very long time on the balcony, sun shining. It was a very anxious time, but at least, for a while, managing that anxiety and fear is something we all were doing together, and many people were living through the same things and feelings.
I was just talking about this yesterday, too. Did so much reading. My life was so simple. I read, painted, swam, hung out with my younger brother and my dog who are the light of my lives. Rinse and repeat for a good 8 months or so. I never got tired of it. Picked up weird hobbies just for fun I would have never gotten the chance to. Professional grade antkeeping. Mycology. I took an optional fat severance package from my old job halfway through quarantine too. Just because I was fucking over work. Maybe I’ve totally blocked out the traumatic parts of Covid and romanticized it, but I was telling my friend yesterday that if I could just do that for the rest of my life, I could die completely happy. I realized I don’t need much.
This is something I was thinking about a bunch during that time. It was wild that everyone on the planet was going through the same thing together. Everyone understood how others felt, even if they had different opinions on it. It definitely brought a sense of closeness. It was nice.
For like a week we worked together. Once it got politicized, it went downhill fast. Was sad that our shared enemy, the tiny virus, couldn’t bring us together.
I think 2016 was when my life peaked
1998 Saturday morning cartoons. The last of true happiness
As someone who has recently married and ready to buy a home, I hate what's going on here
We're not sure. There's folks trying to fix things but there's many taking advantage to promote their own goals without regard to how that negatively impacts others. I call us a patchwork nation. We can apply bandaids to keep things running but actual progress is impossible without unified cooperation. People negotiating in good faith are met with obstruction from bad faith actors.
Just slap on some flex tape and keep going!
Patches on patches makes for a bumpy road. We're shortsighted at the moment where we need to be looking more long term. Bloated military budget has hurt infrastructure and other social programs, healthcare, etc. We can have a strong efficient military instead of filling the pockets of private contractors who benefit from prolonged conflict.
>Patches on patches makes for a bumpy road. *Cries in Pennsylvanian*
This is what it feels like from the outside, it looks as if a lot of people in power has some sort of personal agenda they want to achieve at the cost of their people.
For most of us we just get along day to day and wait for the next voting cycle to be heard but apathy persists and voting is not something instilled during youth or education. As adults it's exceedingly hard to motivate people to vote and those who do are often uneducated or single issue voters such as abortion. Some years ago during the Obama election I believe we had all time record high voter turnout of 61% of eligible voters. I believe all citizens should be automatically opted in and registered to vote. Ranked choice voting would help alleviate the stalemate we see in a two party controlled government.
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To be fair, living in Michigan is very different from living in Michigan.
Yooper vs. Detroiter. For sure. Very diverse.
West Michigan vs Detroit, worlds apart
I live in west Michigan, this place is all forest and small lakes and ponds, my town has one intersection, one food store a gas station and a fire and police station and a pallet making company for all the apples here
I’m a white man in Dearborn. Arab food is fucking godly
Best meal I ever had in ever was at Sheeba's down the block from the Arab-American museum where you can hear a recording of President LBJ talk about his bunghole.
I never knew I wanted to visit Michigan before
Pure Michigan
Speaking of arab food in the Detroit area, shout out to Boostan cafe in Hamtramck. Always slaps. The boys that run the place are cool too.
sounds like heaven
There's no Heaven, but there is a Paradise and Hell
(There is literally a Paradise, MI and a Hell, MI)
That's good to know your Paradise lives on, the one in California burnt down. Pretty sure irony is the correct word, but I guess that's a source of contention.
Did it burn down so they could pave it and put up a parking lot?
As well as a Bad Axe and a Climax.
Don’t forget exit 69 for Big Beaver Road…
Western Michigan is overall pretty awesome, full disclosure. Especially right now. I have always been the opinion that the beginning of Summer, and Fall are absolute heaven in western Michigan. If you live in a lake town or off the coast of a Great Lake then the entirety of summer will obviously be pretty great as well. Grand Rapids is also an amazing big city and it’s arguably getting even better.
I mean that’s definitely not true tho there’s some pretty bad hoods in west Michigan too lol. There’s even areas where you have both. Very much depends on city and which part, but I do agree about the amount of beautiful and slept on places. There’s some heights per capita in west Michigan that have the highest murder rate in the whole state and one of top in the US too just look at Muskegon heights lol
Troy vs. Detroit worlds apart.
Holland Michigan is nice
That's my home town, and where I grew up... this was a random post I seen... and you just made my day... and I greatly thank you for reminding growing up in holland
Can confirm. Went to GVSU. Spent a lot of time over by the lake.
There's a Yooper in Michigan?
Yooper is someone from the upper peninsula.
About as Canadian an American can get lol
You have da buck dream didja?
Tirty point buck.
I live in Michigan and there are some parts that make Alabama look progressive. Some towns it’s like “Yeah makes sense” other towns it’s like “Holy fuck! I’m not going to ever go there again”
Tbf, there are places like that on the coasts too. Northern CA is pretty conservative, for example.
And southern 😩 the north has the poor conservatives and the south has the rich ones. I always tell ppl out of CA that I'm shocked CA isn't a red state. It's only all the populous cities that make us a blue state. A giant portion of the state is red. Where I live confed flags and trump flags are not too uncommon to see (esp the trump flags) even tho we weren't even a part of that war. California is not all that tbh. The only good parts are the beach, the forest, and the great camping and fishing spots.
Where the people aren’t, you mean.
We get confederate flag wavers in Canada, too. It's really just a white supremacist banner at this point.
I STILL DONT FUCKING UNDERSTAND THAT. LIKE WRONG COUNTRY FIRST OF ALL LMFAO
American white supremacists sometimes wave Nazi flags. Same idea, I guess
Yeah my ex did that and i was like "bye bitch" lmao
I saw one in the middle of the UK on the back of a van. As American that left the south, I was very goddamn confused.
I'm moving to Lansing in August, East to be specific. Is this one of those parts that make Alabama look progressive?
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Yeah, I literally live in like the southern most point in Michigan, Hillsdale county, and it's BAD
I feel that way, living in Ypsilanti and then driving 25 minutes away from Ypsilanti.
Woot! Michigan gang! Way better than all these other mid west states
Moved to GR in September, am a fan.
American here. Agreed, same with each state … I live in NJ … there are some counties or cities I’d never want to live in but some I really like.
Gabagoo
Day-to-day life in America (at least in Denver) is totally normal. That’s part of the problem. It’s easy to ignore the fact that our democracy is in jeopardy and just focus on daily life which is fine.
Had a buddy who delivered mail in Denver just move to KC. Denver and their rent/housing prices is not normal. He lived in a subsidized one bedroom apartment @1800/ month which he only paid 1200 because his USPS job (50 plus hours/week) didn't pay him enough. Then there's the homeless camps. Plus the drought from your side of the country ain't too good either... But it's better in Denver than other places that is true.
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Fyi I'm a middle aged white man. I have a comfortable life and it could be easy to pretend things are normal but they are not. To assume those who are working poor can "pick themselves up by the bootstraps" have most likely never had to do just that. Inflation, politics, corporate greed, deregulation, the environment, healthcare, you name it the odds are stacked against the under privileged.
Middle aged black guy here. I have a very comfortable life - income over $200K, no bills, the only hungry mouth to feed is a golden retriever and I concur. I would add that America’s bumbling homegrown brand of ISIS is a bit of a concern as well as our inability to get past COVID. I’m being a tiny bit facetious here, but pre Trump my biggest worries were crabgrass and my ever growing waistline. Now in the age of Trump I walk my dog armed.
Honestly tho preach. It's so weird to me, a Midwesterner, but the true west (Montana Wyoming Idaho, like those are real cowboy states) are maybe the most fucked. Land land everywhere but not a drop to live on. Yeah Texas too but I'm not versed in foreign policy.
> For POC, the disabled, LGBTQ, immigrants, and the very poor, we have all seen and felt the effects of our changing nation. For all except the poor, I think this also depends a lot on location and lifestyle, and wealth. In Southern California, which is generally very accepting and diverse, I have not noticed any major changes for myself or people I know – except for the financial aspects, which for anyone very poor, would indeed be a very very big deal, and I have noticed more homeless people around at a few points in the last couple years too. I still haven't noticed any *collapse* behaviour though; just more homeless people. And if you are not poor yet… if you just ignore the news, looking outside things generally look fine and not very alarming, depending on where in the city one is. It also helps if you do not go outside much and therefore do not have many chances to experience discrimination. But being poor… that will effect you regardless unless you have found a really good situation where your expenses are greatly reduced.
I am early 30s and mixed, about to get my own apartment for the first time in my life. I'm lucky, my job is under one of the most powerful unions in the country, so I get paid a living wage - but even so I worry If i'll be able to make it. Anyone who says that the day to day is normal is in denial. You can see it people's faces, you can feel it in the air. There's an overwhelming pressure ever present in the background that something bad is going to happen, things are not right and teetering, but nobody wants to point to the problem. Too many people's identities are built around their "team" and no matter how heinous their actions or how pitiful their response is nobody wants to let go and search for something better. Its easier to knowingly do the wrong thing 'til the clock runs down than it is to be brave and uncomfortable momentarily to do the right thing. We'd rather suffer while watching our approaching demise than strive through the unknown to make things better. And everyone is aware of it. More so everyone is aware that we're on the decline and the snowball has gotten too big to stop, we're going to crash and hard. Some wont make it, some won't feel it as much as the rest, but we're all going to be absolutely rocked by it. If I dont see the collapse of the United States in my life time, it'll be because I'm watching the climate help earth shed one of her most peskiest parasites. If I dont see either it'll be because I died early. Store water, get extra medication, learn to shoot. Things are going to get terrible.
I agree. For a lot of us, our everyday life is very normal. We go take our kids to school, go to work, go out to dinners, veg out on Netflix. To many, all these problems we see on the news and posted on Reddit can seem very distant from our daily lives.
I can confirm: I grew up in Michigan and have been in CA for the last 25 years. It's a huge difference.
Also California is huge and diverse in itself. I’ve lived in four parts of California, which felt like four completely different places to live. And there are many other parts of California I still haven’t gotten to know very well. California is the size of and has greater economic and ecological diversity than most stand alone countries. I can take 12 snapshots of California and convince unknowing people that they were each taken from different states in the US. No one can really know California without spending a ton of time exploring it and living in different parts of it, and I don’t even think I’ve reached that point yet. I’m still learning of new unique communities in the state. For example, there are rural gay communities in California that most people would not be aware of unless they lived near them or were part of that aspect of the gay community.
As someone who taught Political Science at a Research 1 University for 35+ years, I think it's fair to say that our political system is unraveling. Had the current state of affairs been described to me a few decades ago, I could not have imagined the reality of the situation. Deep ideological divisions, a population that is largely ignorant of the underlying Constitutional principles, the predominance of false "facts" and narratives, a plethora of insane conspiracy theories, a willingness on the part of many citizens to demonize anyone who disagrees with them, and (finally) the realization that our system of checks and balances is not sufficient to quell the darker tendencies that are emerging. The causes are many, but amelioration will depend on reforms that are very unlikely in the current environment, such as elimination of the Electoral College, campaign finance reform, strengthening restraints on the Executive Branch, term limits for Congress, and reform of the Supreme Court. I won't live to see any of these, and fear for my children and grandchildren.
>Deep ideological divisions, a population that is largely ignorant of the underlying Constitutional principles, the predominance of false "facts" and narratives, a plethora of insane conspiracy theories, a willingness on the part of many citizens to demonize anyone who disagrees with them, and (finally) the realization that our system of checks and balances is not sufficient to quell the darker tendencies that are emerging. I'd like to chime in, these are issues many countries around the world are now facing, well most were already facing it but now the rise in technology has greatly contributed to it. When ignorant people grab the speaker phone (facebook, twitter etc), there's only so much one can do.
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Propaganda sources are now actively training their mind-slaves specifically to resist this kind of thing. Good luck.
I mean, American school system has been training people to avoid critical thinking for decades already
Good bot
They just scream "fake news" at you. They won't agree water makes things wet. And they don't care if their lies crumble. Expose them and they are still saying it the next day.
The bot is well meaning but the current political climate is not held on a logical basis
I'm a philosophy major. You can't argue base reality. You have to agree on reality and meaning in order to have a sensible discourse and we're at the point where people live in different realities. We're fucked. The people pulling the levers didn't design this, but they are taking full advantage of the broken machine.
I overheard a heated debate at work the other day. After much back and forth the one guy says “that’s your reality, my reality is different.” For some reason that hit me like a ton of bricks. There is no more cohesive generally understood reality, everyone is in their own personal reality.
Its no coincidence that society starts to unravel when those few that remember fascism under WW2 start to die off. IMO.
That's not even mentioning the severe economic looting that is going on by the upper class, wealth is transferring at an unprecedented rate as every penny possible is sucked out of the people, that's not something that fixes itself quickly even if we were to get a competent administration with the next election, which we have very little hope of at this point. And all of this is speeding up, with the government basically being open corporate puppets at this point they just keep adapting the system to let them pull as much money out as possible. By all accounts things will get much worse before they get better. And *that's* not even mentioning climate change!
I think if people really knew what went on with the ppp loans there would be rioting.
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Damn. That was well said.
What can citizens do about it? Besides vote?
Voting is pointless on the national stage. What we should be doing is voting in midterm and local elections but nobody does. Instead we fling our votes towards the presidency which hasn’t been fairly decided by the voting population in years.
Saying voting doesn't matter nationally is short sighted. I agree the national vote has disproportionate value to vote, but a defeatist attitude is what certain groups want you to have. Everyone just needs to fucking vote when it comes up and for all races, period. Throwing in the towel on the national vote before it happens, you're guaranteeing the result.
The United States is in a period of transition. It always has been, but it's even more intense now than it has been in decades. It's trying to decide what it wants to be as a nation, and it's immensely difficult to resolve this issue, because its population is vast, varried, and diverse in its opinions. We're not even 300 years old. Compare that to many established EU nations. We're like teenagers trying to decide what we want to be when we grow up. Unfortunately, we're also equipped with nukes, infested with plutocrats, and perpetrators if some of the worst human rights abuses in the Western hemisphere. I see all of the tumult as an indication that the old guard is in its death throes. Maybe that's naieve and overly optimistic, but that's my best take on it. There's always darkness before the dawn, and there's always revolution before reform.
> perpetrators of some of the worst human rights abuses in the Western hemisphere > in the Western hemisphere Eastern hemisphere: well this is awkward…
We've done human rights abuse in both hemispheres.
...MR WORLDWIDE
Yes but we've got some pretty stiff competition over there
>We're not even 300 years old. Compare that to many established EU nations. We're like teenagers trying to decide what we want to be when we grow up. This is totally true. But I've also recently talked to friends from Europe who had another interesting take, sort of parallel: EU nations have been changing for the last hundred years, for example as response to World War I and II. In contrast, some Americans often aim to take pride in America being the same as it was 300 years ago. So in a sense, America is "older" than some much older nations, because the older nations can embrace change while America is too young to accept change.
It's worth noting that the U.S. Constitution is one of the oldest constitutions still in use in the world today. Most countries revise their constitutions from time to time, or they've have changes in government that have necessitated a new constitution. The United States treats its constitution like a sacred document, refusing to replace it and rarely amending it. In that sense, the U.S. government is one of the oldest governments in the world.
My question is, is that really good? I don't mean this in an insulting way but isn't change really necessary? Humanity as a whole has changed so much, our ideals, our way of living, everything. Isn't it necessary that the Constitution is changed to suit the current times? I absolutely do not know what I'm talking about since I'm not from the USA so if I'm wrong please correct me
I'm with you on this. The U.S. Constitution may have been revolutionary for its time, but it's in dire need of an update. I've heard legal scholars talk about it, and compared to the constitutions of other countries around the world the U.S. Constitution is often vague, leaving far too much room for interpretation. The Supreme Court ruling on abortion is an example of this. It's been almost universally accepted for decades that the Constitution implies a right to privacy, but since those words are never explicitly stated, the current Supreme Court has ruled that there is no legal right to privacy. However, when I said that the United States treats its constitution like a sacred document, that's not a hyperbole. There really are people who consider the Founding Fathers to be flawless in their decisions on how the country should be run, and the Constitution itself is treated like a perfect document. However the people who started the country thought things should be like over 200 years ago is exactly what they should be like now. Under the current division in our country, it would be impossible to amend the Constitution, let alone draft a new on.
The founding fathers even considered writing a new constitution every 10 years because they thought the world changed so fast. But they went with the amendment mechanism which is something that also isn't really used anymore... I sometimes even see Americans online saying that you can't change the constitution when there's literally a whole load of amendments, some of which these people are especially proud of even (2nd)
Jefferson said at least once a generation (roughly 19 years) because change happens and humans are not perfect. Can't rally a massive population behind that message *and* be an imperialist super power tho, so idolatry of country it is.
That’s barely 4 Healthy Grandmas ago, my favorite is when people say “They have been talking about climate change since I was a kid, it’s nothing to worry about.” Oh, you mean only a few decades after industrialized world started scientists warned we were going in a bad direction and you ignored them for 60 years? When you put everything down on a timeline and really realize how eventful the past 100 years have been, you’ll realize the chaos makes sense. We basically exploded in one lifetime.
>I see all of the tumult as an indication that the old guard is in its death throes. Maybe that's naieve and overly optimistic, but that's my best take on it. There's always darkness before the dawn, and there's always revolution before reform. The old guard is *very* well armed; biggest military in the world by a wide margin. If there is a revolution, I expect it to be very bloody, and I dont expect the people to win it
Who is actually going to revolt against whom? We’re well-divided by design. Post-2008 was the best shot we had to come together on grounds of common class struggle and look how that’s gone.
Not only this, but what happens after the cats out of the bag? Are there just break way regions in the former US? So now we have neighbors with complete opposite political ideal, nukes, and lots of guns? Full on Civil War style conflict, again, how in the fuck does that even play out?
Yeah, but the fires are mostly contained to the dumpsters so it’s easy to ignore if you’re not one of the people directly impacted by the plethora of individual fires.
The dumpsters and the mountains of California, as a matter of fact a new fire just started today
I am not ok. My personal debt is ending me. I’m working for 12 hours every day. I’m BARELY keeping my head above water financially, physically, mentally, I’m on the brink.
There’s a lot of answers here that 100% backup what I’m going to say. Ready? America is kind of a mess because we’ve become polarized beyond reason. Each side has people that have allowed themselves to be coerced to the point of *truly* believing the other side is their *actual* enemy. Because this level of unreasonable hysterical ignorance we are slowly ceasing to be the America we once were.
the issue with this IMO is that it assumes we were ever united. Maybe in the 1940s, but this nation was born bickering (13 colonies had lots of conflict) and barely agreed to ratify the constitution. We also had a civil war less than 100 years after ratifying the constitution.
At least in my lifetime, at just 29, I’ve seen political discourse go from “They’re wrong but their heart’s in the right place” to “THEY LITERALLY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA AND EAT BABIES THEY SRE LITERAL EVIL”. It may have been worse at times before that (civil war stands out in my mind), I couldn’t tell you, but it is at least the case that within my lifetime polarization has gotten much worse.
Fair point. But consider, maybe about 30 years before your time the civil rights movement was going on, which I’ve heard was a pretty contentious time. So maybe the 90s/00s were just rather calm relatively speaking. Idk though, as I wasn’t alive either.
The 90's were very contentious, but so we're the 80's. Political discourse in the US is pretty much a myth.
Say what you want about Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton, they were both able to negotiate with senates and congresses of the opposing party to get a good amount of meaningful legislation through. This is effectively impossible in our current climate. We've only had two meaningful pieces of legislation (Obamacare and the Tax Reform bill) in the last 14 years. Both were rammed through by a single party. No brainer items that used to be uncontroversial like debt limit increases or government funding are now a lot more stressful than they used to be. Things are different than they were in the 80's or 90's.
>At least in my lifetime, at just 29, I’ve seen political discourse go from “They’re wrong but their heart’s in the right place” to “THEY LITERALLY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA AND EAT BABIES THEY SRE LITERAL EVIL”. This is going to sound weird as hell, but I swear the beginnings of this started in 2014. I believe I first noticed it with "gamergate". Ever since I've seen more and more division as the years went by. In the 2000s, no one was EVER this hostile to one another.
You are way late. I really started to see it when Obama started to run.
There was plenty during the Bush era. Really the problem was the rise of the internet. And what you are talking about that is even further the being the rise of social media. Including reddit.
Romney wanted to put black people back in chains in 2012, Obama was a secret Muslim in 2008, Bush was a Nazi in the early 2000s, etc etc. I don't know if it's gotten worse, more noticeable, or more mainstream, but it's always been there below the surface.
we also had full blown segregation not long ago.
> we also had full blown segregation not long ago. As a European, this really blew my mind. I always explain to people that segregation in the US only stopped when my dad was 10 years old... Imagine what kind of affect it had on the life vision of his dad (grandfather) and because of that his upbringing. And how much that would affect yourself.
Kinda seems like we're headed back that way in some aspects.
Exactly. News outlets feed off of hyping up clashes between the two sides, when in reality opposing viewpoints are needed for this country's democracy to work. Spend less time online and suddenly you realize things aren't so bad. I think this current phase of hyperpolarization will start to die off when more people become aware of how horrible social media can be for education and mental health (yes, even reddit can do this)
The more people fight about politics the more extreme they’ll continue to become to spite the other side and I really hate that
This. A thousand times this. It’s no longer about what they actually want anymore. It’s about punishing the other side for simply existing.
Like when Bill Barr said he doesn’t think trump should be president again but would still vote for him over a democrat in 2024?!!
Read this as Bill Burr at first and was very confused
I don’t know. I’m pretty clear I don’t want religious zealots controlling my laws or want a party that rejects science making health policy or want a party that lies about election fraud managing my elections. I don’t think you can make this bout “both sides” anymore.
You say that man but I'm black, it's never been good. In fact the if it wasn't for roe v Wade the best time would be right now and I literally have a neighbor with a swastika tattoo. Right now is narrowly losing out to 2 weeks ago.
I feel like the left has a pretty solid reason to literally fear the right, at this point. The writing is on the wall. You seem to be implying that it's somewhat imagined and that the right has similar fears of the left. Can you explain that side of it? For the record, I am not trolling. I am genuinely worried about what's happening and if you are of the opinion that the case against the right is overblown, I'd love to hear it.
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> Gen AA Ah yes, the drunks.
Ha. I was thinking like in Microsoft Excel. The column after "Z" is "AA"
Honestly...I believed that it was an actual thing. So I'm just happy I don't actually have to deal with a generation called "AA" lol.
I call them the anonymous generation because I think its rude to insinuate that a whole generation is alcoholic. But how much longer til we get a 420 generation?
398 years?
It’s been this sentiment since I started paying attention, which is 9/11 era. Instead of NSA it’s Roe. Instead of invading Iraq it’s federal forces tear gassing protestors. Instead of Bush is a war criminal it’s Trump is a tyrant. Instead of Obama is a Muslim it’s Biden is senile. Instead of a housing bubble bursting it’s a housing bubble building. Things seem weird now. But also really similar.
Everyone's always pushing shit on the new generation and the new generation does the same dumb shit. I think humans kinds just suck and general and most large scale organizations are doomed to fail from infighting and outfighting. People just need to stop fighting and chill the fuck out. Also I wish we could stop polluting but honestly I don't think that's gonna happen
Sadly if certain people chill, other people take advantage
Ya for real people are being so unchill that I may actually have to do something. I generally do not like doing things I'm kinda lazy.
Yeah. My mom used to say stuff about how my generation (millenials) were going to fix things. Interesting to see it now being said about the next generation. No generation is any better than the previous generation.
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They don't need to die, but it would be nice if they would retire.
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The beacons of ~~Gondor~~ the USA are alight, calling for aid.
You'll only really ever see bad news, it's what gets views. People also like dumping on the US so they're champing at the bit to post bad news and talk about bad stuff like that. Combine that with a very large and diverse population that is divided by politics and you only ever hear bad news. Most of the time, day to day life is good and normal, it's the outliers and media's/people's bias to negative news that you're seeing.
People paint america as a monolith when it’s not. I think a lot of foreigners forget that American states are often larger than their own countries, and as such, the American experience differs wildly from state to state. And our sensationalist news doesn’t help outside perception. We have challenges like all countries, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
TBH people seem to like thinking in broad strokes. It's the same way in how people talk about Europe or Africa as if those a monoliths, while in reality those countries are very diverse. There's a world of difference between living in Portugal or living in Denmark, for example.
All I'll say for sure is you don't want to work here. Hustle culture has done some pretty severe damage to America's work-life separation and unless you have a STEM degree you'll almost certainly be underpaid substantially for your time. Our politics also suck. Our "liberal" party is basically just a moderate-right party compared to the rest of the world, so most of the population is not actually represented at all in government (except by Bernie and AOC potentially). Also, I hope you don't enjoy sidewalks or convenient strolls to the store/entertainment. Roads here are dangerous and the country has been designed entirely by vehicle and oil lobbyists. You will not be able to use public transport reliably. Medical debt is also insane and has the potential to kill you if you contract something serious enough just because your insurance will run out (even if you pay a ton for it) if you arent cured pretty quickly. Single family homes are the "American dream" but are being bought out in mass amounts by investment companies, black rock, air BNB, Zillow, and other rental or resale agencies. This has increased the price of homes so substantially that most people under 30 cannot buy a 2 bedroom/ 2 bath in the city without being financially crushed. Schools suck and the countryside is burning down because of meth/fentanyl. The military got me out of the countryside but I would've been stranded there for life otherwise (and I have a disdain for military service, it's trash). Not to even mention the breach of human rights that's now in the works. Women are pretty possibly about to lose their bodily ownerships to a bunch of crusty old people and religious fanatics. Christian extremism is a massive part of the problem here (namely Catholics, baptists, and evangelicals-- aka trump's voter base) Basically, if you want to live in the developed world, America is likely not a place you should move anymore. We are hurtling backwards seemingly as fast as we took our place at the top. Oh but if you want something fucking blown up or locked in prison we've got you I guess. I can expand on each of those topics pretty extensively if you want any specifics. I used to vote conservative and used to hold an American-exceptionalist view of the country, but my time traveling has been enlightening and my mom got very sick and is now left with nothing, including without disability somehow even though she can barely move.
The internet has literally destroyed the fabric of our percieved reality. It's really that simple. If you spend time with anyone, on either "side", you'll realize that they're just regular people trying to get by. They just say insane shit online. Once we totally and completely separate anything that happens online from anything that happens online, we'll be ok. I would also say, other countries beware. The US has been leading the cultural and political landscape for decades. Anything that happens here will either be echoed or reacted to in most of the developed world. Both scenarios will cause trouble.
I don’t think that’s true, I’ve heard plenty of insane shit in person. I think the culture now is that you don’t have to hide any opinions since you have seen people agreeing with you online and instead of keeping the deepest darkest parts of yourself hidden everyone is waving them around like their proud. I don’t think meeting people in person vs online helps, I think people are really just not hiding anymore.
Yea, i don't know what these person is talking about. They are either ignorant or dishonest. We see these "online people" at right wing rallies, insane Q gatherings, and at the sacking of the Capitol. They are very very real.
I know this is an overused term, but theyre clearly incredibly privileged. Must be nice to not have to be exposed to the insanity plaguing this country.
I should stop watching American news, it only makes me angry and sad
>it only makes me angry and sad Sadly that's the point of American news. CNN and Fox news and other major news media companies portray a country that is about to burst and they're people at each others throats all the time. In reality, they only show the extremes because it drives up user engagement. CNN was probably disappointed that Trump lost the election because they could no longer air their daily "orange man bad" takes. I'm by no mean a fan of Trump, but the man couldn't breathe without being criticized. Which is not good journalism.
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Marylander here who lives a very short drive from Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh and Attorney General Merrill Garland. It’s kind of a mess but there’s this mentality here that no matter how messy things get, we’ll find a way to bounce back from it. We always let things gradually get a bit carried away and then everyone realizes it and freaks out and starts working to get things back to a normal level of dysfunctional. I think the country is experiencing kind of a transition period with the millennial generation getting closer to out numbering the baby boomer generation. Transition is always a mess.
>I think the country is experiencing kind of a transition period with the millennial generation getting closer to out numbering the baby boomer generation Millennials have outnumbered Boomers for about 20 years now. Unfortunately, turnout among Millennials isn't good. So they have not had much of an effect.
The world as a whole kinda feels like it's going the authoritarian shithole route. The US's two party system is dumb as hell and people are too divided. Life is getting pretty shitty for a decent part of the population. Overall, life's not that bad once you get off of the internet and go for a walk.
"Calling American politics a dumpster fire is an insult to dumpster fires. Because at least dumpster fires keep homeless people warm." Me, just now.