U.S. citizens: how pessimistic are you about the future of your country?

In My Humble Opinion
61

The United States is already a fascist nation in that nearly every aspect of economic life is subordinate to the whims of the governing elite. The Internet is one of the last bastions of economic freedom in the US but it is under threat. The federal government has access to our communications, thanks to fascist partnerships with Internet companies. The ACA is textbook fascism. The more frightening aspects of fascism as practiced in earlier countries has yet to show it’s head, so people act like we are some kind of free country. We can call it corporatist if it makes you feel better, but it involves the control by the politically connected over the non connected just the same.

Long term I’m optimistic. Short term the federal government will continue to run up its debt, giving our money to its key constituencies. Social security benefits will be cut surreptitiously. Medicare will be cut surreptitiously. Corporate welfare will not be cut. Regulations will increase. All of this will be carried out by a new Democratic majority that exploits wedge social issues. This is already happening with Democrats’ championing of chained CPI for SS benefits. Political speech will be constricted. Claims of racism, elitism, and theocratism from demagogues will stifle opposition and cripple reformers. Eventually there will be attempts to outlaw hate speech and expand its definition to include any opposition to statism. This already occurs on a small scale.

Eventually as the federal government simultaneously goes broke and attempts to further regulate and extort the productive class, secessionist movements will spring up and this decentralization movement will be the savior of capitalism and prosperity in America. Technological advances will decentralize information faster and government will be unable to keep u

62

Also reckless bellicosity by the War Party in Washington will lead is into yet another proxy war in Asia, or even a direct confrontation with China. This also may happen in sub-Saharan Africa where China’s economic presence is growing and our own military presence is also growing.

63

The elections of 2010 don’t strike me as much of a repudiation of the GOP, so perhaps your counting is off.

Because it is faintly reminiscent of a Third World city - a corrupt and incompetent ruling class heavily dependent on US federal donations for basic services (and failing at most of them), and a huge divide between rich and poor. And obsessively politicized. You don’t see nearly as much of that in the rest of the country.

Regards,
Shodan

64

I clearly meant the presidential elections, which the GOP have lost twice, do you agree that your party has been rejected twice in a row for the offices of president and vice president?

Let’s see, my next door neighbor is a nurse, her husband is a parking lot attendant, next to her is a teacher, next to him is a retired mail man, sounds like real America to me, but yeah, they’re black, so not real Americans to the GOP.

Choosy moms choose Jif,
Madmonk28

65

I’m optimistic about the future. I would find it satisfying, however, if people eased up on the discussions of what is wrong with the country, looked in the mirror more often, and started discussing what is wrong with them.

Not in the way that liberals talk about conservatives ruining the country (and vice versa), I’m talking about people thinking about their own shortcomings and what impact they have on other people. For example, I should eat more vegetables so I will be heathier as I age; I should drive a little less to cut down on traffic and pollution; I should actually do more about civil rights than just thinking it’s a really important topic, because this country has a terrible record of intolerance than can be fixed in the future; and I should do more to promote civil discourse in this country because we can fix big problems if we feel compelled to yell at and hate each other.

And after I think about those sorts of things, I should do them.

66

What disturbs me more than anything is the divisiveness. We’ve lost our ability to compromise, to respect each other’s opinions, to even respect our President, be he an R or a D. Everyone is a critic, and everyone thinks the other side is not only wrong, but evil. We can’t have a dialogue on any subject before it deteriorates into name calling. I am so sick of opening up threads on any subject and reading potshots about how evil Republicans are, and how naive Democrats are. I blame the 24/7 news media, which perpetuates hysteria and suspicion in their zeal to bolster their ratings. The constant demonizing of our political adversaries is harming this country, and pulling us farther away from the center, which is where we need to be.

My biggest fear about our future is that the gap between the haves and have nots will widen. I believe that BOTH parties are to blame. The Republicans for protecting their Wall Street buddies and not introducing meaningful legislation capping salaries and limiting golden parachutes, and the Democrats for pushing through sweeping, half-baked legislation, such as Obamacare, that even they don’t have a handle on in terms of cost or consequences. That’s a terrible way to govern.

So, yes, call me pessimistic. My exit strategy currently consists of: Costa Rica, Roatan and Australia.

67

Pessimistic. Unprecedented peacetime deficits, low taxes, low regulation, and an American public are too entitled to pay for their own tax cuts. Our high peacetime debt is something that the Sages of the Revolution warned against in the Federalist Papers and was echoed from U.S Presidents from Washington to Jackson.

Currently, our economy is fake; bought for unpaid tax cuts and a fragile stock market that magically goes up every year and sags whenever the Federal Reserve Chairman whispers of tapering quantitative easing. The economy looks to be comprised of boom and bust cycles which means the consumer will eventually pay the price - like we did in 2008. More disconcerting, the financial industry has a disproportionate affect on everyday American’s lives compared to their contribution to GDP. For example, JPMorgan Chase was found to be sequestering aluminum in warehouses in order to drive up the price of the commodity. It’s sick - what happens if they choose to sequester corn, flour, or sugar in order to artificially raise the prices?

In addition all of this, we’re also selling our cities - piece by piece - to private creditors, wealthy individuals, and corporations. This is a horrible development and shows that we’re willing to barter away our public lands and public goods to extinguish debt. Then, on top of all of this, the U.S gives billions of dollars (an increase!) to Israel and Egypt in free money while cutting appropriations to the City of Detroit by $66 million (2012 FY). In other words, we’re stealing from the very poorest of our country to give to the richest of an already rich and prosperous country. It’s not only sickening and unAmerican, but it’s a damn poor bargain.

  • Honesty
68

This ignorance is the greatest threat the US faces.
Moronic misunderstanding of the real world, form basic economics and diplomacy, to jingoistic prejudice and fantastic visions of a libertarian paradise are the only true threats to this country.

69

Meh, I did emigrate as a decision, but I did it to get married. Probably does not warrant a thread. We did a cost benefit and decided Australia was better than the US, so I moved here. It’s not an easy decision, and I don’t think people understand how hard it is - not just the move, but immigration paperwork and costs and uncertainty. Some people just can’t emigrate, even if they want to.

My Australian friends are horrified at the US jobs situation, honestly. The at will employment, no mandated notice or payout for redundancies, miserably low minimum wage etc. When I moved here and found out I was guaranteed four weeks off per year, it was like Christmas. I still have US sensibilities and I still have that nagging fear I’ll turn up one day and be fired for any or no reason, but unless you’re contracting it simply (for the most part) doesn’t work like that. Again, one of the reasons my quality of life is better - even if I get laid off, my company goes under, whatever, I’ll get a redundancy package and have a cushion while I look for work.

For a variety of reasons (well regulated banks and mineral wealth) we skipped the GFC despite being exactly what Republicans would have you believe is the worst form of government ever. And religion is looked on as mildly odd, which is fantastic.

Australia isn’t sunshine and lollipops all the time. Our housing costs (at least in urban areas) are high, as is our cost of living. We’re eyeing off the downturn of China as the minerals boom slacks off, and trying to build other areas of our economy to compensate. Our Opposition leader has taken a page from the US Republican method of governing (always say no, even if it’s good.) But even he wouldn’t dream of killing single payer health care, old age pensions and the like. Our immigration policy for refugees is woeful and, frankly, racist. I have no good options in the upcoming election. I’m appalled at how Aboriginal Australians are treated in the NT intervention.

But on the whole, I think we are poised to do better in the Asian century than the US. And even all that said I am never, ever moving back to the US.

70

If you’d like to debate the issues I’ve brought forth, I certainly have the confidence and honesty in my views to debate without name-calling.

Do you?

  • Honesty
71

Glossary:

real world: empiricism as applied to the social sciences

basic economics: Keynesian or Friedmanite dogmatism

diplomacy: drone warfare and a powerful navy

Jingoistic prejudice: support of Obama and Bush foreign policy?

fantastic visions of libertarian paradise: belief that the United States may not be the absolute perfect size

72

I am mildly optimistic regarding the future of the US, mostly because I think ( and hope ) the next generation is learning from the mistakes this one has made.

73

I’m sure the country will be fine. I can’t get too worked up by the internet rants of the various left-wing, right-wing, libertarian, Ross Perovian and other assorted whack jobs crying about the sky falling because the entire world doesn’t buy into their particular narrow ideology.

I mean what do people think is actually going to happen? Terrorist attacks worse than 9/11? A financial crisis worse than 2008? The country seems to manage to recover from these things well enough.

74

The gradual erosion of civil liberties in the name of security. The gradual decline of a middle-class lifestyle. The gradual weakening of the nation’s educational system. The gradual looting of the national parks. The gradual decline of the nation’s infrastructure. All of it relative to other countries which are not in such decline, though certainly we’re all in the same economic boat.

Nothing drastic or dramatic, just a decline in the quality of life for Americans in a number of different areas. I mean, I’m a little freaked out by the fact that a not insignificant subset of Americans worship anyone in military uniform but hate “government”; still, I don’t think there’s going to be a military coup or anything.

75

Incredibly pessimistic.

76

I’m generally optimistic. Our country has been haphazardly progressing for the past several centuries (and the world as a whole the past several millennia) and I don’t see anything to indicate the trend will reverse. The problems of today are simply problems of today.

Things that make me pessimistic are the incessant politicization of everything. When asked about the future of the country, how many posters here immediately started talking politics? Sorry, but politics doesn’t really affect the big picture. The political parties persistently inflate their own importance, and too many people buy into it.

Compare how we currently live to how our ancestors lived 100 or 200 or 1000 years ago. Almost invariably we’re living more comfortably than they were. Local fluctuations don’t provide meaningful projections.

77

USian here. I’d absolutely emigrate if opportunity presented, and I’ve been actively looking into it. At this point, I think the continued wealth separation and lack of class and income mobility is unrecoverable by traditional means (voting). Corporate interests hold too much sway over any possibility of a consistent voter base having a consistent progressive consensus that could drive any real change. The shift from a production economy to a consumer economy means ever poorer opportunities for science, engineering, etc.

The biggest kicker for me is higher education and the constraints it puts on class/income mobility. We plan on raising a family, and there is simply no way in hell that I’m going to condemn my kids to decades of indebted servitude just to get an education that isn’t bargain-basement. Healthcare uncertainty and the erosion of worker’s rights are also very concerning.

78

I have read all the previous posts (which I rarely do) and I am slightly astonished at the extreme views shown. I am quite pessimistic and have rejected the idea of moving back to the US, having retired and with three kids there. I moved to Canada 45 years ago and have not regretted it.

Many decades ago, before I ever imagined leaving, I started to wonder why North America (at least north of the Rio Grande) was so prosperous and Middle and South America were so poor. Now, I am not an economist and I am sure there are many answers to this question, but one common feature of the southern countries was that they had a small number of extremely wealthy families who basically ran things, a gigantic poor class and small or non-existent middle class. The US isn’t there yet, but they are certainly tending to.

The first politics I recall clearly was the 1948 elections. My family was afraid Dewey would win, were happy when Truman did, but understood it really didn’t make all that much difference. We survived Truman, we survived Eisenhower, we survived Kennedy and Johnson, and we survived Reagan (though he was responsible for the beginning of gigantic peace time deficits). But the big thing Reagan did was begin dismanteling the labor movement. But the most damage Reagan did was begin the extreme politicalization of the Supreme Court. But the extreme partisanship that we see now had not arrived.

I don’t think the Republican party is a terrorist organization, but it is in serious danger of being taken over by one. But the worst thing that has happened is the reintroduction of Jim Crow in voting. Even in my home state of Pennsylvania. This is obviously intended to prevent the Democrats from ever winning elections in those states. Yes, the Justice Department is now investigating these states, but you can bet they will stop after they steal the 2016 election. As several have said, the US is now governed to preserve the interests of the oligarchs who don’t care what happens with same sex marriage and other wedge issues as long as they run the things important to them.

Let me say something about free markets. Have you ever seen one? Does anyone believe in them? Well anyone trying to break into a market does, but the instant they find their niche they will try their damndest to prevent any further free market. Every company is attempting to get a monopoly or at least be a big player in a small pond. It is not generally known, but Adam Smith understood perfectly well that a free market could be maintained only by having a referee (i.e. government regulation) to keep it free. (Another widely misunderstood economist was Keynes who advocated deficits in a recession and surpluses in a boom. Clinton, anyone? It was Bush who decided to lower taxes for the neediest and start two unwinnable wars.)

Health care. I have to admit that what we have here is not perfect. Too few doctors and a disastrous decision a decade ago to offer substantial buyouts to nurses to retire. The province spends about 45% of its budget on health care and it will get worse as the population ages. Still no one is denied care for pre-existing conditions and doctors do not spend endless hours as my DIL in Mass. does arguing with insurance companies. I go in, see my doctor, the receptionist stamps my medicare card and the doctor gets paid. I go in to a hospital, get treatment, let them stamp my card, and leave. Will Obama/Romney care actually be implemented? Stay tuned but I am not sanguine.

When I was young we used to ridicule the Soviet Union because citizens could not travel without internal passports. Now it is impossible to travel by plane without “photo-ID” and I hear that they are talking about instituting this for trains. The SU had sham elections. I see the US heading that way. When I got my social security card, I went into an office, gave my name and date of birth and walked out with a card. You cannot do that today. I think you need a birth (or naturalization) certificate. (I think birth certificates are actually useless for identification purposes since there is nothing to connect you with your BC.) When I got my first driver’s license, I filled out a form mailed it in with a bit of money and the learner’s permit came by return mail. No birth certificate. They assumed I was telling the truth. Now they assume I might by lying. And the BC is still the weakest link in establishing ID.

How many died on 9/11? Was it 3000? Maybe the same number who died in traffic during that month of September. Anything done about that? Don’t be silly. Maybe twice as many as killed by gunshot during that same month. But the government has used that attack as a pivot to significantly reduce liberties. Bradley Manning gets 35 years in the clink for exposing government lying and grossly excessive secrecy. What happens to all the people with “secret” stamps gone mad? Nada.

What ever happened to the Fourth Amendment? Oh, that quaint document, of no importance. We will search, we will seize (your car on which one joint of marijuana was found, your computer just because we might find something incriminating on it,…) I don’t see any Democrat (even if one should over the barriers be elected) resisting this and I certainly don’t see any Republican doing it. The people seem mesmerized by “Reality TV”, Fox “News”, sports, social things like gay marriage, irrelevant to most people,… .

I am very pessimistic. Fortunately, my kids are all binational and so are their kids.

79

I find America is actually not that bad a place to live if you turn off the news and Internet message boards. It’s often difficult for me to reconcile my personal experiences traveling around the US with the hate-filled extremist bullshit you see online and in the news.

Then again, as Europeans continually point out, I don’t live in “America”, I live in “New York”.

80

Seconded.

Last week I visited Jackson, Wyoming. I walked around freely, day or night, without any fear of crime. I visited pleasant shops, met the owners, and purchased American- and foreign-made items at reasonable prices. I ate at a variety of small restaurants and stayed at a privately-owned bed and breakfast. I went rafting, saw a rodeo, and visited museums and art galleries. There are many countries where the ordinary people are not able to do these things. So overall the United States seems to be doing pretty well.

Are there worrisome trends? Sure. Increasingly stupid mass media, rising taxes and regulations, massive government and personal debt, idiotic political rhetoric from both major parties. But there are always worrisome trends, in every country, at every time. The United States has shown an ability to soldier through better than most other countries.