6 ms·

I'm an American expat who's been living in Germany for the better part of a decade. I've often confronted an unfairly pessimistic, doom and gloom attitude from

by skohan 5y ago

I'm an American expat who's been living in Germany for the better part of a decade. I've often confronted an unfairly pessimistic, doom and gloom attitude from German people regarding the US, and I've always pushed back on this, as I did not feel it represented the reality that the US was as prosperous, mostly well functioning country with a few loud eccentricities which are not always understood from the outside. However my perception was shook a bit in my most recent trip back to the states over this past holidays. Cream cheese was unavailable as an ingredient for the Christmas meal due to supply chain issues. People complained about inflation and high gas prices. Flights were totally unreliable, and COVID tests were almost impossible to come by. On top of all those real-world issues, it was surprising to see how compliance has become a political issue in the US. My liberal family members treated mask wearing as an issue of character, and seemed to treat catching covid as almost a moral failing, while my conservative family members viewed it almost as a scam. I have seen the politicization of every issue before. I've been aware that the US government has been in a state for a long time where it seems to be structurally unable of getting things done. But this is the first time I have seen material conditions degraded to such an extent in my home country that it is impacting the day to day lives of even middle class and upper middle class people. This was especially surprising since the same issues have not presented themselves in Germany. I hope what I witnessed was just the short-term effect of an unprecedented wave of the virus, but it was enough to give me doubts.

ModernMech 5y ago
The problem in America isn't a lack of cream cheese, I'm sorry. The problem is that there was a free and fair election last year that one party's leader refers to as a coup, which then lead to an actual coup attempt. They refer to that as a patriotic uprising. This happens because people are being lied to on purpose. Republican leadership wants this to happen. They are doing it on purpose. This does not happen because there's no cream cheese at the store. This is something that takes decades to foster.
- syspec 5y ago
  A lot of people are afraid to say this for fear of alienating the other side
- skohan 5y ago
  I'm sorry but you are missing the point. You could argue we haven't had a proper transition of power in several administrations. In Bush v. Gore we had (perhaps reasonable) concerns about the validity of the result thanks to the supreme court stepping in. When Obama took office, a significant portion of the opposition refused to believe he was even an American citizen. Trump's validity was questioned on the grounds that he was a Russian plant - a claim which was pursued with a years-long very public official investigation which yielded smoke and no fire. My point is, this is the first time I have seen America's issues actually manifest in material ways. Political alienation is concerning, but it's not all that powerful on its own. Political alienation plus the degradation of material conditions is absolutely how wars are started.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    > Trump's validity was questioned on the grounds that he was a Russian plant - a claim which was pursued with a years-long very public official investigation which yielded smoke and no fire. The craziest voices claimed he was a Russian plant, but the mainstream claim was always collusion, which was proven by the Senate Republicans in volume 5 of their report on Russian Active Measures. The report established that the Trump campaign, through its chairman, was funneling internal campaign data to a Russian Intelligence Officer, as Russian Intelligence was running a psyops campaign against American citizens [0]. So yes, there was smoke and it was coming from a fire. There was collusion, and there was obstruction. It's been proven and documented. When we look at the transition of power, yes it's true that there have been issues in past elections and that's what I mean when I say this has been going on for a while. There was actual violence in the 2000 election (the Brooks Brothers Riot). But at the same time we are someplace new when an actual coup plot is formed and executed by the sitting President of the United States. And I hear you about material conditions, but at the same time the people who stormed the Capitol flew there in planes. They stayed in expensive hotels. They captured their crimes live on their expensive cell phones. They included doctors, lawyers, and business executives, and politicians. This isn't about economic anxiety. That's a narrative that's been going on since 2016, and it's just hard to find real evidence of that. It's true that there have been some temporary shortages of specific items, but in general I can go out and buy cream cheese today, and really anything else I would like. Material conditions are fine in America. > Political alienation plus the degradation of material conditions is absolutely how wars are started. Wars also start when leaders deliberately lie to masses of people, claiming their votes are being stolen when they aren't. Sometimes wars just happen because of conditions, and sometimes powerful people and groups take a situation and tip it over because they would like to see a war happen, because it's preferable to the alternative. That's where we are in America. [0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> However my perception was shook a bit in my most recent trip back to the states over this past holidays. Cream cheese was unavailable as an ingredient for the Christmas meal due to supply chain issues. People complained about inflation and high gas prices. Flights were totally unreliable, and COVID tests were almost impossible to come by. This is what worries you? That we're having some supply chain problems with cream cheese, largely as a result of a once-in-a-century pandemic? The price of gas is far too cheap anyway given it's environmental cost, Americans should consider buying smaller freaking cars. While it is hard to find COVID tests, it's very easy to find vaccines (and has been for eight months), and between the two I'd say we prioritized the right thing. Flights are clearly a result of employees catching Omicron. I'm much more worried about the insurrection, and voter suppression, and the large percentage of Americans who think Biden won illegitimately. Or, if you want to focus on material issues, I'm worried that we're the only advanced country without universal healthcare, income inequality has been skyrocketing for decades, and we can't seem to build major new infrastructure projects. (The recent infrastructure bill is encouraging, but e.g. Amtrak says it will mostly be used for maintenance on existing lines, WTF?!) Oh, and I'm worried about climate change, but at least most of those problems are in the future. You know, after it's too late to do anything about it.
- roenxi 5y ago
  > I'm much more worried about the insurrection Funny you should lead with that as your main concern, because it has the same problem as the fabrications about Russian collusion (which I note has fallen way out of fashion now that election security has happily returned to being a iron-clad given [0]) - at some point the narrative collapses due to a lack of any and all evidence. It has been 12 months, the transfer of power turned out to be mostly peaceful - as usual. And then people quite rightly ask "why was the focus on fabrications rather than real, tangible problems - like supply chain instability and lack of disaster preparedness?". [0] Possibly the Trump administration did good work securing them?
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    > because it has the same problem as the fabrications about Russian collusion I'm still worried about Russia interfering in our elections. I can't speak for others. > And then people quite rightly ask "why was the focus on fabrications rather than real, tangible problems." Because it almost worked. If one police officer had run a different way, the insurrectionists probably would have found where the congresspeople were. Say a bunch of them are killed—what do you do now? If they came from states that had opposite party governors, and the balance of power in congress changes... what does that mean for democratic legitimacy? That day came very, very close to being very bad, and there's no reason to think it won't repeat itself in a few years if we don't take the problem seriously.
csomar 5y ago
Europe had its own issues too (natural gas shortages). I guess you still haven't gotten your energy bill. As some other commentators said, US problems are not Cream cheese or unreliable flights (though that's a hassle).

by skohan 5y ago

ModernMech 5y ago

The problem in America isn't a lack of cream cheese, I'm sorry. The problem is that there was a free and fair election last year that one party's leader refers to as a coup, which then lead to an actual coup attempt. They refer to that as a patriotic uprising. This happens because people are being lied to on purpose. Republican leadership wants this to happen. They are doing it on purpose. This does not happen because there's no cream cheese at the store. This is something that takes decades to foster.

syspec 5y ago
A lot of people are afraid to say this for fear of alienating the other side
skohan 5y ago
I'm sorry but you are missing the point. You could argue we haven't had a proper transition of power in several administrations. In Bush v. Gore we had (perhaps reasonable) concerns about the validity of the result thanks to the supreme court stepping in. When Obama took office, a significant portion of the opposition refused to believe he was even an American citizen. Trump's validity was questioned on the grounds that he was a Russian plant - a claim which was pursued with a years-long very public official investigation which yielded smoke and no fire. My point is, this is the first time I have seen America's issues actually manifest in material ways. Political alienation is concerning, but it's not all that powerful on its own. Political alienation plus the degradation of material conditions is absolutely how wars are started.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > Trump's validity was questioned on the grounds that he was a Russian plant - a claim which was pursued with a years-long very public official investigation which yielded smoke and no fire. The craziest voices claimed he was a Russian plant, but the mainstream claim was always collusion, which was proven by the Senate Republicans in volume 5 of their report on Russian Active Measures. The report established that the Trump campaign, through its chairman, was funneling internal campaign data to a Russian Intelligence Officer, as Russian Intelligence was running a psyops campaign against American citizens [0]. So yes, there was smoke and it was coming from a fire. There was collusion, and there was obstruction. It's been proven and documented. When we look at the transition of power, yes it's true that there have been issues in past elections and that's what I mean when I say this has been going on for a while. There was actual violence in the 2000 election (the Brooks Brothers Riot). But at the same time we are someplace new when an actual coup plot is formed and executed by the sitting President of the United States. And I hear you about material conditions, but at the same time the people who stormed the Capitol flew there in planes. They stayed in expensive hotels. They captured their crimes live on their expensive cell phones. They included doctors, lawyers, and business executives, and politicians. This isn't about economic anxiety. That's a narrative that's been going on since 2016, and it's just hard to find real evidence of that. It's true that there have been some temporary shortages of specific items, but in general I can go out and buy cream cheese today, and really anything else I would like. Material conditions are fine in America. > Political alienation plus the degradation of material conditions is absolutely how wars are started. Wars also start when leaders deliberately lie to masses of people, claiming their votes are being stolen when they aren't. Sometimes wars just happen because of conditions, and sometimes powerful people and groups take a situation and tip it over because they would like to see a war happen, because it's preferable to the alternative. That's where we are in America. [0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

> However my perception was shook a bit in my most recent trip back to the states over this past holidays. Cream cheese was unavailable as an ingredient for the Christmas meal due to supply chain issues. People complained about inflation and high gas prices. Flights were totally unreliable, and COVID tests were almost impossible to come by. This is what worries you? That we're having some supply chain problems with cream cheese, largely as a result of a once-in-a-century pandemic? The price of gas is far too cheap anyway given it's environmental cost, Americans should consider buying smaller freaking cars. While it is hard to find COVID tests, it's very easy to find vaccines (and has been for eight months), and between the two I'd say we prioritized the right thing. Flights are clearly a result of employees catching Omicron. I'm much more worried about the insurrection, and voter suppression, and the large percentage of Americans who think Biden won illegitimately. Or, if you want to focus on material issues, I'm worried that we're the only advanced country without universal healthcare, income inequality has been skyrocketing for decades, and we can't seem to build major new infrastructure projects. (The recent infrastructure bill is encouraging, but e.g. Amtrak says it will mostly be used for maintenance on existing lines, WTF?!) Oh, and I'm worried about climate change, but at least most of those problems are in the future. You know, after it's too late to do anything about it.

roenxi 5y ago
> I'm much more worried about the insurrection Funny you should lead with that as your main concern, because it has the same problem as the fabrications about Russian collusion (which I note has fallen way out of fashion now that election security has happily returned to being a iron-clad given [0]) - at some point the narrative collapses due to a lack of any and all evidence. It has been 12 months, the transfer of power turned out to be mostly peaceful - as usual. And then people quite rightly ask "why was the focus on fabrications rather than real, tangible problems - like supply chain instability and lack of disaster preparedness?". [0] Possibly the Trump administration did good work securing them?
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > because it has the same problem as the fabrications about Russian collusion I'm still worried about Russia interfering in our elections. I can't speak for others. > And then people quite rightly ask "why was the focus on fabrications rather than real, tangible problems." Because it almost worked. If one police officer had run a different way, the insurrectionists probably would have found where the congresspeople were. Say a bunch of them are killed—what do you do now? If they came from states that had opposite party governors, and the balance of power in congress changes... what does that mean for democratic legitimacy? That day came very, very close to being very bad, and there's no reason to think it won't repeat itself in a few years if we don't take the problem seriously.

csomar 5y ago

Europe had its own issues too (natural gas shortages). I guess you still haven't gotten your energy bill. As some other commentators said, US problems are not Cream cheese or unreliable flights (though that's a hassle).