It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment in my life where America started to lose the plot.
It would be easy to wallow in this mess—to doomscroll as the world washes away.
But on this anniversary of the United States of America, I believe we are not without hope. It may feel like America has been careening along the highway of enshittification since the turn of the century, but the thing about driving on highways is that you can always take an off-ramp. The truly remarkable thing about this country is its ingenious ability—through elections, immigration, freedom of speech, and economic mobility—to constantly remake itself.
We need to become makers once again, working against the rage, the despair, the grifting, and the misinformation wherever we find them. And we can. Based simply on what I’ve seen as a journalist over the last quarter century, reasons for hope remain. It can be useful once in while to gather these reasons about us as armor against despair.
Good luck with that.
My biggest problem with Americans is that they have been under so much propaganda all their lives, they still can’t comprehend it or even admit it. Soviet propaganda at least stopped for a little while. American one never did.
As a non native English speaker, I have learned about concept of whataboutism by trying to talk about US politics with Americans. Not even kidding. It was an impossible task, they were brainwashed into their exceptionalism, often deflecting and bringing other things into discussion.
They still don’t understand that Trump didn’t bring this shit with him, few years ago. It was always there. Those idiots are just saying the quiet part out loud now.
I don’t see how normal Americans can get out of all this without actual civil war. Good luck to them.
We are sheep and there will be no change to the status quo except for constant enshitification. There will be no civil war. We have all been gentled