Honestly I don’t know what’s going on in the USA. You’re so proud of your “democracy and freedom” yet one of your 2 political parties is able to effectively dismantle the entire thing in less than a decade. You’re now one election away from being a christofascist state.
…and yet you’re all just going to work tomorrow. You’re all doing pretty much nothing except “make sure you vote in 2024.” So I guess every 4 years you’re going to be one election away from a literal Nazi takeover?
I don’t know. Riot or something. I have no idea how you’re all coping so hard.
To bring a slightly different perspective here: we’re not coping.
Our suicide rate has increased 60% since 2011 among youth and young adults. Rates of mental illness have doubled in young people. About 1 in 5 young people in this country will experience depression.
Our rates of overdose deaths have doubled since 2011. Over 100,000 people died from drug use in this country in 2021.
One in five of our kids go hungry. One in five Americans live with mental illness.
When you look at these data they are absolutely alarming and the opposite of most other countries, whose rates are falling. We are not coping, people are just dying these “deaths of despair.”
Don’t forget how lonely people are now. There’s an initial ‘weird guy’ thing one has to get over when talking with someone unexpectedly here in the US.
“Hey, I like the style of that jacket, can I ask where you got it?” People are morose about how alone they feel, but struggle to escape the “rugged individualism” programming of this country, to where they default to feeling safer by shrinking back for a second, before realizing they can, and do, have space to honestly interact with someone else who doesn’t actually want something from them. Well, other than pleasant acknowledgement of our short existence at the same place and time.
For sure, the deaths are simply the final outcome of a vast amount of suffering that cannot accurately be measured.
The corrosion of community, friendship, and third spaces are all well documented sociological phenomena that our country has yet to sufficiently address. Part of this is due to the decline in religious worship, which, while not a bad thing per se, does reduce a historically large source of socialization for our country. Part of this is due to the urbanization of our country over the last 30-50 years, and the hollowing out of many small towns. And of course part of it is due to the increased toxicity of our political systems, workplaces, and economic realities that limit our participation in society.
I guess all of that to say - none of this is an individual issue, it’s all systemic and part of the same sociological story. Feeling like a weird person for interacting with a stranger isn’t an isolated incident. It’s more a testament to how much has changed about our social world in the last 30-50 years.
Not to mention a large part of the population being addicted to legal opioids.
In Europe people take just a paracetamol or ibuprofen if they have a headache or sore muscle or something like that. In the US a lot of people take stuff like oxycodone (OxyCotin) or hydrocodone (Vicodin), for even simple pains.
These drugs make the whole going to shit thing a bit easier to handle whilst at the same time contributing to it.
Well, you need a prescription for those, so people do take lots of tylenol (aka acetaminophen, aka paracetamol) or ibuprofen. The problem is, it’s too easy to get prescription for opioids, and they get prescribed for relatively little things (but not for just e.g. a headache).
That said, I feel things are changing, people and authorities are openly admitting we have a opioid crisis, and there’s more awareness of the risks, which makes me think (hope) that doctors will be a bit more concerned before prescribing them. That said, I never got prescribed one, and probably won’t use them if I did.
Yes. This is the result of a privatized health system where the only outcome that matters is profit. Doctors write enough opioid prescriptions each year for 46% of Americans to receive one. (Source: https://drugabusestatistics.org/opioid-epidemic/)
It’s absolute madness, but I do think the prescribing is getting better slowly. Unfortunately, the massive jumps in ODs seem very related to fentanyl taking over an illicit drug market that used to be primarily heroin and rx opiates. When I worked on national drug use surveys ~8 years ago, fentanyl was not a part of the landscape at all. Things have changed so quickly.
…and yet you’re all just going to work tomorrow.
Now that’s where you’re wrong, buddy. Tomorrow’s Sunday.
And on Sunday the people in the US go to church like the good Christians they are. Afterwards they will abuse the staff at their local food dispenser, because they are pieces of shit that don’t even go to church.
Yes. Sunday is for working on your side hustle to try to actually get ahead instead of just treading water and trying to pay rent on time.
I wouldn’t listen to the everything is exaggerated and it is really just fine. We are boiling frogs.
Our economy hasn’t collapsed, so there isn’t going to be any dramatics like a movie or show
Rioting won’t do anything. The GOP voters and media outlets will frame at as anything that isn’t far right is bad.
In many ways, things are bad. We have large parts of the country completely dependent on cars. One of our chief judiciaries should be impeached. A former state governor actually faced criminal charges for far less than Clarence Thomas has been doing. The GOP is trying to dismantle public schools via privatization/vouchers, textbook manipulation, and gagging teachers. The GOP just might nominate Trump even though he is facing so many lawsuits his nickname should be The Defendant.
Right now, the Democrats far outnumber the GOP, buy the GOP has way better turn out. Saying vote constantly is to use our best defense, overwhelmingly defeats of these people in the elections. If all eligible voters voted, things would be quite different
Oh, and don’t forget: things are so gerrymandered that Democrats usually have to win something like 2/3 to 3/4 of the popular vote in a state to get over 50% in their state legislatures.
I am not exaggerating. This is a real thing.
Well it sucks that I have to"register" to vote. Like what? I am a white skinned American, I was born and raised here. I do not need some stupid registration card to show that I live in my town. Fucking idiot government officials. I HAVE AN ID THAT SHOWS WHERE I LIVE!
Registration is something the far right pushes for because it keeps “the wrong people” from voting.
Oops, your white supremacy is showing!
lol did you say “white skinned” as if it meant “red blooded”? because I really hope you are just oblivious to how fucked up that sounds
We’re coping by voting. And if our voting fails, it’s not like anything else would succeed.
What do you want us to do, summon the Assassin’s Creed?
General strike?
Too many people are paycheck to paycheck. They’re too afraid to commit to industry strikes, let alone a (illegal, cuz of fucking course it is) general strike.
This is also the reason we’ll never see real universal healthcare.
Three days of a general strike would suffice.
Revolt and overthrow your shitty government.
If we just overthrow our existing government, why would something better magically show up in its place?
Because by that time you’ll have grown the fuck up and taken ownership of your country and your actions enough to implement one.
It won’t be like in the movies. Brutal fighting house to house.
And then there’s the whole did you see what we did to Iraq in a month?
Thanks to Bush II army can operate in the US during “times of crisis”.
So vote.
More excuses. It’s going to get ugly and will only get uglier the lonfer you continue to be selfish and avoid it.
You’re just some brainwashed sheep trying to justify being a brainwashed sheep and you will bring untold suffering to everyone else because of it.
Removed by mod
Bruh really thinks not causing complete chaos and instability is being selfish.
Wow, a pile of insults hiding a weak counterargument, color me surprised.
You know a population organized enough to overthrow the U.S. government will simply overthrow evil corporations too, right? You did consider that, did you?
After all, if you think you’re so smart then the American people certainly are smart enough to do so.
You heard it here ladies, gents, and others. A pile of insults is defined as more than two, and a three paragraph counterargument with multiple points is considered weak and undermined by one “haha, bet you didn’t think of that!” sentence. Sorry bruv. Gotta hard disagree with your stance. I agree things are f***** i ti distopia, but a single organized revolution is both insufficient and monumentally difficult to achieve.
And your response is to quibble about what “a pile of insults” means so you don’t have to address what I or anyone else is asking you at all.
We’re gonna try this again. Did you consider the fact that an armed, organized second American revolution can topple evil corporations as well as it could the U.S. government, if one existed? Yes or no
Perhaps, before suggesting people engage in violence or protest, you should do some research as to why they don’t, why it hasn’t occurred to them; what is the resistance?
It’s not an easy rabbit hole to follow, and I had to do the dive, myself. Heck, I was so certain the world by now would have a constitution wiki in which every national charter was translated. It would feature a workshop area where legal scholars could hone clauses like including ranked choice voting into US federal elections. Because so many improvements are no-brainers.
Eventually I realized such a beast didn’t exist, and legal scholars aren’t into that. It raises the question: why?
So, for now I’m going to say, just like yesterday, you should get on your knees and pray we don’t get fooled again.
You ask how we’re coping then basically call us stupid. Fuck you. You think I wouldn’t do what I can to make sure my kids have a free future? Or any future at all with the climate crisis? I do everything I can to make sure they have a future while still being able to provide for them in the present. I’m glad shit is working out for you though.
If all you consume is news and social media – which have incentives to show the most extreme views, events, and content – you’re going to have a distorted picture of the world as a 100% awful, dangerous place.
But most of the time, in most parts of the world, most people are just living their lives. I live in the Portland, OR area and you would have thought by the news coverage of the 2020 George Floyd riots that the city was burning to the ground; in reality, the disruptions were limited to a few square blocks downtown. For the most part the majority the city went on like usual.
There’s a lot more nuance to things about the US, too, than those outside realize.
People do fight back, every day. Our courts are prosecuting Trump. The House Speaker loony you mention in the thread came about only after a long, drawn out debate; the Republican Party is incredibly divided and ineffectual right now. Roe vs. Wade fell, but many blue states strengthened protections. Mass shootings get a lot of press, but they affect a vanishingly small part of the population.
Obviously there are problems and not everything is fine. And we have to be vigilant. But this sentiment among people – especially certain Europeans I’ve noticed – that the US is just a pure dumpster fire is a wild exaggeration by people addicted to screen time.
I’m pretty sure, most of this sentiment would have been true for someone living in, say, Magdeburg, Germany in 1928.
I’m not saying that the US is inevitably turning into literally Hitler, but changes, revolutions can be very fast if certain tipping points are reached. Trump is prosecuted, yes, but are you sure that will stop him? There’s a good chance, he’ll walk away without any verdict that hinders his election. The supreme court is already very pro theocracy and a large part of the (voting) population is at least willing to risk someone like hard right republicans to take over.
You guys are already in a situation where something as basic as the democratic process is flawed (electoral college, gerrymandering, voting rights,…). Add to that the polarisation of the political debate, inability of “the government” to function due to mutual blockades, etc., etc. and you’re quickly at a point where a democracy can fall.
Things are always more dramatized in the media than they actually are.
We are usually not given a good example of how bad things actually happen. We imagine the barbarians storming the gate, raping and pillaging. That does happen, but more often, things getting worse is more complicated, and it affects different people at different times.
For the one in five (!!) children facing hunger, our society has failed. For a poor person with diabetes and no medical insurance, our society has already failed. For an uber driver with no family support whose car broke down and missed rent, facing an eviction, society is about to break down for them. I’m a dude in my mid thirties that writes code, so for me, things are fine, but if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and lose the ability to use my hands, society will probably fail for me.
More and more people are experiencing that failure. Most of us are fine, but our being fine is becoming incredibly fucking precarious. More often than not, society collapsing looks like a daily constitution saving throw that becomes harder and harder to pass, and more and more of us who have a stroke of bad luck here or there fail.
Understanding society this way is important, and it’s why solidarity is the foundation of leftist politics. I march for people without healthcare because I care about them, and also, because there but for the grace of god go I. Bakunin put this beautifully almost 200 years ago:
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.
I’m a dude in my mid thirties that writes code, so for me, things are fine, but if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and lose the ability to use my hands, society will probably fail for me.
Just in case that happens, don’t hesitate a second, don’t feed your flawed system a single dime, but buy tickets to a decent country with your nose and get affordable healthcare in one of the hundred+ countries you can visit visa-free. Returning is optional.
Signed: a dude in his mid-thirties that writes code, has lost the ability to use his hands for months twice so far and genuinely worries about holders of one of the most travel-suited passports seemingly being brainwashed into thinking they’re chained to freedomland or something.
Have you actually done what you’re suggesting? Because my understanding is that it is incredibly difficult to immigrate with a disability, even if you have useful skills. Profoundly more so if your disability has made you unable to work.
Without going into much details: yes, but it seems like you’re speaking of a permanent disability, while I had temporary disability in mind when I was writing that. A permanent one would require changing careers and a chunk of a lifestyle so large that emigration is peanuts in comparison.
Ha, thank you. Fortunately for me, I’m a dual citizen, with family happy to have me anytime. I suspect that day will come, though I really , really love the life and community I’ve built where I am and will be devastated to leave it.
I wish you many years of good health, friend!
One political party is publicly admitting they’re over the whole democracy thing and the former president is a Russian money-laundering asset who launched a coup and walked away without consequence.
Our political situation is one of the few things substantially more dramatic than the media portrayal.
Trust me. We’re totally not proud of our democracy and freedom. I grew up in the early 80s while what was left was being undermined by Reagan and Falwell’s Moral Majority.
As a credulous kid who believed the American Exceptionalism ideology, I grew up very disappointed. And in the aughts when George W. Bush started going severely autocratic, post PATRIOT Act realized then this was the direction we were going. Now I’m outraged that America is just a slave state with extra steps.
Trump’s 2015-2016 takeover of the Republican party was inevitable, and if Trump dies or becomes untenable as a political leader, it will only be a matter of time until the next #MussoliniFan seizes the party by being obnoxious in a pool of Aynn Rand idealogues.
We might be able to hold back the neutering of (our meager) democratic features in order to keep it from becoming a one party state even for a decade or three, on the grounds the US is big and complex and can be hacked the way dinosaur clones on Isla Nublar bred, migrated and survived a lysine addiction. Heck we may even engage in some sabotage.
But enough of us know where this is heading that it could be a difficult fight, while the knives are out in Republican-only spaces.
At the same time, yes, Christian Nationalist militants might start a civil war.
Anyway, tickets to ride this (proverbial) train were bought in the aughts. And the plutocrats who paid for it all have commissioned the railway in the 1960s after interracial marriage and the end of segregation. So you’re only seeing the last bit of the story. Check out our prisons and detention centers, if you want a taste of, well, you know.
This is the problem with being terminally online.
We don’t have a choice. It’s work or starve for most people. You can be fired for no reason at any time and the unemployment system is a joke. Even working many people are living out of tents. The entire lower socioeconomic strata is on the edge of a cliff so they literally can’t afford to do more than vote.
My prediction is if Christofascists get in power they will have 8 years where people treat it as normal. Then when it’s apparent they won’t ever fulfill their promise to help the working class (because it’s prosperity Christianity and poor people are bad people) there will be an attempt to vote them out. That’s when the country will wake up. Just in time to discover that fascists get kind of violent when you try to remove them from power.
The United States does not have a democracy. The United States Government is an enemy of democracy.
A serious analysis of our government and history exposes layers and layers of undemocratic rot in no particular order, and by no means exhaustively: The electoral college, police intimidation and violence against protestors, gerrymandering, regulatory capture, the historic and current slavery, segregation, and disenfranchisement of Black Americans, mass surveillance, imprisonment of Asian Americans, torture of prisoners, the genocide of Native American Indians, systematic destruction of voter registries, and the ability of our lawmakers to invest in the industries they regulate, and regulate the industries they invest in. This injury to our democracy is topped with insult as every one of these glaring injustices is either still festering in our government, or had to be taken down through immense sacrifice and pain, or for the aforementioned minority groups, represents an irreparable scar on our history.
The result is a Princeton study that, even according to its critics, describes our government as having only a 50/50 chance of serving the will of the American public.
And that’s just at home.
Abroad, the United States is a zealous and brutal enemy of democracy anywhere its true goals are threatened. Over the past century, the US has overthrown dictators and democracies alike in service of private wealth and power. They have murdered countless innocent people and left countless more to live and die in the aftermath. In at least one instance, just a few people in our government with a blank checkbook and no oversight or accountability were responsible for the destruction of democratic governments abroad.
The United States does not value democracy or freedom. It values the feeling of democracy and freedom while actually crushing people and taking everything they have unless they stand to benefit us more if we let them keep it.
in less than a decade
We get it, you have a very poor reductive view of American history and politics. This shit has been cooking for a very very very long time. Trump isn’t the disease he is a symptom, a very dangerous mutation but not the origin.
Ma’am we have been a christo fascist state dead set on ruining the planet since truman
you’re doing nothing
There are strikes against corporate bullshit and protests against what the government is doing all over the place damn near every day.
“able to effectively dismantle the entire thing”
???
Stop getting all your news from the clickbait articles.
- Yeah it was bad, the guy who did it is in jail and will likely go to prison. We still have a government and it has many problems but to say it’s been dismantled is just false.
- Just going to work tomorrow yeah, I have to eat still. TF you want me to do just not pay bills? Be homeless?
- “You’re all doing pretty much nothing” every city in the country has had enormous protests and even riots over the past 4-5 years. There’s a crazy amount of civil discourse right now coming from the right and the left. This is such a shitty reductive and condescending take. Tldr eat shit, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
