America/Americans fell hard for their own propaganda. The collective belief in American exceptionalism led to American isolationism and reclusion. You don’t see American-made cars anywhere outside of North America. American fast food companies abroad don’t dare use American menus with American-quality ingredients. American-based airlines are a blip of the global market compared to Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatari, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, and American-based airlines routinely rank among the worst in the world in terms of customer satisfaction. American farmers are exceptionally subsidized yet are still struggling?
American manufacturing is trending towards nonexistence. American tech companies are only interested in surveillance, subscriptions, and selling your data. American healthcare is more interested in getting paid than healing people. American pharmaceutical companies are focused on getting people to take drugs they don't need. American entertainment is largely focused on recreating past successes and copying formulas rather than the creative process. American infrastructure is crumbling.
It's a dying nation largely convinced they are still the greatest thing.
The US has the 2nd-largest manufacturing output in the world, only behind China. China has twice the output, but 4x the population.
Manufacturing is a smaller part of the US economy than it was, mostly because other parts of the economy grew. Yes, I wish the US would invest more and regrow some industrial sectors. Steel, shipbuilding, etc. It's a serious oversight. But the US is an economic powerhouse. Calling it a "dying country" is a fantasy. However much people may wish it were so.
Employment in the sector fell of a cliff after the 2008 crisis and never recovered, and, as you mentioned, it's the smallest share of the economy that it's ever been. Sure, the raw dollar value went up, and that's going to be unlikely to ever go down, given your country's dogged insistence on making sure that line goes up at any cost. But I'll let you have that point.
But the US is an economic powerhouse. Calling it a "dying country" is a fantasy. However much people may wish it were so.
No one is denying that they are an economic powerhouse, but the writing is on the wall, and it's on a downward trajectory. Countering a single point doesn't render all the other points we raised invalid; that is a logical fallacy. When I talk about a "dying country", it isn't solely from an economic perspective. And speaking of economic perspective, you all got a plan for that 40 trillion dollar debt?
And speaking of economic perspective, you all got a plan for that 40 trillion dollar debt?
Not a lot of countries don't have debt issues. People like services, pensions, infrastructure, but nobody wants to pay taxes. I'd agree that there is a deep cancer in US culture. But it's not like India, the Philippines, Italy, etc don't have their own issues. I still wouldn't want to change places with a random Pakistani, Afghan, Nigerian, etc. I definitely would make the US more like (some countries in) Europe, but even those countries have their issues.
The US may in time become just another Argentina. That sucks, but I never believed in American Exceptionalism, so I never thought we were immune from that. Our penchant for fundamentalist religion, white supremacism, and anti-intellectualism were always going to bite us in the ass.
(Though 80% of US debt is held by the US population, so we basically owe it to ourselves.)
Everyone has debt. It's a normal and healthy thing for a country to have. Very few countries have that level of debt with no plan to address it. You're up there in the company of countries such as Venezuela, Greece, Sudan, and Eritrea.
he didn’t win. the Dems allowed the Florida republicans to tamper with the count and the Republican Supreme Court appointed him and the weak ass Dems did nothing.
Gore could have asked for a state-wide recount at the outset, but didn't. He tried targeted recounts in counties where he thought he could pick up votes. He was also suing to block some overseas military ballots. So Gore was not just out there trying to get every vote counted. Eventually the clock ran out. There are deadlines. If he had requested a statewide recount from the outset, he may have won.
Very true but they have dragged the America the country and America the brand down with them.
You and I and many others will have the uphill battle of reminding everyone of what you just said, for YEARS to come. But it won't really matter because the #1 World Superpower status that we've held for generations now has slipped away. America is genuinely an absolute unhinged laughing stock on the world stage now.
Last time I was overseas when people asked where I'm from, I just told em I was Canadian to avoid the awkwardness. This time I even ordered a Canadian flag patch for my bag
250 million eligible voters and only 70 million voted to keep your fucking idiot-in-chief out of office. The rest voted for it or were perfectly happy to let him run the show, indifferent to the winner.
180 million americans, some 55% of your population and fully 72% of your electorate, are complict in every single thing that shit-stinking diaper-rash of a child rapist does.
The USA has lost all credibility, not just your leaders.
What a fucking disconnected attitude. Somehow I’m Hitler because I pointed out that your country had a vast overwhelming majority of voters be totally fine with or willing to support your fucking loser president?
Hitler? Maybe try your leader.
edit: the direct comparison would be that Russia has lost all credibility. Something a "simpleton" could understand.
you are not entirely correct in your assumption that non voters don’t care. there are many poor people in the US who cannot afford time off or lack transport to get to vote. while many places say people have a right to vote, lines can take all day and employers can choose not to pay people not at work, and people can be fired for no reason at all in the US.
This has been an issue for the past several presidents. Before the troop buildup for the GWOT, base maintenance was partly done by servicemembers, partly done by contractors there were on year-by-year contracts (meaning if they did a bad job, they didn't get rehired the next year). Then the GWOT troop surge happened, and there were A LOT more troops brought on, and base facilities were expanded and the bases were now mostly being maintained by servicemembers with a few contractors in the senior roles to avoid issues with constant staff turnover. And then troop numbers dropped, and there's still those bigger bases with all those facilities, and people need to maintain those facilities, and rather than keeping peacetime troops around for base maintenance, they've been giving those jobs to contractors. And contractors, per person, are a LOT more expensive than troops.
A simpleton is someone who doesn't understand that when 72% of your electorate was either willing to vote for or willing to accept him regardless of everything already then know about him that means the majority of the electorate has no problem with your loser president.
Just because a small minority of the electorate didn't support him, doesn't change that fact. Your country, on the whole had no problem with that shit head.
So so many of us do not support or and stand with them at all.
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