That's great, too bad none of those people sit in positions of power or anywhere near your government, because from the outside for the last two decades or more, those ideals are not visible to us at all, neither when we look at the foreign policy nor internal.
I'm sure the tides will eventually turn, but we're talking decades more likely than years, since it's been turning this direction for decades already, and I don't see it tipping the balance in the other way even today or the near-future. GLHF at the very least, I do hope things get better for everyone.
I just don't get it - unless all those ideals were just a show from the start.
The No Kings protest was estimated at 7 million people.
Go out, stay out until change is enacted. It's called striking, and if you had any sort of good unions, they'd be planning a general strike for a long time, and it should go on until you get change.
You know, like how other "modern" countries do it when the politicians forget who they actually work for.
Add in how large the US is, it's population size, distribution, how far most people live from Washington D.C. and a cultural knee-jerk response to anything remotely seen as bullying of digging their heels in or fight back means they're far, far more difficult to do effectively here than in "modern" countries.
Yeah, but thankfully, solidarity kind of solves that, as people fired from their jobs because they're striking would be supported by the community. But, if the country doesn't have a history of having built such a community, often with big help from socialist and left-leaning groups, the options you have available today are kind of few.
But best day for it is today, even if yesterday wasn't very good.
It was just an astroturfed Democratic party rally that drummed up participation by mass text spam from Indian call centers. The turnout was positively geriatric.
Incidentally, the Democratic Party has started running into a severe issue with text spammers and fake orgs asking for donations and raking in millions, and the people doing it are people who are actually involved with the party.
Those Constant Texts Asking You to Donate to Democrats Are Scams
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/mothership-strate...
The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine
https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-mothership-vortex-...
There does seem to be some slight improvements of this situation as of late, video game companies and other obvious sectors getting more unions. But still, even on HN you see lots of FUD about unions, I'm guessing because of the shitty state of police unions and generally the history of unions in the US, but there really isn't any way out of the current situation without solidarity across the entire working class and middle class in the US, even if they're right, left, center or purple.
The thing the person you're replying to points out is that, while you may be earnest in your comment and representative of a majority of US citizen, that is not how the US as a country has worked for a very long time, and it was possible because you and your fellow citizen were either too ignorant or not involved enough.
I'll simply point to the history of Central and South America as evidence of my claim.
Why did good honest people of the US reelected Bush Jr. after the illegal invasion of Iraq when no WMD was found?
Which is why, from its very inception, the US has employed mass genocide at home, invasions & regime changes in the America's, then post-slavery apartheid at home, with invasions & regime changes in the rest of the world.
That's not anti-American rhetoric. That's just historical fact.
So, commingled with those facts, where does "law, love & fair play" come in. If you're honest, THAT was the propaganda. And the above realities, that was the truth.
The America of today IS the America it has always been. Its just that the propaganda mask can't be reattached with more duct tape. America started by geniciding non-whites at home, and rounding up & dragging non-whites TO America, in chains.
Now it's genociding non-whites abroad (primarily the Middle East), and rounding up & dragging non-whites FROM America, in chains.
When you focus on the common threads throughout American history, and strip away the fluff, you realise ... that's the real America (which still has the largest slave labour force in the world, through indentured workforces via its prison system).
We are a nation of selfish, narcissists that have no concept of consistent long lasting care based communities.
What little care we give each other is mediated through transactions or cult based social alignment.
It looks like Musk was able to buy Twitter and, together with the other media magnates, force a massive societal change in USA. At least from the outside looking in, before this year USA seemed to be a democracy (with some factions doing their best to subvert that) and the Constitution seemed to be a widely supported basis for that democracy. But now, the Constitution has been torn to shreds and seemingly with massive support from people who will call sand wet and water dry if Trump tells them communists don't agree with it and that his clever uncle told him so.
Everything else is fantasy coping mechanisms to maintain in/out group distance so that people feel temporal “safety”
That does not stop us from working towards making the nation a better place. I'm stubborn and loud and I talk to politicians and others when I see things that I don't think are right. Maybe (probably) I'm tilting at windmills. But I'm not giving up on what I think the United States should be.
The bright eyed idealism I refer to is the failure to recognize that when you look at your own country you are looking in a mirror.
It's not only that. The type of patriotism that people have in the US is unlike any other. No offense but the only word I can use to describe it is utter arrogance, like the US is a synonym for Utopia and the US is humanities best attempt ever at it. You see patriotism in other countries in the sense that "I love my country" but you don't see it in the sense that "My country is the greatest" like you see with Americans.
I mean to be fair you do get governments who try to get people to think that their country is the greatest but none of the citizenry really buy into it (think: North Korea). But for America, a large number of people literally think America is the greatest and this is what is unique about American patriotism. You embody it.
>The situation we find ourselves in is that the American of today does not represent us well.
The system can't represent a contradictory set of ideals.
The situation we find ourselves in is that the American of today does not represent us well. I have hopes for the future, but time will tell.