Why does it seem like Americans have become so hateful and destructive in the past years?
Why does it seem like Americans have become so hateful and destructive in the past years?
So I'm European and am aware that American culture is very different in many ways. Idk if this is just some type of thing about American culture and mentality in general that has always been there or if it is a trend that started recently in the past few years.
I don't wanna generalize any country and know that not everyone is like this but I definitely noticed this type of pattern.
I increasingly noticed in the past years that many Americans are very hateful/cruel, are lacking empathy, become more and more aggressive and it seems like it’s becoming worse.
I'm not sure if this is maybe related to Americans needing to be "though" or something because I always hear about that the American mentality is pretty competitive and individualistic and instead of saying "we will go through this this together" they often have this mentality "it's either me or you but it can't be both who will win". I mean I'm pretty sure that all these things like this biking culture, driving big "manly" pick up trucks, wrestling, football etc. are pretty prevalent in America compared to other countries and American culture generally seems very loud and direct. I think here in Europe people are way more reserved and I guess the strongest opposite to Americans are probably Japanese people. Maybe American culture is generally more "rough" where they aren't super sensitive and don't really care how their words come over and just speak their mind (maybe cause they value free speech so much).
But to me this seems to go to the point where many Americans seem to have this attitude and are very ignorant and arrogant and basically think they're better than anyone else and they only care for themselves.
And it feels like it's so extreme to the point where everyone is hating, attacking and bashing on everyone and instead of being stronger united they're just fighting against themselves and putting each other down and they always focus on the negative.
Especially online it seems like that no matter what the topic is and independent from whether they are Democrat or Republican they're constantly bashing on someone and baselessly calling them "weak" even though in reality they're probably the ones who are weak and trample onto people cause they're obviously dissatisfied with themselves and aren't able to man-up to face the real issues. You just can't blame everything on others and have to take responsibility for yourself!
Some stuff that I've seen on American news like "Fox News" just seemed crazy where the reporters personally attack and bash on people which is something that would be unthinkable in Europe.
Even though many people were saying that Americans have this "fake friendliness" I'm thinking that even that disappeared in the last few years and they're becoming more open to show what they really think which seems to be that they "don't give a f* about you".
Many Americans that I encountered seem so aggressive like they always need to bash onto something in this toxic way even though they're actually in a very good position and have a lot to be grateful for. Like in other poor countries people have real problems and are literally starving because they have no food or they have war in their country.
I'm always thinking "dude, you need to chill" cause literally no one is attacking them and they're fully secure. But it seems like they're always searching for a fight or something.
It seems like many of these people are so disconnected from nature and become less human and I wonder why they can't just spend meaningful time with other people being positive and not constantly waste their time with hating or complaining about something. Because this just doesn't work and in a society with multiple people especially in a world where everything is more connected than ever we need to hold together and have empathy for one and another. That is one of the core morals that a human needs!
It seems like many Americans generally have this "cruelness" about them cause I also heard things that many Americans are physically beating their children and even the fact that guns are popular and legal in America to the point where you can't even safely walk alone in public during the night or safely send your kid to school and also this general mindset of America is doing everything the best and "America first". I really don't wanna bash on Americans at all and only want to share my experience because I just haven't experienced this type of hate here in Europe in that extreme way and it just makes me very uncomfortable because I feel like this mood is affecting the whole world since American media and influence is prevalent everywhere.
To me it feels like this won't end well and it feels like it's just a matter of time until something very bad happens like the second civil war or so and the storm on the capitol might be nothing compared to that. But maybe that's the only way they will finally learn if they're lacking these core morals and integrity and they don't get educated about that in school.
It also seems like they can't handle critique and can't admit it/stand to those things. When I once asked a similar question on Reddit the only thing I got back was bashing and personal attacks and I hope it's not the same here, cause that is literally just proving my point. There needs to be constructive discussions.
The short answer is that we haven't really become any more hateful or cruel, however a VERY vocal minority of Americans have lost their goddamned minds and want to drag the rest of us down with them. Those are the people you're hearing from and they make the rest of us look awful
And that minority gets an outsized place at the media table due to billionaire oligarchs who want total control.
Actuay a great summation in another post around the same time:
dont forget the raging propaganda preventing the silent majority from believing they can affect change. ~40% of people who are eligible to vote never do.
I hope it is just a minority. I remember when I once asked on Reddit why so many Americans like Donald Trump considering all the things he has done and said and they were saying it's just a very small minority and that they personally don't know any one who likes him. Turns out he got the popular vote making him president again. So that seemed quite detached from reality.
the majority of people voted for him
Eh... That's not quite accurate. Current estimates are that 77,301,997 people voted for Trump, which is less than 50% of the 155,211,283 total votes cast. (But Kamala, the second-most-voted-for candidate got less than that at 75,017,626.)
But only about 64% of those eligible to vote voted.
So, not even half of those who did vote in the 2024 presidential election voted for Trump, let alone those who were eligible to voted, let alone all "people" in the U.S.. But the ones who voted for Trump comprised many more than the number of people who voted for any other candidate.
Let’s remember the large amount of people who couldn’t be bothered to vote.
It's a deliberate push by the elites. They don't want us cooperating, because that would lead to revolt. They fill our media with identity politics, fear and hatred so that we're too bitter to work together. It works beautifully for them.
I decided to scroll through the replies to see if anyone already said what I was going to, and you did.
Everyone thinks that irrelevant culture wars are more important than things that actually affect them directly, and our REAL enemies love it.
The problem is that the "irrelevant" culture wars (identity politics, wedge issues) that don't affect any given individuals directly are about important issues, and they're being used by the rich as hostages. We can't help but care about those issues, even if they don't impact us directly, and the rich are using them as human shields while they take our watches and wallets and force us to sign over our properties
For some reason -- likely because it's propaganda -- people get caught up with groups of annoying people and totally blow past the fucks destroying the planet, siphoning off all of the government money, and generally fucking over the country, and the world for their own gains.
Like I understand that you find some of our many varieties of annoying Americans annoying...like our purple haired Disney women, or flamboyant gays, or what the fuck ever...but that's enough to base your vote on? Nuts.
They're are too many annoying types of people in America for me to even select a grouping to hate -- I lie actually, I fucking hate narcissistic billionaires that can't stop posting -- and many of the people in media are annoying as hell themselves and act as if they aren't when discussing the random (though I know it's not really random, it's "LiBEraLs!") groups they've selected to "destroy" with their donkey-brained podcasts.
40+ years ago the Republicans started a war against education and intellectualism. They won.
And it's all at the direction of The Federalist Society. Reagan signed 2/3 of their Project 1985 into law, dramatically lowering the corporate and top personal tax brackets and removing the restrictions of local and national limits on network and local affiliate TV and radio ownership. Their lackey then spent decades creating enormous propoganda networks to pump the view that the wealthy are the best of us and should never be challenged. Plus, those networks constantly pump identity politics issues to polarize the popu Ace even more.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
- LBJ
Because our empire is dying
This is factually untrue. At the end of the Trump era, China had thought they had the upper hand on the global stage, but we have put into place more stoppages around the world. So much so that Blinken said on The Interview the other day that whenever he and the Chinese ambassador meet, the ambassador starts off by complaining for 30 minutes on how the West has railroaded their plans.
He also put it eloquently, that whenever parties from other nations come together, there’s always a seat at the table available for America. They want to know our position.
Just like our union of states, it is essential that the West remain a union of nations. If we do not, then divide and conquer could absolutely mean our decline.
Propaganda. Mostly funded by the rich, in order to, of course, stay on the top of the class hierarchy. Easier to be a filthy evil oligarch when the "rabble" just fight each other and don't pay any attention to you, or worse, kiss your boots.
HATEFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE??? HATEFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE??? FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!!!!
sets your car on fire
HOW COULD YOU CALL ME HATEFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE???
😂
There are still a lot of us around these parts that strive to be kind and generous, it’s just that kindness and generosity doesn’t sell a lot of newspapers.
Actually, print media is basically dead. It's all about clickbait these days!!!
Where's my million dollars?
Those are the best people though and they should make the newspaper imo. Life is too short and valuable to deal with hate, we should embrace being kind to each other more. Nothing better than having a smile because some random stranger did something kind. That is what makes it worth living for me!
Coincidentally, I was on my bike the other day in just kind of a funk. And I was sitting there with a sourpuss mug thinking how no one ever smiles on the greenway anymore, particularly in bigger cities.
And then just like clockwork, as soon as I finished my thought, a guy who I never would have predicted looked over at me with a beaming bright smile. It changed my whole day.
Don't believe everything you read or hear is what it amounts to. You're getting highly selective, heavily filtered news, not the lives of actual people.
i only believe even numbered things i hear; so a full half of things I hear I don't believe.
Thing 73012: Baby gorilla rescued from hold of Turkish Airlines plane ✅
Thing 73013: The deadliest beings on the planet: can the bacteriophage help in our fight against superbugs? ❌
Thing 73014: Taliban 'do not see women as human', says Malala in Pakistan ✅
Thing 73015: Zelenskyy offers Ukraine’s help to fight California wildfires after Trump Jr post ❌
Yeah, that was simple and fun.
fear leads to anger
anger leads to hate
(its not just the US, every human is like that)
American here.
First, you're right. About basically all of what you said above.
I think you particularly hit the nail on the head with this:
I’m always thinking “dude, you need to chill” cause literally no one is attacking them and they’re fully secure. But it seems like they’re always searching for a fight or something.
The media here, funded by the big corporations, manufacture tons of FUD ("fear, uncertainty, and doubt.") Things to be scared of. "They're putting chemicals in the water that's turning the frogs" (and by extension, your kids) "gay." "The 'woke mafia' is trying to convert your kids to atheism." "The Democrats are going to take your guns so they can install a totalitarian one world government without any resistance." Most of it's not true at all. Some has a nugget of truth but it's not actually any threat.
I will say the Republicans are worse about this than the Democrats (the Democrats' concerns are more legitimate than the Republicans'), but the Democrats are far from immune. Both are living in fantasy worlds.
...until something very bad happens like the second civil war...
Indeed there's plenty of rhetoric out there pushing the idea that the U.S. is in a civil war. Between the woke antifa (short for "antifascist") and the fascist conspiracy theorists.
You're watching the collapse of an empire. The citizens are getting desperate and scared, those of them that don't realize or understand the situation they're in even moreso. What you're seeing isn't driven by malice, it's just too difficult to care for others now. A lotta my friends struggle to pay rent every month and keep food in their mouths. We walk around with the knowledge a stranger could freak out and gun us down at any moment. Is it any wonder that they are numb to violence, numb to threats, even numb to the fear of death?
Once you get that numb and hollow, you cut what's extraneous away and focus on your own survival. Americans are, broadly speaking, panicked animals. The worse things get, the more panicked and desperate they'll become, and the less they'll care about standards and morals in the pursuit of survival.
When I visited Europe, I had a great time talking with strangers there. One in particular said something similar, in that he thought Americans were just inherently more violent.
Listen, the reality of the situation is that we're just as friendly and kind as we ever were. Americans are literally the most charitable population. But we're also living in times of great wealth inequality, while our health insurance is still tied to employment. Something like half a million of us go bankrupt every year from medical debt. We are also all uniquely aware that some people will randomly get lucky, and get a massive windfall of money. Money here doesn't just mean comfort, it means security, because if ever our luck runs out, there is no social safety net waiting to catch us. People can and often do go from the highest echelons of the social ladder, to living under a bridge, dying of some easily cured disease.
In America, it's dog eat dog. It's a zero-sum game. Whatever money you make, is money that I won't. And when money = security, it means that however secure you are, is how less secure I am. 300 million of us all playing the prisoners dilemma. If we work together we could all have a good outcome, but there are so many of us that have fully bought into the me vs. everyone mentality, that it's a near impossibility of getting all us prisoners to work together.
But a big mistake, is looking at boomer news (fox news, newsmax, oann) and thinking it reflects reality. It doesn't. That is 100% hateful news for hateful people. If you like getting a dopamine rush from looking down on others, or doomscrolling, or in being afraid, then faux news is what you watch. Don't mistake it with America, because it isn't. It is actively poisoning Americans, but if ever you were to get an active faux news watcher to turn it off, sit down, and have a chat, you'd be surprised at how friendly they were. They are people who bought into the zero sum game, but even they know how/when to be charitable.
There's war in Europe. Climate change is fucking up the world faster than we can respond, and America is burning to the ground physically and metaphorically as we speak.
Tensions are a bit high.
Every part of our society is dysfunctional and declining, and that's self-perpetuating. If you throw a rock, you'll hit a reason why the US is like this. We are pretty FUBAR.
It's pretty much always been this way, like if you look at opinions and rhetoric post-9/11, the overwhelming majority of people supported Bush and it was common to talk about nuking random countries in the Middle East. Back then we were a bit less mask off in that Bush wasn't as blunt and explicit about things as Trump is, but the bodies were just as dead. Trump realized that the facade of politeness had become vestigal and didn't actually matter. As for American liberals, the thing to understand is that they only compare themselves to Republicans and so as long as they are 5% more proper and 5% kinder, 5% more intellectual, etc, they see themselves as having all of those qualities, but from the outside, to someone who has reference points outside of American politics, the differences often seem pretty marginal. So for example, "I can excuse indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, but I draw the line at torture" and within the context of American politics that's reasonable and even left-leaning but in a broader context, it's like, "You can excuse what?"
Fox News
why are European Nazis so hateful and destructive in 2025 (Germany, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, etc)?
What you see on TV is for-profit corporate media that is showing what their advertisers approve. Its not an accurate reflection of the society as a whole.
Roughly 30% of the US population are supporters of fascism. Largely this is due to poor education.
social media...
Can you BELIEVE rage bait gets likes?
Americans have always been hateful and destructive. We've just recently been given permission to do those things out loud, with impunity.
I gotta say, living in a red state, it definitely feels.like most have gone hollow. I can see the madness in their eyes at work. Its generations of capitalistic abuse, sacrificing ourselves for the profit of the few. I think we have irreparable damage done to our culture's zeitgeist.
A lot of this is explained by poor reading comprehension mixed with paranoia.
Americans will read pretty much any comment in an aggressive, hostile tone by default
Hence the popularity of in-jokes on the internet, Americans can generally only recognise jokes if they already know them, or if they're telegraphed from a mile off (that's around 738 washing machines)
Anything else is assumed to be a personal attack. It doesn't help that a good chunk of them are also absolutely desperate to be offended on someone else's behalf all the time lol
2 reasons:
- first past the post system --> everything is good or bad, with me or against me, blue or red, black or white, ...
- the initial lawlessness of the pilgrims just continued and permeated the culture
IMO, until USAmericans finally get rid of "winner takes all", they won't be able to change the attitude.
From my perspective, they've always been there, but now they're louder. They've been emboldened by the public perception that it's okay to be terrible and hateful and selfish. It used to be that those people kept more quiet.
There are obviously multiple factors that go into this, but I think the big ones are the systematic destruction of the US educational system and the wealth inequality caused by late-stage capitalism. Fixing the education problem will take decades. Fixing the wealth inequality could be done quickly, but things will have to get worse before people begin to agree that it needs to happen. I'm confident that things will eventually get better. I am no longer confident that it will happen soon or without violence.
Similar things are happening in Europe, with the rise of the extreme right, but the situation there is not as far along as it is in the US. I think Europe still has a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst of this.
fixing the wealth inequality can happen quickly
no it can't sadly, stuff like that takes time to process into law, and to obtain information on. The best way of doing that would likely be a wealth tax, but the second any actual traction hits (which is already a major barrier due to how lobby heavy everything in the states is torwards that stuff) any company that's residing in the US is going to ding dong ditch to another country or migrate that wealth offshore to avoid the tax.
I think the best route would be either a significantly higher tax on money transfer over X amount yearly between the borders, but that would force company is just to go into how they used to do it before a digital was a thing where they just transport Cold Hard Cash or other physical entities over the borders and then we convert it back over once they're domestic again.
or alternatively a higher business tax for companies overall, and said taxes are increased even further for a companies who are headquartering outside of the country, but this isn't going to fix the wealth inequality, it's just going to lessen the rate the wealthy gain their wealth.
The issue with all of these options though, is they all have the same fatal flaw, there's no controls in place that would prevent the company from just offsetting the new taxes into their existing Goods pricing, we're experiencing the same issue with the renters field. Price controls are inefficient and where applied don't generally impact big buisness and instead tend to force the little guys out of the market as they lack the incentive and funding to keep in the market.
There's the argument that well if they increase the price too far people will just stop buying it in favor of cheaper competitors, but that's not the case for anything that's deemed essential good, which would be most of the grocery sector, the housing sector and the utility sector.
Sure smaller competitors may eventually pop up, but that's not something that will happen just at the snap of your finger that's going to take years to do
The US got themselves into a super sticky situation by having years of lack of taxes and controls. They have created a problem that has no real good solution, and it will take some time to fix and it will likely hurt the consumer fixing it, but regardless something needs to be done.
As for the education sector, that's a whole other issue on its own, while I think that is repairable it like you said is going to take years to accomplish, and the entire time that happens it's going to be fighting an uphill battle because it's hard to argue against if we cut the spending on the sector you save money, because many people can't see past the short-term effects of a decision, making them blind to the overall longterm effects that gutting a public education system has.
This effect is exasperated by the fact that one of the two major parties heavily pushes the ideology that less knowledge is good, because statistically speaking the further educated you are, the more apt you are to lean torwards the other way, which is something that the party wouldn't want.
I have to agree with you, it's a roaring dumpster fire and without some pretty disruptive changes nothing is going to be done anytime soon. I'm not advocating violance but the people who say that it's an easy fix, or can be flipped just by someone else taking command are sorely mistaken, this is a problem that is going to be existing for at /least/ the next 3 or 4 presidential terms at best, and that's if it's attacked head on now, which it won't be as it isn't the majorities concern at the moment, for some reason.
I don't actually disagree with you. My point was that there is nothing that could be done to fix education quickly while it would be possible to fix wealth inequality overnight. That doesn't mean I think there's a chance of it happening any time soon.
It’s not that the country is more arrogant and idiotic (although that’s arguable) but it’s more that arrogant and idiotic messages and people are being broadcast more.
Delete your social media, turn off the TV, go outside, talk with people. Is it hateful? No. You're being lied to.
So I'm European and am aware that American culture is very different in many ways. Idk if this is just some type of thing about American culture and mentality in general that has always been there
Observing USians and debating them on social media, I am more and more of the view that substantial proportion of them are properly, certifiably insane.
And it doesn't apply only to MAGA nutjobs, it applies across the political divide and often starts with complete and utter contempt for facts.
A large portion of men are not doing mentally well at all. Increasing suicide rates and decreasing employment participation are just some of the indicators here.
Because they feel weak, there is a tendency to gravitate towards strongmen and dreams of dominance which lead to aggressive antisocial behaviors.
There does not appear to be anyone attempting to solve any of these problems main because those who could fix the problems are the ones who are able to utilize these fears for personal gain. Monetarily and or for political power. A subset of these people are amplifying these problems for the same purpose, personal gain.
The problem is unfettered capitalism. Our leaders are far more concerned about enriching themselves than acting on behalf of their constituents, so we've got this really jaded electorate.
And then as a dominant super power in the world, we've been targeted with enormous misinformation campaigns, both from our own "news sources" (Fox News is NOT real news, it's lies and half truths and proliferation of hatred!) and fake internet trolls. All of that on top of decades of political corruption, decades of businesses lobbying in their own best interest and spreading lies to support their position ("tobacco is safe and very cool!" "guns don't kill people", "weed is the root of all evil!", "pEoPlE ARe tERMinatInG 9 mOnTh oLd feTUseS anD bORn bABiEs!").
Conservatives have always been the temporarily embarrassed millionaires, and once they get theirs, fuck everyone else. Generations bought homes at affordable prices, then pulled the ladder up behind them and fuck all future generations. "Pull yourself up by your boot straps!" is sort of bullshit you get from them, but they didn't do that at all and they've broken the whole system in their favor.
Now conservatives are trying to break our educational system by banning books, banning subject discussion like evolution or slavery, foregoing sex education in favor of the provably bad "abstinence education". A country founded on "separation of church and state" is pushing harder and harder to make a "Christian nation" that doesn't and shouldn't exist. They want a stupid electorate making tons of babies who also grow up stupid and vote for them. The majority of Americans are liberal and have genuine sympathy and compassion for others, so before they wake up and actually get involved, the conservatives have to breed up a bunch of idiots they can convince real easily to vote their way.
All that to say... I don't think it's going to get any better anytime soon. Get me the fuck out of this place.
My guess it has to do with their 2 party political system. You have to SHOUT and pretend THE WORLD IS BURNING GAYS STEAL BABIES ALL POLICE IS RACIST EVERYTHING BAD THAT HAPPENED TO YOU IS BECAUSE OF THE OTHER DONT VOTE FOR THEM to scare 1% of voters one way or the other and get political power.
Messages of those extremes make their way over the big pond way way more often than the lady doing a job that she enjoys, having a pleasant evening with her family.
I would argue that any actual increased aggression could simply be attributed to the state of the country (the US federal government is broken) and the fact that most US americans are not having their needs met financially. The billionaires who run the system dramatically increased the prices of everything that's not optional to pay for: food, housing, insurance, etc..
People feel helpless, overworked, and angry.
This is how I feel, and I know a lot of folks who are in a similar boat. We're sold this story of being financially stable, having a house, a car, and being able to retire, but for a lot of Americans that is looking more and more like a pipe dream each day.
The poorly educated/informed people eat up the propaganda like candy, vote against their own interests, and tear down everyone around them in hopes that they'll be on top one day, and it simply won't happen in the present state our country is in.
People cannot handle social media and its impact on society, period.
Trumpism and MAGA
I'm gonna bring up a slightly different take on the situation.
2001, during the walk between my 1st period and 2nd period class, my country changed forever. My math teacher had a shocked look on his face, he put the radio on, and told us that it was very important to listen, as we will never forget this moment. An airplane had hit the world trade center. I remember the bell going off, going to my history class, and shortly afterwards, being told that the busses were coming back to take my classmates home. They were terrified, that their school busses would be attacked and that they wouldn't make it home. I found my brother and we walked home early that day. I got home in time to see my mom staring at the TV, which was surreal on its own because she hates TV. By the time I go home, the towers were falling.
That moment was a catalyst for irrational hate and fear taking over the US. Anti-musilm hate (if you can even call it that sophisticated and targeted, really just anyone the right shade of brown) really took off. I remember hearing about men being assaulted and having their beards shaved. Women had their head covering confiscated, and mosques became a primary target for yahoos and bigots to deface and burn. A few years later I remember and popular jingle about bombing Afghanistan, not specifically the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but just Afghanistan in general. Hate became more mainstream and visible to me than ever. Sure, the US wasn't perfect before, but for my generation, 9/11 was the moment that "Othering" people who didn't look like you, talk like you, and pray like you, became not just a coping mechanism, but a core identity for a significant portion of the USA. If you spoke out about the irrational hate, you were Un-American, or a traitor. My father took me to see Fahrenheit 911, and I remember hearing about protestors attacking theaters that were playing the movie, and people that were buying tickets for it.
Anyway, that's my two cents on where millennials (at least) got their hate enemas from.
Americans are have lived through so much. Two buildings were demolished.
You aren't wrong that other people have it much worse. I don't think the hate we've developed post 9/11 is proportional or justified compared to the scale of the attack. I wasn't trying to do that with my post, I was trying to explain when and why I saw a shift in how Americans treat each other internally.
I think Americans experienced way too much unnecessary trauma, uncertainties and weird life events in general that probably made them fearful/put them in survival mode and it turned into anger. It is definitely understandable from a psychological perspective to a point.
Car-centric infrastructure and American individualism have made USAmericans isolated and decimated communities and that has lead to a lot of bad things
Feel free to crosspost to !AskUSA@discuss.online
Can you give some hard examples of what you mean, and a contrast of what you would expect from a non-american please? I'm reading through this post and I don't know what you're seeing. It's not clear to me given what you wrote so it's hard to pinpoint which behaviors you're referring to.
A lot of the things you bring up (about guns and walking safety at night and sending kids to school) doesn't jive and sounds quite a bit like media washing the entire country. Like. Yes. Guns are legal and lots of people have them. I don't see guns on a daily basis and even when I lived in a particularly crime prone area for the most part gun violence wasn't my main concern.
The thing about corporal punishment of children is that what's legal and illegal varies by state but it's not outright outlawed to spank children (and I was absolutely not spanked, but beaten as a kid).
But there's a reason the public hasn't broken out in violent opposition of the government as a whole (the liberal majority I mean) and it's twofold. Americans don't generally want to have to do violence to force change. If we did there would be a lot more Luigi's, Trump shooters, and BLM founders out there advocating in public for violence against the system and the people who uphold it.
Additionally, people don't want to get involved with that if it means that it will significantly detrimentally affect their lives (which in a lot of cases is very much true). Living in between the "eat the rich/guillotine" idealism and the realism of making it day to day is hard and it doesn't allow a lot of fertile ground for empathy and perhaps that's what you're seeing.
People have too much still to lose for a civil war to be particularly viable. They haven't reached a level of desperation that will allow most of them to commit indiscriminate violence against the system. But also, the education system has been decimated and so they don't think they understand the system well enough to effect change and that goes hand in hand with not getting involved in politics, lobbying, or playing the long game to indoctrinate liberals in a similar fashion to the way conservatives have been indoctrinated (but for the opposite view point, meaning incensing them to make change via a more long and arduous process that has lasting effects). We didn't see Roe v Wade get dismantled overnight. That was the result of decades of conservative movement. We haven't been actively and cohesively trying to counter that with our own movements.
I'd also like to add that the vast majority of people live in cities where nature isn't easily accessible and time isn't given to them to enjoy it. I work something like 60 hours a week. Some people work more than that. The system is directly designed to keep people tired, poor, ignorant, and just desperate enough to continue to participate in the system. So yes, we are disconnected from nature in a lot of ways.
Constructive and condecending are two different things. Some people simply love to flaunt their pros and trash our cons.
I am more centrist with mildly right leaning views, but I play dnd with people that are quite left leaning. We respect each other's perspectives and differences but otherwise get along just fine. There are divides, mainly boiling down to city vs rural but reality often isn't as polarized as the news and comments will have you believe.
I'm willing to answer any questions you might have here or in DMs
Nah, it's older than that, watch Deathwish 2 and tell American boomers weren't itching for an excuse to murder teenagers.
Using the unsocial 'social' networks?
You'd have to go to fox news--the network that lies so much that even their name is a lie--and ask them why they're doing everything they're doing.
Short answer is, they're the taliban.
I don't really know why. Since I was a kid it feels like there is so much more hate, so much more Red vs Blue. It feels like everyone assumes if you are republican or democrat that you must be far right or left. Gods forbid there are moderates. Gods forbid you care about your neighbor regardless of political or religious belief or the choices they make.
It feels like "fuck you I'm taking my share and screwing you over" in order to make it in this capitalist society. It feels like philanthropy is a joke, that rich people don't invest in it unless it's a tax break. It's funny we don't see new buildings built with art or frills outside. It's just cold, monolithic type buildings which are as cold as the assholes running it inside. Very few companies care about their customers or employees. They just want those quick profits for the quarter. Fuck everyone else as long as they get their share. They expect this profits to go on forever but they don't realize that it has to end sometime and I hope every one of those companies collapse because of how hollow they've become. I know these are weird things to focus on but I feel like they are symptoms of bigger problems. It shows what is becoming a primary value in society which is MONEY MONEY MONEY instead things like ethics or looking at the bigger picture.
And fuck all these politicians who are busy lining their pockets with gold. Gods forbid they act like civil servants or at least vote on what is best for the people. There are industries that will get you fined and imprisoned if you commit fraud or the APPEARANCE THERE OF. Politicians should have similar laws slapped on them. Same goes for the Supreme Court which has become a fucking joke.
I'm sure there's a lot of little reasons that add up to this shit. I'm sure politicians stomping on education has a lot to do with it. It feels like critical thinking is not a basic skill anymore. Sure we can blame ourselves a little, but is it really all our fault?
And Jesus christ this brain dead social media crap where people just shit all over the internet and post comments or videos full of lies or contraversial crap just to get clicks because of either bullshit popularity or once again MONEY MONEY MONEY.
I do what I can to tolerate and not create this division of the country and to do what I can locally in the political landscape but I feel powerless to make any real change. That powerlessness is frustrating and infuriating. So yeah, when I see one asshole Ceo get taken out I feel a little glee and I hope it sends a message. I don't wish ill will upon others, but I'm not going to not say "he had that coming." I don't know if that is what others in my country feel but that's how I feel.
The Americans I've met in real-life were quite chill, and reasonable. But on the Internet I too have a feeling that they are expressing stressfulness more. It seems to me they can freely talk about the things they hate, and they do it, to the point many things on the Internet about the US are those. And it's hard to touch grasses in Winter.
It's always been the case that they fight over the screps billionaires leave for them. But traditionally they had so much friendliness and companionship in and between communities but as with everything since globalisation it was polarised by information tech. Megacorps are the new tribes and that will ruin the planet if it happens, well, already have basically. Any form of collaboration would help but it's so cool that competition breeds competence and great products right? Not remove respect for each other and nature right?
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We're a lot of different cultures all mixed in over a large swath of land. That melting pot regularly reaches a boiling point.
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We pray to Capitalism. It is all important. All else is secondary to the almighty dollar. Many of our politicians are bought out and our legislation is determined by money. Greed guides our decision making processes.
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The internet has broken many of our brains, although that's not just an American thing. I've been around long enough to have witnessed our politics go absolutely bonkers and the timeline coincides with everyone starting to carry around devices that give them access to the internet at all times. We simply aren't educated enough as a whole to be immune or resistant to misinformation.
Personally, I don't see our situation getting any better any time soon. It will probably get quite a bit worse, actually.
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The baby boomers are reaching the end of their lives. They are fearful of death but can't do anything about it, so they are lashing out in other ways.
For those of you talking about 9/11, do you know that people born after 9/11 now have kids that are entering kindergarten?