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.
Took my kid on a train ride and to see a wiener dog race. Everyone was so kind and lovely. Just made me even sadder. Despite what the world thinks, our people don’t deserve this.
And then—what?
It remains difficult to pinpoint the moment in my life when it felt like my country started to lose the plot. Oh, there were signs, like the September 11 attacks and the botched response that drew us into interminable entanglements in Afghanistan and Iraq without “fixing” either country.
Nothing was botched, everything went according to plan, it’s just not a plan the American people are in on. The wealthy aristocracy has accomplished every policy task they’ve set out to since they assassinated JFK, and they continue to do so. That’s what people don’t understand about this Iran war. Do you think they care if the gas prices skyrocket and there’s no fertilizer or petrochemicals? They are all-in on “full spectrum dominance”, and they’ll kill every living thing on this planet to maintain exclusive control.
This person is deluded, and we can’t “fix” anything if we don’t identify clearly what or who the problem is.
I don’t see America bouncing back to lead the world again. It may improve, after Trump, but the golden age has passed, maybe to return in the distant future.
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
Sorry, not seeing it. 77 million voters and 95 million non voters will do it again. This is fine in their minds.
I hope republicans lose every fucking race in every fucking county, every fucking city, every fucking state, and every fucking government job!!! I hope I never hear the word “MAGA” again after Lord Feltersnatch is dead and gone!!! I hope,I hope, I fucking hope!
What’s going on with all this copium? They’ve been telegraphing their intention to cheat fully and outright for months. Not just gerrymandering or mail in ballots. Think marshall law. Remember that Dominion and a majority of voting machine companies have been purchased by billionaires and private equity. Remember the Reichstag fire.
Even if they fuck all that up royally remember how many dems are AIPAC puppets. Stop hoping and start planning.
Sadly it won’t happen. Sure some won’t vote Republican in the next election because gas is expensive or some other shallow reason like that. Then a Democrat comes in, bring some superficial sense of normalcy to the state of things. Then in the next election they will vote Republican again and you’ll go through the same shit all over. This has been the cycle since Bush’s term? Probably earlier.
American politics won’t change without deep structural reforms and I don’t see those happening any time soon.
This is exactly why you need to vote in the primaries.
The truly remarkable thing about this country is its ingenious ability—through elections, immigration, freedom of speech, and economic mobility—to constantly remake itself.
I’ve heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I don’t know where that comes from necessarily, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Too late ,entshittifactcion in progress, impossible to stop,next stop collapse country or trump
For me the positive is of all of this is that nothing he’s doing has not been codified into law so it can all be undone
While you’re not wrong, it’s also not the whole story. The damage he’s done will take decades to undo just to break even. Simply reversing his EOs won’t raise the dead, or rebuilt the knowledge and skills that have been lost. Our grandchildren, if there be any, will still be dealing with the consequences of what has happened in the last 2 years.
Reversing his EO’s won’t raise the dead but I don’t think there will be a problem getting the experienced people back nor does their knowledge disappear simply because our mid-grade have learned over the last decade.
We should be able to put the foundation of government back together fairly quickly so domestic issues will likely be resolved quickly, but the trust that our foreign policy is built on has been scrapped for decades
First order of business has to be legislation to keep this from ever happening again.
No more felons in the white-house…or congress for that matter. No more moneymaking by people who get a government paycheck. Period. If you make 175K/year, that is the top limit of what you should be allowed to earn over the course of your time in government…
if you’re there to make money, nope.
I’d also propose moving as many agencies away from the purview of the executive and moving them to the legislative. Namely the department of education, department of energy, department of justice,and department of interior with the addition of dissolving the head position in favor of a council with a staggered ten years appointment per seat and strict job requirements within relevant fields IE a park ranger of 20 years is viable for a DoI seat but some podcaster will just get shot.
Maybe like the FBI and such where the directors get appointed for 10 year terms that go beyond a single presidential term…and it has to be near impossible for one president to remote another presidents confirmed appt. (Maybe make it something congress has to act on)
My point is to entirely remove the president from such decisions. Don’t like who Congress chose? Tough shit. Note that ideally Congress will have been brought to heel by the electorate.
With a single executive order the next president can undo every single thing Trump has done.
Just keep it quiet before that asshole comes after us all. Some because they sold their cake incorrectly or popped in the wrong toilet or said the wrong thing. WTF!
I hate polls… the more polls show democrats ahead, the more money the billionare class is going to pour into defeating them in those races. It’s giving them a fucking roadmap.
The only poll that matters is November.
My pole quit working years ago but I can still vote and I wouldn’t vote for a republican even for a dog shit picker upper position!
