AskBeehaw

I'm not enjoying it anymore at all

There are tons of reasons because Americans have been groomed this way on purpose, but here's one I haven't seen brought up here yet.

"Doing something about it" has consequences. In no order, and wildly varying in severity:

• You may be imprisoned (whether or not you are charged). The jails and prisons are very bad & this can lead to enslavement.
• Convictions strip you of civil rights.
• You may be entrapped or assassinated.
• Public activism and willingness to volunteer is frequently redirected by capitalists to spoil outcomes or just waste activist energy.
• Professional skilled volunteering (lawyers, librarians, medics) does not count as employment in your field for most purposes and this will inhibit your career. It can also get you blacklisted.
• Capitalists intentionally endanger and expose activists during pandemic events.
• Street violence from police, security, hate groups.
• You may be doxxed.
• Propaganda aimed at normies may turn friends and family and community against you.

All of the above are things that happened to me or activists I know / worked with in the Central & Eastern Rustbelt region of the stolen lands.

One thing I haven't seen in this thread yet: we're more or less trained that the only politics that really matter are federal politics. Most people can name the president (used it as part of a fast field cognitive test as a paramedic), but most folks can't name their congressperson or senators, let alone their state legislators, mayor, or city/county council representative. The more local you get, the less awareness there typically is, which is the opposite of what it should be. In the US, at least, local politicians have a pretty shocking amount of power while also being infinitely more accessible. If you live in a city, you can go to a city council meeting and yell at them about anything you want for 3-5 minutes or what have you, completely for free, and the cops can't stop you.

The cool thing is that you'll meet other people there who also want to affect change, and you can start to network and organize. I've done it, I'm doing it, I highly recommend it.

It's not as bad as you probably think, and more people are "doing something about it" than you probably think.

But quiet progress doesn't make the news, neither does people following common sense, neither does the everyday prevention of tragedy. It's the loud backsliders, the senseless actions, and the unprevented tragedies that make news, so that's what you see, even though the former is overwhelmingly more prevalent.

One thing to keep in mind

the US is huge, both geographically and culturally. Flying from Los Angeles to Boston is further than London to Baghdad.

And likewise, the cultural "distance" between, say, New England or the Pacific Northwest and the deep south is extreme.

Of course there are things that affect (nearly) all Americans, but some context is important.

It sucks. We have been so thoroughly atomized through propaganda, trauma and attack that we have no real class consciousness. There is basically no organized left wing political movement, though there seems to be a (re)growing seed. Left leadership has traditionally be persecuted, assassinated or coopted. Unions have suffered all three and are now a shell of what they were once. Our political 'opposition' is liberals who fundamentally misdiagnose the problems and are scared of real (leftist) solutions.

It’s not necessarily that the U.S. is bad, or is choosing the worst option.

There are undoubtedly a lot of very intelligent and deep analysis on the topic, but here’s a pretty simplified explanation that I’m going to try to rush through because I should be doing something other than commenting a whole novel.

The American electoral system is completely fucked.
It was not designed for or implemented with the concept of political parties, and some of its fundamental assumptions are predicated on political parties not existing in order to function as a working democracy. However after the first election, political parties formed, and began working on codifying and entrenching their power. It’s like game theory run amok. The win condition is first past the pole, so there’s only one winner, and by default, if there’s more than 2 contenders, then the vote is split inefficiently, so naturally there can only be two major parties at a time. And the two parties must exist such a way that they do not dilute or share their power, so they do not modify the system to allow for the inclusion of other parties, or allow for the vote to be split. It’s unlikely the parties would pass laws that they know would dilute their own power, even if it also diluted the power of their opposition.
As a result, voters in the U.S. must either: Vote for the party that most closely aligns with their interests, vote against the party that aligns against their interests, or abstain from voting.
With only two options, it’s sometimes challenging to find a party or candidates that represent your interests. Many people in the U.S. feel that no party represents them, or that their vote simply does not matter. In 2024, a little more than 2/3 of eligible voters did not vote.

The process of financing and prosecuting elections in the U.S. is completely fucked.
Well before the 2011 Citizens United ruling, the U.S. had a lot of issues with voter suppression and voter turnout: Election Day is not a national holiday in the U.S. and many employers will simply tell their employees to figure out a time to vote that isn’t during work hours. Every state, and sometimes individual cities can execute elections differently, with different laws, however, so the experience is not consistent. Some places make voting more approachable, and some make it more difficult, but the federal government has limited authority over states when it comes to the election, so decisions about voting hours, whether to allow mail in voting, and the reasons for which mail in voting is allowable, are left up to various municipalities, creating a confusing patchwork that is a challenge to navigate by citizens. This lowers turnout to those who have the time and ability to navigate it all. Since 2011, unlimited corporate bribery has become the norm, and politicians are now nakedly bought and owned by corporate interests. Studies show that regardless of party or political belief, that most politicians align with donors way more than than the ‘rank and file’ voters, so the average person does not have the ability to impact the outcome of the laws that are passed.

The third leg of this, which I’m unfortunately out of time to really discuss, is the media, and the internet. But the U.S. isn’t shutting down TikTok over user data. It’s shutting it down because it could not influence the algorithm to viewpoints that were favorable to the political goals of the U.S. and its corporate sponsors. All the major platforms in the U.S. are somehow beholden to the U.S. government, save for, well, Lemmy.
And beyond that, you have corporate control of the media, and corporations that own vast swaths of the information that comes into the U.S.’s TV’s, newspapers, and inboxes. It’s impossible to get viewpoints that are not influenced or controlled by (again) the U.S. government or its corporate sponsors.

So if the public perception is controlled, the ability to vote is hampered, and the political parties have a noose braided out of dollars around their neck, then what does the average person do?

Go shoot a healthcare executive and watch major news networks freak the fuck out trying to villainize you while the government throws every possible law at you? Try to start your own political party and be drowned by the conspiracy of the two in power? Citizen-led voter initiatives, that are routinely challenged by monied interests and even the government themselves, when the citizenry don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees to fight frivolous lawsuits? Try to start an armed insurrection against the U.S.? Psh.

The citizenry of the U.S. are hostages, whether they believe it or not.

Depends on the part of the US.

It’s a country the size of the EU, so like, think about the political difference between Hungry and Sweden.

Like, the US system is a bit more centralized in many respects, but a lot of stuff is still very dependent on state and local politics. So just because some people say something crazy at the national level doesn’t mean that actually gets effectively implemented everywhere. A lot of the more outrageous stuff is also done at the state or local level.

Some states certainly are that bad but most aren’t, most are just… blegh. Many people with the means and bandwidth to get together and do something about the worst stuff end up moving, which sucks for those without the capability to do so.

Yes, it's real bad.

Our government exists to further enrich the wealthy - at absolutely any cost to people if Rs are in charge, or at almost any cost if it's the Ds turn.

50+ years of the ruling class completely ignoring the most basic pleas for a sane country has completely destroyed the expectation that the government exists to serve their population's interests.

Would you elaborate more about what you believe is 'bad'?

Because that would be inconvenient.

American culture is everything available at all times everywhere, and if it isn't it is a tragedy.

American propaganda playing on wide screen TVs 24/7, social media fills in the gaps.

It really is easy to see but hard to pinpoint on a personal level unless you are affected by whatever is currently happening that is the disaster/crime/injustice.

Long answer short: enough of the people are comfy in their worlds to give 2 shits.

I am an American native, EU resident visiting family for the first time in 6 years and....it's overwhelming to me.

the average American IQ is less than 100

We’re indoctrinated since grade-school. Pledge of allegiance is absolutely insane to put on children. And it doesn’t stop from there. Remember learning how great our country is in history and other classes? It’s terrible.

Well you see the government has tanks...