Yes. I do not believe there is any chance whatsoever to make America great again, as we were 1 year ago.

To preface, I was born in and live in the US. Before I answer, there are several things you say that I disagree with. First, why are the answers from folks like me and you the most relevant? There are more folks who live outside the United States than within. If you are specifically are looking for the opinions of those who live here, the question should be posed as such. A small change in wording shows that those of us who do live here can change to take a more global perspective. You’ll also notice I haven’t called myself an ‘American’ or referred to ‘America’. This is a small change I have made to the same end.

I also disagree that one can ‘vote wrongly’. People have the right to vote, and to vote according to their belief in their best interest, however misguided they may be. They trust the system which lies to them and has been propagandized for centuries. They have a desire for many of the same improvements the rest of us have (e.g. affordable healthcare), but they ignorantly turn to the snakeoil salesmen who promise them what they want. Perhaps we need to work on our own propaganda

But to answer your question, no I haven’t given up hope, and probably never will. Year after year I teach young compassionate people who, immediately desiring to change the world or not, will have a positive impact simply through their actions. It’s that proximity to the younger generation, which doesn’t give me hope, but gives me an immediate view of the people who will make a positive impact on our country and the world as a whole.

To that end perhaps, we need to identify that ‘hope is lost’ for our generation. We had the expectation that we would be the ones who would impart that change. I may have lost hope in that, and whether I live to see that change or not, I will never lose faith in those who come after us. I have seen far too much of what they are capable of.

Absolutely. Left America 15 years ago. The culture is glorified narcissism. The culture believes the earth is infinite. The culture believes they are the best in the world. The culture believes any criticism is self hatred and must be removed.

Yep.

I’m not seeing much hope in the future, so yes I’ve given up. I want to leave so goddamn bad.

America has been dead to me for years. It’s a crumbling empire and I have no respect for any of its leadership. I will never give up on myself or the working class, but we have far too much rabid individualism and egos to work together.

The people will weather the storm and come out the other side, albeit differently, but any semblance of government here is trash. Both parties are nothing but greed-driven parasites and everyone knows it now. The new generations aren’t fooled by the same bullshit propaganda now and the ruling class knows it. That’s why they’re ruling with an iron fist and the cops have zero accountability.

Cop cities going up everywhere; a military base on every continent; Israeli money weaving into everything; the Democrats are useless fucks; the Republicans are unmasked fascists. This country is in the final stages of late capitalism. I don’t want to live here and haven’t for years, but I persevere for family and friends here. I’ve already told my wife of a revolution ever happens, I’m probably going to be the 65-year-old man that dies in it.

No, but the country has problems. It’s always had problems. Even with all of the economic hardship and political strife we have today, most people are safer, healthier and have better prospects today than they have had in most of US history. It’s by no means perfect and we have a lot of work to do. But, giving up and checking out has never improved anything. It also doesn’t help that we have a steady drip-drip-drip of negative information fed to us by our phones and algorithms. We are also facing one of the largest Constitutional Crises in US History, with the President pushing the boundaries of his Constitutional powers. Even if nothing breaks, we are likely to see many changes from all this. Hopefully, those changes result in better guardrails on the Presidency. And maybe even a repudiation of the Roberts Supreme Court. But, such a future is hard to see when we are in the middle of the storm.

I even have hope for the slight voting majority which put Trump back in power. It’s easy to dismiss those folks as a bunch of <insert invective terms here>. And some of them almost certainly fit those descriptions. However, there are a lot of them which are just scared and confused by the FUD sandwich being fed to them by the 24-hour news cycle, social media algorithms and politicians looking for easy votes. It’s going to be hard work to pull them back off the brink. And if you’re not up to that work, I understand. It’s hard to want to put in the effort for folks who seem so far gone. I’ve spent a lot of hours arguing with folks with whom I disagree wholeheartedly. It’s tiring and I can only take so much before I decide it’s time to move on for a while. But, I would rather keep up the argument than let the country slide into full blown autocracy.

So ya, I have hope. It’s a grim hope and one which recognizes that we could lose. But, giving up now feels premature.

Only half my life ago, but as a surly teen I didn’t yet have the vocabulary to explain why

There are some lovely, smart and aware people in that huge country. It’s not homogeneous. But overall? It won’t get much better without a revolution. And that’s a huge ask. It’s possible, other countries have managed despite police repression and mass illiteracy, but it’s a long journey, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the people with the awareness and the means will just try fleeing instead.

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i have given up. I mean, I had when I was a developing young adult and while I am in my mid 40’s now, it’s only embiggened my concerns. it’s taboo here on .world but I truly think the problem is the current era’s phase of capitalism’s expansion especially with the adaptation to technology in the last 50 years.

there was, truly, no time when this country was great; and I’d posit there is no time when any country is as they exist to extract and exploit.

there is no where to go.

so what I do and have done for 20 some odd years now is try to affect (effect??) change in my community. my “city” is like 14k people. I am a firefighter, first responder, and help where I can elsewhere when I see it. i vote. make my concerns known at town hall, especially against how much our PD is expanding due to “safety” horseshit. I help others vote, I mean to say help them realize they can, where to go, etc. I joke but am kind of serious too when I tell our selectmen that the reason I like supporting my small town is because we know where they live. They get the point with a chuckle and then ask for my votes.

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The US Empire cannot be reformed from within, it needs to be completely dismantled as a state. This new state needs to place indigenous Americans at the forefront as a starter for decolonization, must be Socialist in character, and comprehensively democratic with minority protections. The current US State works entirely off of Imperialism, and maintains hundreds of overseas millitary bases to terrorize the world into bending the knee. The state is not democratic, candidates are pre-approved by the capitalist class. Megacorps rule the US, and have dominance over both parties.

This does not mean “genocide against all who live in the US.” Rather, it means that the working class of the US must overthrow the state and replace it with one run by and for the working class, in an anti-Imperialist and de-colonial manner.

I know you’re looking for people currently living there, but I left not long after Trump got elected the first time (coincidence, not cause), and I feel like it’s helped me be a bit more objective about it.

I’ve seen my dad go from a die-hard conservative who makes a couple edgy jokes to someone who isn’t even trying to hide his support for Trump. At best, he says that Trump’s statements are overblown, at worst he supports them wholeheartedly. It didn’t improve under Biden’s term, and his behavior was one of the big reasons I feared a Trump victory in 2024. He felt no need to hide what he had before (that is, if he had it then. It could have grown over time as well). There was no reform coming for him, just deeper entrenchment.

On the other hand, my sister and Mom represent some of another segment of the US. Neither one follows politics because they’re just busy. When they do have time to relax, the last thing they want to do is catch up on things they’ve missed. Unless my sister has something blasted across her social media feeds, she doesn’t know about it. My mom just doesn’t really watch anything at all, mostly because she’s dealing with her own stuff.

I got to see the US change drastically when Trump got elected, with issues that affected literally everyone, and it turned out that part of my family ignored it, and the part that did know about it supported it. I know my immediate family isn’t a representative sample of the entire US (hell, they’re not even representative of my entire family), but seeing is believing. I never would have thought that people could be like this, but if this can happen to people I know, it’s not that hard to see it happening to others.

So, yeah. Even assuming Trump peacefully leaves power in 2029 (I’ve got no hopes of removal from impeachment), that’s four years of destroying good will, soft power, government services, and legal protections, and this is happening just after we had a president who, at best, could stabilize the country a bit before building back some of what was torn down in the four years prior. This time, the administration is moving faster and with more purpose in some of these areas, too. Assuming it takes twice the amount of time to completely rebuild all that the Trump administrations have removed, that’s still 20 years down the road to be at par with where we were 8 years ago. Foreign countries don’t trust the US to not elect a lunatic. It can be a normal country, some day, but not until I’m old, and not without a lot of internal changes I don’t see happening yet.

Turnaround to what, exactly? A retreat from fascism would be great, don’t get me wrong, but what we had before wasn’t exactly working otherwise we wouldn’t have found ourselves in this situation. As much as Democrats like to blame Donald Trump for literally everything (and he’s certainly done enough), he’s just the manifestation of peoples’ resentment and desperation at how much this country doesn’t work for most of its people.

Worse still, even if there is a return to the status quo from say 10-20 years ago, aside from not fixing the problem, that will just make everyone focus more on their relief at not being under a fascist regime anymore and thus they will become even more complacent about the things that didn’t work before. The politicians who opposed this backslide into fascism - and their ‘vote blue no matter who’ supporters - will be ever more convinced of the rightness of their position and thus have even less reason to change anything, so we’ll just wind up right back here again.

But also, let’s address your specific complaints.

They complain about big tech having your information, but turn around wanting you to sign a petition that asks for your information.

Yeah, let’s not actually try to, you know, do anything about any of this, let’s just sit around and let those tech-bros enshittify their platforms and cram ads down our throats. Let’s not inconvenience anyone with a protest or a petition or a call to your representative, for shame! Also if you can’t see the difference between a giant, all-devouring megacorporation having your data and putting your email/phone# on a petition then I’m afraid it’s going to take more effort than I care to muster to unfuck your worldview, so, uh, good luck figuring that one out on your own.

They complain about commercials all year long, but will tune in by the millions for a Super Bowl

Are you sure these are the same people? You’re painting with an extremely broad brush here. I only have anecdotal evidence to offer, but I complain about commercials and I haven’t watched a Super Bowl ad in probably 20 years.

They complain about unfair wages, bad workplace environments and shitty bosses but didn’t make so much of a fuss during the pandemic.

So your issue is both that they complain, and that they don’t complain hard enough? Talk about having your cake and eating it too, you’re straddling that fence so hard you’ve found a way to whine about both sides of the same issue.

So what gives, really? … fuck the majority of Americans

Apparently what gives is that you are confused and angry and lashing out at people you don’t know for perceived slights you don’t seem to understand, wishing for the impossible return to a magical happy place that never existed (go ahead, ask those of us who remember the 2008 crash how great the world of 20 years ago was, I dare you) because you don’t understand that there is a world of distance between ‘not a complete dumpster fire’ and ‘actually decent.’ You seem to be mad at people who don’t vote the way you think they should without even attempting to understand where they’re coming from or what their motivations might be, you don’t seem capable of learning from the mistakes of the past that led to where we are today, or even particularly interested in acknowledging that they exist. You seem convinced despite generations of evidence that just voting harder will fix anything, and you ridicule the fact that other people have not somehow received this ultimate self-evident truth from on high as you have. And worst of all you seem too exasperated or confused by all of the above to try to actually change anything, you fail to understand, much less support and encourage, the means by which others are trying to do that, and you’re way too up your own ass to realize that everyone around you is a person with their own internal life, hopes, dreams, etc just like you, much less to have a shred of fucking empathy for anyone who isn’t within arm’s reach (and I’m skeptical about even that.)

In short, what gives is: Fuck you, and while you’re at it read a book, you’re embarrassing yourself.