means it was never really good,

Yes.

As an American, since I was a teenager, I always thought Canada or the Scandinavian countries would be better places to live (mostly due to cannabis laws and healthcare). I grew up in rural US, so was aware of high levels of bigotry and poverty, but yeah, it seems to be getting worse. Rights have been getting eroded since W (except LGBT rights, until MAGA). The economy, for the working class, has been in decline since I've been alive. We seem to be going through a corpo-fascist self-coup now, so it's definitely worse. In terms of foreign meddling, I don't think much has changed since I've been alive until this Trump term. Disregarding LBGT acceptance, I think the late 90s were peak. Regarding WASP men, I think the 50s may have been the peak. The country was built on genocide and slavery in many uniquely brutal ways, so don't think it was really "great" until the mid 1900s, but not even sure it was comparatively great to other peer countries back then, in anything other than having a large economy and plentiful resources to be exploited.

You speak from privilege to think there were good times in America. If you're a minority, you knew that was bullshit. If you knew US History, then everything is a facade.

What you see online/in news now is a caricature of the worst of America. Normal people here aren't chronically online, or worse, professional influencers, and algorithmic scams/busted parties largely made them delusional voters.

That being said, I'm a U.S. southerner and I have seen some shit you wouldn't believe. Like shit too dramatic for television. Some is finally out in the open.

I traveled to every state in the US save Alaska, multiple times. I lived in the forests and public lands, sometimes going days or weeks without seeing civilization.

America, the land, is a beautiful and majestic place. It is full of magic and incredible, ancient power.

America, the people occupying the land, is a lie. Most of it is dusty, decrepit, and feels awful. The cities are the epicenter of this horrible feeling.

Some parts of some cities feels pretty good. Large dog parks, for instance, are almost universally good feeling. From New Mexico to Oregon, to Florida and to Pennsylvania, the Dog Parks were where I went to grab some good vibes in larger places. But besides that, I always had a timer before the cities got too awful feeling before I had to retreat back into the public lands.

My recommendation to you is this: connect with those lands. They were there before you and will remain after. They are a gift nearly no American properly taps in to, and it shows. That is where the spirit lives. You have an incredible treasure all around you, connect with it, it is waiting for you. The good times have just begun if you learn to connect with it.

Don't give in to the manufactured fear. The world is much bigger than this, and the universe is so much larger than it, it becomes a joke. You are part of that larger universe.

🤪 I’ve read opium level the first time

It's always 'they' isn't it? Someone should stop this they...

Andre should be labeled republicans, because they fuck shit up every single time they get power.

"Damn non-white non-cis non-straights!"

Never.

The people with the guns feel like discrimination is when people ostracize them for being bigoted as fuck.

The people without the guns have been baked mentally into not only thinking violence is not the answer, but strikes, civil disobedience, or even mentioning politics """at the wrong time""" are not answers as well.

This will go to its logical conclusion of trump having absolute control, no one fighting back, people ending up in death camps, and all that will matter to the rest of us at that point is whether or not we can convince the US to keep it within their borders (they won't, and Im not sure what happens there, but I am afraid).

Fascism requires an out group, and once they've killed or subjugated all their black and brown people (a huuuge chunk of their population), they'll find some other group to attack.

I think a huge part of the problem is that us, marginalized groups, we can't fucking agree to band together. LGBTQ2S+ will have crazy things like ostracizing bisexuals, or like being prejudice towards black people. Black people return the favour as they have Latino people who are prejudiced against them and other latino people. Heck there are various groups of black people who are prejudiced against other groups of black people (Though I'd do black people a disservice to leave out that they are by far the group who voted most strongly against trump).

When you look at crazy shit like the numbers of Cubans who support trump, its because just like all of his other voters, their single voter issue is that they hate some other demographic of people more than they care about any other subject. That is how they were able to ignore the red flags.

Until marginalized people realize that the strength they have in numbers can indeed not find some magical compromise that excludes the specific group of people they hate, there is no way they'll have any noteworthy resistance, and this is as the regime consolidates more power and removes more and more of them from their ranks such that they won't be sabotaged from within.

They need them to yap about freedom

75% of Americans are overweight or obese. Over 40% are obese. They will never revolt.

So no revolution then?

The 24-hour news cycle so they could have a reason to have 24-hour "news."

It makes me so sad man. I’m so poor and have no healthcare and I have no idea what to do. I can’t even walk most days because of my crippling disability and I still go to protests but it’s not enough. I live in a car — truly the American dream.

Yeah, it's a mistake to write it off as recklessness. Some very few people will materially benefit from this chaos.