No Stupid Questions

MLK jr and the civil rights movement are just as much a part of America as Jim Crow and slavery. ICE is America but so is every protester fighting it. Lincoln is America. The KKK is America. Trump is America. Luigi is America.

The thing about people is we like to make things simple and put things in a box, and not have exceptions. But that's almost never true, and the US is a land of contradictions. We're very good people, and we're very bad people.

So yeah, it's going down the drain, but it's always been going down the drain. It's also going to get better, and it always has, little by little. Hopefully we can weather this storm and rebuild.

I don't know. You (as an American) are in a better place to judge that than I.

What I do know is this: people are people. And for every rotten son of a bitch, there's someone else, quietly, moving heaven and earth to do good - both in big ways and small. If we're going to tilt at windmills, we may as well tilt at windmills together.

Everywhere there are good people doing good things with the best of intentions - people doing art for the love of the art, actually taking care of natural areas for the love of nature, helping others because they don't want others to suffer rather than as some "charity" grift to make money or make others think they're good people, and so on.

They're just not in power in the US and, IMHO, don't add up to anywhere close to being the majority of people.

Uh, we have the best military, the best medicine, the best universities, broadest cultural reach... etc.

Life in liberal blue progressive areas, is highly desirable and really great, but it's very expensive.

It's just that you aren't getting access to any of it unless you're part of our social elite. If you're in the bottom 90% of the economic status, you are only ever going to get access to the middling/average stuff.

I'd say it has made most Americans stop taking democracy, or even sanity in our leaders, for granted. We've always looked out over the oceans at "them" and pitied those countries with crazy leaders and corruption and now it has taken roost here.

Accelerating EU integration through the threat of invading Greenland,Iceland and thus Greenland -> Denmark -> EU.

I would probably say your movie and tv show industry, im not going to comment on the the actual conditions for writers, actors, people who work in the industry (out of my expertise), the output is pretty amazing. No other country has produces the sheer content and quality of media you do.

Grifting.

American here.

No. We're living in the early stages of a fascist dictatorship. And we've been doing this to the rest of the world for way too fucking long. The sooner we come to grips with the fact that the hens have come home to roost and we're reaping what we've sown, the sooner we can actually take it down and build something better.

I don't think there was much of a reason to ever be proud of it, if you're ashamed now. You can still be proud of what your fellow americans put out : on the culture and research fronts most notably... the US shines far, even though I hear the Trump admin hurt some universities.
But on the political level ? it's still the murderous empire it has been for the past 80 years, just a little more open about it

As a fellow American, I'm going to make a big assumption here and advise you to engage with more people outside. Lemmings are great and all but we do not represent the real world. I can say this has helped me and man, am I worlds better for it.

Right now, the internet is quasi-weaponized against everyone's better mental health. A lot of people are being fed propaganda that aligns strongly with their beliefs, with many people being sucked into a narrow, amplified, and semi-fictional view of reality. You have to dig deep to find real journalism, facts, and then puzzle together a less biased worldview; few people are there to do any of that legwork for you these days. It's all exhausting and a recipe for mental illness if you do it constantly.

Instead, try to get out there and just talk to one person; better yet a stranger. Even if it's just smalltalk. Even if it's about the weather with a librarian or a checkout clerk. ANYONE. If you can make your way to a club, mutual-aid hub, local meetup, whatever... that's even better. The goal is to just verbalize with other humans. The rest will follow from there.

i'd say only americans that have cause to be proud of themselves are the ones who are actively opposing what is happening to your country.

All hope is false, unless engineered, built action by action. You want hope? Build it.

It's very easy to disparage a nation state due to the actions of their government and forget that there are good people everywhere that are well intentioned and trying to do the right thing. The No Kings protest movement is a good example of that. Building solidarity movements with humane values is the way we change society for the better.

Yeah, we are about to get served a big slice of humble pie so bring your appetite. The pain we are all experiencing is there to tell us we cannot continue the way we were. We had the option to change in the past but didn't because it was too hard, now there is no avoiding change.

the lgbtq+ rights in your country seems amazing compared to my own

There has been an increase interest in NATO and I believe they are working to contribute more to defense because they can no longer expect help from the USA.

Not US here. I sometimes think that Americans are nice individuals, generaly speaking, but they are collectivly ferocious.

You should be proud to be human.

Not to be born within some imaginary line drawn on a map, in an area that later got "cleaned" as much as possible of everyone else not speaking the same language or worshipping the same god.

No

No we're at the end of an empire and the dawn of a new world. Our bases across the middle east will be abandoned. More will be emptied or destroyed. Our influence across the world will shrink more than it is now.

The states we have may stay. Alaska might try to break off and join Canada in 50 years. Hawaii might join Australia and New Zealand as well.

Unless we get a political party that will advocate for taxing the fuck out of the rich to invest in america via trains, healthcare and R&D.

Don't get your hopes up.