This is applicable to Americans in the country and better answered if you actually live in it. The question stands - have you given up on America or do you really think there is a shred of a chance for a turnaround?

I think I have given up on America for it to do anything better for itself. I think the passing general election nailed the final nail in the coffin, that people who voted wrongly, wanted to worsen things in general to appease selfish personal agendas.

I think Americans in general really are set in stone about baking a cake and having it too with their interesting levels of double standards. They complain about big tech having your information, but turn around wanting you to sign a petition that asks for your information. They complain about commercials all year long, but will tune in by the millions for a Super Bowl. They complain about unfair wages, bad workplace environments and shitty bosses but didn’t make so much of a fuss during the pandemic.

There’s just too many things internally wrong with this country, that dampens what hope I ever had for it. Politicians and the “Real Owners” want to keep Americans dumb, complacent, tight and stressed to do anything. But if you give Americans a bit of leverage that could chip at those odds, they shit the fucking bed with their own incompetence.

So what gives, really? Live your life, do the best you can for yourself and those around you. Live another day but god damn fuck the majority of Americans and this country in general.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 month ago

    I think we’ll turn it around, though stuff like USAID is going to be difficult to bring back quickly. Institutions like NOAA will need to be rebuilt. There will need to be strong anti-corruption measures as well.

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      61 month ago

      Considering USAID has always been a system primarily for regime change and undermining other countries, the pivot away from it and towards more overt control of other countries is a signifier of the US Empire losing its grasp on the rest of the world, which is fantastic news for the Global South.

  • flandish
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    21 month ago

    i have given up. I mean, I had when I was a developing young adult and while I am in my mid 40’s now, it’s only embiggened my concerns. it’s taboo here on .world but I truly think the problem is the current era’s phase of capitalism’s expansion especially with the adaptation to technology in the last 50 years.

    there was, truly, no time when this country was great; and I’d posit there is no time when any country is as they exist to extract and exploit.

    there is no where to go.

    so what I do and have done for 20 some odd years now is try to affect (effect??) change in my community. my “city” is like 14k people. I am a firefighter, first responder, and help where I can elsewhere when I see it. i vote. make my concerns known at town hall, especially against how much our PD is expanding due to “safety” horseshit. I help others vote, I mean to say help them realize they can, where to go, etc. I joke but am kind of serious too when I tell our selectmen that the reason I like supporting my small town is because we know where they live. They get the point with a chuckle and then ask for my votes.

    • comfy
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      21 month ago

      affect (effect??)

      Yeah, I think ‘affect’ is right. ‘Affect’ (verb) means ‘to change’, while an ‘effect’ (noun) is the result. Shining a light on your face will affect you by creating a blinding effect. I may be oversimplifying it but there are plenty of articles about the two often-confused words that go into more detail if you care.

  • @[email protected]
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    61 month ago

    No, the US is lost. This is a situation that voting cannot possibly fix. We cannot say what needs to be done without getting banned. We cannot even post pictures of a guillotine or a Mario based video game character on most sites.

    It’s not political, that is the distraction game … it is the billionaires doing this; however, we cannot break out of the disinformation they create.

    • @[email protected]
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      61 month ago

      “All hope is lost. There’s nothing I can do without going outside into the real world.”

  • @[email protected]
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    81 month ago

    If everyone gave up on a place when futures there look bleak, there wouldnt be a place left in the world worth living in.

  • @[email protected]
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    21 month ago

    Nope. America has been through all of these things before. It’s why reading history gives me a lot of comfort.

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      111 month ago

      Reading history and analyzing trends gives me comfort in knowing the genocidal settler colony of the US Empire can’t save itself for much longer, and a new, democratic, anti-Imperialist, de-colonial, Socialist state can take its place.

  • Libra00
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    1 month ago

    Turnaround to what, exactly? A retreat from fascism would be great, don’t get me wrong, but what we had before wasn’t exactly working otherwise we wouldn’t have found ourselves in this situation. As much as Democrats like to blame Donald Trump for literally everything (and he’s certainly done enough), he’s just the manifestation of peoples’ resentment and desperation at how much this country doesn’t work for most of its people.

    Worse still, even if there is a return to the status quo from say 10-20 years ago, aside from not fixing the problem, that will just make everyone focus more on their relief at not being under a fascist regime anymore and thus they will become even more complacent about the things that didn’t work before. The politicians who opposed this backslide into fascism - and their ‘vote blue no matter who’ supporters - will be ever more convinced of the rightness of their position and thus have even less reason to change anything, so we’ll just wind up right back here again.

    But also, let’s address your specific complaints.

    They complain about big tech having your information, but turn around wanting you to sign a petition that asks for your information.

    Yeah, let’s not actually try to, you know, do anything about any of this, let’s just sit around and let those tech-bros enshittify their platforms and cram ads down our throats. Let’s not inconvenience anyone with a protest or a petition or a call to your representative, for shame! Also if you can’t see the difference between a giant, all-devouring megacorporation having your data and putting your email/phone# on a petition then I’m afraid it’s going to take more effort than I care to muster to unfuck your worldview, so, uh, good luck figuring that one out on your own.

    They complain about commercials all year long, but will tune in by the millions for a Super Bowl

    Are you sure these are the same people? You’re painting with an extremely broad brush here. I only have anecdotal evidence to offer, but I complain about commercials and I haven’t watched a Super Bowl ad in probably 20 years.

    They complain about unfair wages, bad workplace environments and shitty bosses but didn’t make so much of a fuss during the pandemic.

    So your issue is both that they complain, and that they don’t complain hard enough? Talk about having your cake and eating it too, you’re straddling that fence so hard you’ve found a way to whine about both sides of the same issue.

    So what gives, really? … fuck the majority of Americans

    Apparently what gives is that you are confused and angry and lashing out at people you don’t know for perceived slights you don’t seem to understand, wishing for the impossible return to a magical happy place that never existed (go ahead, ask those of us who remember the 2008 crash how great the world of 20 years ago was, I dare you) because you don’t understand that there is a world of distance between ‘not a complete dumpster fire’ and ‘actually decent.’ You seem to be mad at people who don’t vote the way you think they should without even attempting to understand where they’re coming from or what their motivations might be, you don’t seem capable of learning from the mistakes of the past that led to where we are today, or even particularly interested in acknowledging that they exist. You seem convinced despite generations of evidence that just voting harder will fix anything, and you ridicule the fact that other people have not somehow received this ultimate self-evident truth from on high as you have. And worst of all you seem too exasperated or confused by all of the above to try to actually change anything, you fail to understand, much less support and encourage, the means by which others are trying to do that, and you’re way too up your own ass to realize that everyone around you is a person with their own internal life, hopes, dreams, etc just like you, much less to have a shred of fucking empathy for anyone who isn’t within arm’s reach (and I’m skeptical about even that.)

    In short, what gives is: Fuck you, and while you’re at it read a book, you’re embarrassing yourself.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 month ago

    I left almost 10 years ago lol. It was always going to get worse before it gets better. This too shall pass.

  • Endymion_Mallorn
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    31 month ago

    I’m going to start with one phrase of yours that galls me: “voted wrongly”. There’s no such thing. There’s votes that you or others disagree with, but no such thing as a wrong vote. And as long as you keep going with the narrative that any vote against your preference is wrong, you’re going to make more enemies in places and times when you need allies.

    As far as my own hope? I don’t know. I only know that some people who were prosperous before are suffering now, and that some who were suffering are now prospering. I’m sure it will keep going like that. So I don’t know if it’s hope, but rather comfort in the knowledge that nothing ever ends. Giving up isn’t an answer I can accept, so I have to keep going and do what I can to build a future for myself and those I love.

  • Haus
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    101 month ago

    Given up? I don’t know. I’ve been appalled pretty much non-stop since 2000, though. When we were taught history, the X’ers learned that the pendulum always swings back the other way. And when you looked back, the notion always kind of held water. But, draw a line from Nixon through Reagan, the Bushes, to Trump, and the conclusions you’ll draw are pretty grim.

    There was an influential statement that was true in 1990 that was haunting, though: “The only presidential democracy with [more than 41 years] of constitutional continuity is the United States.” (I think there are around 5 others now between 40 and 70-something years old now.) Despite having a long run, this system isn’t particularly sturdy.

    We’ll see, I guess.

    • @[email protected]
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      61 month ago

      When the US tries it’s hand at nation building, and our government diplomats, consultants, and mentors are making suggestions to nascent nations in what kind of republic framework to use, we do not suggest the same Constitutional system we have. We normally try to guide others to a variation of parliamentary systems with a weak president figurehead.

      Our own government knows not to use it’s own model for other nations! It’s not that we’re exceptional, just that we’ve beaten the odds so far. We used to try to copy the US system other places, but they kept failing to executive branches that seized power. How the US held on as long as it did is a wonder. That said, it looks like our exceptional run is effectively over. The fox is in the henhouse and Congress is cheering the bloodbath.

      • ThermonuclearEgg [she/her, they/them]
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        121 month ago

        Of course, if you’re going to use US foreign policy, you have to include things like the 1973 coup in Chile when the US overthrew a democratically elected leader to install a dictator, because the US didn’t agree with the democratic leader’s politics

        • @[email protected]
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          61 month ago

          Yeah, our big democracy talk is just like the pirates code from Pirates of the Caribbean: flexible, with a strong vein of selfishness.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      But we’re damn sure not gonna give up fighting back.

      (DNC vice chair David Hogg earmarking 20 mil to primary centrist Dems, AOC potentially primarying Schumer, etc)

      An anti gun zealot and someone who voted to prevent union strikes.

      We are gonna give up fighting back if this is our future with the democrats. More reason to pass electoral reform so additional political parties can participate in the electoral process.

  • Ardens
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    41 month ago

    I have never bought into it, so nothing to give up, really… This is just an affirmation as to why…

  • @[email protected]
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    81 month ago

    I’m not seeing much hope in the future, so yes I’ve given up. I want to leave so goddamn bad.

  • @[email protected]
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    01 month ago

    I have given up. Collectively, we’re incapable of long range planning. Climate change and non-renewable resource depletion are intractable problems. A significant number of us refuse to even acknowledge the existence of the problems. Things will have to get massively worse before anyone will have any success in changing approaches.