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A Canadian view: One of America's greatest qualities is its ability to re-invent itself in the light of new realities. That's one of the reasons I continue to have faith in the American people despite all the problems. America has peaked, but Rome peaked 3 or 4 times. Nothing is over.

We are the new USSR

and then they'll probably accuse anyone older of not knowing that America has a long history of racism, inequality etc. It's not really that, although some of us were too optimistic about progress once. It's that things are genuinely quite bad now.

Our side is not committed enough to do the hard things that need to be done. We can't fix this with those traitor Rape-publicans around placed in every level of govt.

One of my now-13-year-old's earliest memories is going canvassing with me for Clinton in 2015. I am hoping that my continued visible shock and refusal to become jaded can help impart the lesson that it doesn't have to be like this and this and in fact wasn't before a decade ago.

Pardoning Nixon gave us Trump Not holding Trump accountable for his crimes his first term has lead to all this much worse bullshit this time around Republicans have been working very hard on destroy America for well over a decade now

Remember when the crime and corruption of Watergate sort of hung as a shadow over the country? This is much much worse and more criminal and corrupt and most people don't care

So sad that this the the truth

This is exactly what I was dreading in November 2016. I hate being right.

Running against Elite Impunity needs to happen.

in the White House, while crime in our cities have been declining steadily over recent years and for decades; the embracing of a Russian dictator over our democratic allies... until its too late(?);... The list goes on... but new voters have never seen politics without this current style of hate.

Exactly, this. This is what is the most foreboding for the future of American democracy and America’s place in the world.

Bill Clinton did not, and has never, helped with this devolution

The people who complain about "the bureaucracy" seem blind* to the fact that bureaucracy is the system of accountability that prevents the corruption that plagues so many other countries. *they are fully aware, and they attack bureaucracy because they want to be the beneficiaries of corruption

One of the consistent stories among my eastern European immigrant friends is the weird adjustment to not having to carry bribe money in daily life in the United States.

Fact!!!

We once had a vice president who resigned for taking cash bribes in his office. And not all that long ago!

www.businessinsider.com/amazon-softw...

I came to Ireland in 1994 and experienced none of the repressiveness of your teen years. I bought the first Playboy sold in my corner shop and condoms there shortly afterwards. I rented a room from a gay lecturer. I now realise I was witnessing the New Dawn of Irishness.

My wife had to pay a bribe to get her driver's license in Mexico in the 90s. It would never have *occurred* to me to do that in the US. Just completely outside my experience of literally any public institution in this country.

I've always been critical of the government, but this is the worst it's been in my lifetime by miles. Like, so many things were norms instead of rules because people actually had shame and wanted to find solutions.

Dilettantes gonna dil.

"America has always been corrupt" is such a trite excuse to check out. Corruption is a facet of power and present in any human governing endeavor. I reckon their envisioned utopia has no real world examples

the George W Bush DOJ put one of his biggest campaign donors in prison!

And it seemed like things would improve. Arguments against prejudice and a suffering underclass got louder and more persuasive. But then T***p got elected twice and it became obvious that most people would rather reject reality and the common good entirely rather than let go of their hatefulness.

Standards… Having standards is dwindling. Corruption is human. The US Constitution is an example of how evolving into a better human can save us from a life of having no standards. Millions of people come to this country because here we try to be better.. Tried, I guess.

www.businessinsider.com/amazon-softw...

Your interpretation of why people emigrated to the US and then killed Native Americans and stole their land is not quite true-since which they have ‘raped’ (my geography mistress’s words in the early 1970s) the lands of the US for commercial profit

I think that might be the disconnect - the *image* that america portrayed to the world (including a lot of americans) was based more in propaganda than truth. But if you asked any of the marginalized groups in this country, they would have told you it was, in fact not "better".

See, here I was thinking people came to America because their homes had been ravaged by American imperialism and theyhad to flee. Silly me.

I don't know how you square this circle when there's a massive multi-media complex dedicated go nihilistically calling anything and everything our government does corrupt.

History is nuanced, complex, and rarely one sided or linear. Because it is ultimately the story of many different groups living together, often with conflicting backgrounds, experiences and ideas. Recognizing this isn’t always convenient, but it is important and can be powerful.

I took courses in all of this history and policy in my college and masters degree! Transitioning from paying off the right people to things like fees and taxes was a big thing.

The frightening thing is, they don’t see the issue with social media and may look to big tech for the answers. And we see what the tech bros have allied themselves. Will they look to these same billionaires and huge corporations for solutions? That is a horrifying question.

same, same. I remember being so excited that for Mx18 the reference of What Presidents Look Like was going to be a Black man and *monkey's paw curls*

My niece, who’s 20, has really only known Trump, with Biden in there quickly during the insanity of Covid. It’s not really surprising to me that they don’t get it, especially after seeing that people picked Trump again

I showed mine the Howard Dean video that ended his campaign, and they were astonished.

I hope she finds her way. ❤️ It’s so fucking hard for young folks! It infuriates me when people belittle their distress.

Cripes, I remember when Howard Dean’s Presidential run was ended by an inadvertent weird scream. Standards have changed.

The military in US cities....my God my brain still can't process that reality

Every day brings fresh impeachable offenses committed by the Trump administration.

THIS💯

I was just imagining a history teacher going over Watergate and having to answer questions from students essentially saying, "Wait, that's it?"

I live in Iowa. The right has been saying the left is impossibly corrupt for so long that now anyone not a registered Democrat thinks this is all par for the course.

Unless they're "terminally online" like me. But that brings with it its own set of problems.

I have this conversation with my adult kids all the time.

I keep telling my kids (19, 16, 9) that this is all beyond insane and corrupt. I don't know if they can truly grasp how off the rails it is, but at least they know this isn't normal at all.

Up until Trump's goons openly shoot him and nothing is done about it.

There was a tiktok trend in 2024 of teenagers reacting to the 2016 Access Hollywood tape because they were unaware it existed

Yes! Obviously. And this happens all the time. There is, every year, *another* batch of kindergarteners after all. Every year, not just every generation, there is subtle shift about what the next batch of folks will consider "normal". So it goes. So has it ever been.

Outside the U.S. we all grew up watching shows and movies that made day-to-day American life seem amazing, whether gritty or opulent. Charles and Ray Eames understood in 1959 that was all Soviets needed to see. The green-screen Marvel stuff makes money but doesn’t sow dreams.

it's a great episode and you are 100% spot on

On the one hand my kids were less freaked out about the election result than I was, on the other hand it probably just sunk into a background level of freaked-outness that is quite bad.

I thought this while raising my children who are now in their 40s and 50s.

Yeah it’s really sad. But honestly, I’m 46 so I’ve lived thru Reagan, bush, Clinton, bush so I’ve barely known a time the government wasn’t corrupt af either.

Yeah, I don’t mean it as some universal. There are plenty of younger folks who are well-versed and literate in these things. But you all got a shitty deal, is all i mean.

With a good chance of winning

I'm about that age and actually incapable of believing that anymore, or believing that it could be again. All I have is spite.

They’re better off than all of us who were raised to believe how great we were, only to find out just how corrupt we really are. Learning about our intelligence agencies & the Supreme clown Court has been tough. It's been gut-punching tough I'll never watch another FBI TV show again that's for sure

This is how a society decays. When people living in it recognize that as the default state. Criminality spreads unchecked and at each level defaulting itself. Which is why a corrupt “developing country” will remain a “developing country” forever..