What Nava said. 
I live in Sydney.
Thanks.
I hope you are enjoying Down Under.
I left, mainly for reasons which are now moot (no gay immigration for my partner at the time; no longer the case as of this summer). Canada has its issues and problems and the US has areas in which things are improving, but overall I’m much more optimistic about Canada and don’t plan on going back. As others have mentioned, there’s healthcare. In a lot of other areas, though we have many of the same problems, they seem less severe here and the level of discourse about them is higher: not quite so much boiling down to clever soundbites without substance. Examples would be race, ethnicity (including religion), and immigration; money in politics; creeping privatization of the public sector; money for arts and cultural programs.
I think that we’ve reached a tipping point of social stagnation and inequality that will prevent the U.S. from ever coming back. Essentially, I think that over the next few decades, the U.S. will continue its slide towards becoming a third world country.
When people hear the term third world, they often picture chickens in the streets and unpaved roads. But as a foreign aid worker who has spent most of my career in the third world, I have come to the conclusion that more than anything, the third world is a state of mind and one that America increasingly adopts: our institutions no longer function, we have developed deep cultural rifts that mean that we don’t even really see those on the other side as our countrymen anymore, we have developed an unhealthy worship of the military (in fact, it is the only government entity that we seem to universally respect), our economic elites no longer feel any sense of obligation to the nation and treat it as just another third world resource for natural resources (fracking and oil extraction, for example), we jail more of our citizens that almost any other nation, and criminal ecomonic elites who brought the world to the brink of economic ruin are not only not punished, but rewarded, we have socialized risk and privatized economic reward for those elites.
Will I emigrate? Probably not, but as a resident of Washington, DC, which does not have representation in congress, I like to think of myself as in internal exile. I still vote, but if Clinto gets the nomination, I will finally leave the Democratic Party and if she gets elected, I will never vote in a national election again. I don’t have kids, so I’ll just kind of watch this slide into third worldom from my front porch with a glass of bourbon. As one of those liberal elites who earned in the top 10% and pushed and pushed to be taxed more, I’ll just let out a world weary “I told you so.”
Pretty optimistic. Things are slowly turning in the right direction. After a couple of hard-fought liberties are solidified hopefully we’ll get serious about modernizing our health care system. And the quality of life curve takes a sharp turn upward if we solve the cheap and plentiful energy supply problem.
good for you, Gleena, if I was younger I would do the same. frankly, I think you should start a thread “ask the one who emigrated” or something like that.
I suspect a lot of Americans just assume it’s normal the way jobs work here.
What? What evidence is there that “Protestantism is doomed”? I just don’t see it. And even if true, what of it? Is Catholicism that objectionable to you?
Back to the question, I’m pessimistic. The Republican Party has become in essence a terrorist organization, relying on fear and loathing in its lust for perpetual power. I expect any day now they’ll burn their own party headquarters, blame it on the Democrats, and start rounding people up.
I think many people are convinced that this is the most pivotal era in American history because it’s the era they’re alive to experience.
For 20+ years or so the USA has been the larger than life rock star of the political world. With that role comes a sense of invulnerability and irresponsibility that ultimately leads to a crash. Unless it’s fatal, however, the crash is usually a time to reflect and grow up, and start over. If we lose/surrender our global reach, someone else will take over as world cop but we’ll still be in a good position to defend ourselves. Divided as we are now, we still have a very innovative culture and I’m confident we will improve our lifestyles and our relationships with other nations if we can just get out of the spotlight.
I could never emigrate. I am more of this land than I am of this nation. I could never feel at home somewhere else.
While I think that’s human nature, there’s quite a lot of older people who have a pretty good historical perspective. I know my father (70s, American) is quite pessimistic, and says politics is worse now than he’s ever seen it. I don’t know how close attention he paid in the 1970s, but I know he remembers them clearly.
I’m optimistic. Most of the things we complain about today have been complaints since 1790.
I think his time was an unusual era of bipartisanship. There was a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy from 1945-2001, a lot of bipartisan consensus on “morality issues” until the 1980s, and a reluctant truce on the role of government given two factors: the GOP was the minority party in Congress and money was plentiful compared to the ambitions of the federal government. Today the opposite is true.
When I read about the politics pre-WWII, or even worse, the 1800s, we’re still in a relative era of good feelings. They aren’t caning each other on the House floor, after all. Our politics is likely to get a lot more cantankerous than it is now. But I don’t think it does any harm to the country. I dare say that bipartisan cooperation tends to produce as much bad as good.
Very optimistic. What we are seeing are the last vestiges of the Old Guard clinging to the shreds of power. Society has left them behind, and they don’t know how to get back on top. Within 20 years they will all be dead and it won’t matter.
Leaving the country would be silly. Nowhere else on the planet has this confluence of sheer wonderfulness. Besides, everywhere else has their own problems. I don’t fear China, either. They are going to crash and burn before too, too long, so fear of a Chinese Hegemony are rather over-stated.
There’s this thing about the Old Guard though. The New Guard becomes the Old Guard in short order. What was the last line of Animal Farm again?
That would surely bring its own problems, though. Yes, on a personal level it would be wonderful as cancer is a cruel and horrible disease (or rather several diseases), but how would we cope with the ever-expanding elderly population if cancer didn’t carry off 1 in 3 of us? Obviously other diseases would step in to take up the slack, but overall mortality would still fall significantly.
Very pessimistic. The separation of powers that I see as a cornerstone to American governance is crumbling. The rule of law is not being respected at the highest levels of government. That is a hop, skip, and a jump away from Banana Republic status. It is not about the policies being promoted but rather about the losing side’s willingness to abide by the results of the democratic process.
That said, I left the US years ago and have been very happy where I am. But now I need to come back for a few years for immigration reasons for the sake of Mrs Iggy and Iggyette who are not citizens. That is proving tough in this job market. Unfortunately the country where I live will not permit them to come live with me under present circumstances.
I hope this is hyperbole.
If it isn’t, consult a psychiatrist at once.
Not at all. A terrorist organization uses fear to further its political agenda. Rather than commit mass murder, the Republicans gin up hatred, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, and bigotry to hang on to power. Rather than blow up buildings, they would be very happy to destroy the government and the economy so that they might be in charge of the rubble.
It’s been time for the USA to be taken down a peg to curb our arrogance, but I see that the farther down we go the louder the shouts become about how great we are despite everything. Corruption is so rampant it’s disgusting - but we’re not even close to the corruption of say, the DRC. In a world-wide view we’ve still got it great, but as always the grass looks greener on the other side to me.
I can’t tell whether I’m optimistic or pessimistic, short or long term, all I know is if I had a chance to get into Finland I would take it in a heartbeat. Screw the American view of how work should be, screw our current healthcare system.
After more consideration I’d say I’m mildly optimistic but I don’t have much faith.
I would agree that the GOP is certainly a hate group at this point, if not an outright terrorist organization. Much of their appeal to their base is through religious fundamentalism, suppression of democratic institutions, racism, other forms of bigotry and fear and it used the threat of harm the nation’s economy if they didn’t get their way. That sounds pretty close to a terrorist group to me.