I don’t like being negative in my Questions of the Week, but man, sometimes things in general are just negative, and while I was a bit optimistic after Election Day last Tuesday, the craven caving of some senators to end the government shutdown has made me grumpy about the country once again. So, for today’s Question, I ask: What is the one thing that you hate the most about my country right now? Even if you aren’t American, I’m sure you can come up with something! There are so many options!
There’s a lot to hate about the country right now. Our president is a criminal who clearly ran for office the second time so he could avoid jail and has used that opportunity to enrich himself illegally, plus he’s decided that straight-up murdering “drug dealers” is fine and dandy. He’s fighting in court to deny people benefits for food, which I would say is the meanest thing he’s done except for the billon other meanest things he’s ever done. The Speaker of the House is a coward, trying to get so far up the president’s butt that he can see out of his belly button, the White House press secretary lies whenever she opens her mouth (I mean, she’s just following the lead of her boss, but still), the economy is kind of in shambles, the president is clearly unwell, some Democrats are still thinking they can work with the Republicans in good faith even though the Republicans have proven over and over again that their faith is not good and last week proved that standing up to the president and his minions will get you elected, and here in the Great Basin, Scottsdale wants to put up a memorial for some random podcaster who was murdered while he was extolling violence against people he didn’t like. It’s a real shitshow, I tells ya!
For me, the thing I hate most currently about the U.S. is that the Tangerine Tyrant has made it ok to be a bully again. When I was growing up, bullying was still a thing and it still wasn’t taken all that seriously by the school authorities — obviously, if someone beat someone smaller up, they’d get in trouble, but there wasn’t much of a campaign to stop it before it got to that. It started to change in the 1990s, and by this century, we had kind of all come around to the idea that bullying was wrong and that we should punish school bullies a bit more and that maybe it would be better if we were nicer to people who weren’t exactly like us. It was a slow road and it wasn’t perfect, but the political correctness movement in the 1990s — which people hated, of course — helped make people aware that maybe using slurs to describe black people or women or homosexuals or, you know, anyone who wasn’t white, straight, and male might not be the best policy. Again, it wasn’t perfect, but the people who wanted to use those kinds of words and act like bullies were starting to realize that they were getting called out for it and paying some consequences for their actions. In other words, some progress was being made.
Then came Babyman Fascist into our political lives. Ever since he started running for president (which he’s essentially been doing for a decade, even while he’s president), the Great Orange Bloated One has bullied everyone he can think of. He’s insulted people left and right, and while decent human beings were appalled by it, all those bullies who had been suppressing their bullying instincts saw in him a savior, a messiah of bullying, someone who would lead them back to the promised land where they could use slurs all the time and get rewarded for it. I still can’t believe that his mockery of a disabled reporter while on the campaign trail (which he did in late November 2015, so almost exactly a decade ago) didn’t end his candidacy, but I underestimated the deep racist, sexist, and ableist strain in the ‘Murican douchebro DNA. If that didn’t kill him, nothing would, and maybe if he hadn’t won, it would have gone away, but he did win, and it’s been open season on anyone who doesn’t fit into the extremely narrow definition of “‘Murican” for those people ever since. Everything that the ADHD Asshole-King does stems from his desire to bully and to be worshipped by those who love bullying, and he’s enabled his Nazi-adjacent minions to do the same, because ultimately, there are no consequences. Sure, polite society might try to shame them, but no one feels shame anymore, so that doesn’t work, and if anyone is prosecuted for bullying crimes, they’ll get pardoned anyway. And so the world burns.
So that’s my answer. As the father of a special needs kid, I get depressed remembering that the Foolish Fuhrer could do something like that on camera and still get elected, because I know people who voted for him who don’t appear wildly evil, but I don’t know how they can justify their vote after that. I hate that we’ve become a crueler country in the past decade. It has permeated so much of what is happening, and I very much hope the tide will turn back. But I also know that a lot of young people are loving this license to cruelty, so who knows if it will. Sigh.
What do you hate about the States these days? Don’t be shy!
As a non-American I’d rather not use the word hate.
But I do find it disappointing how little knowledge or interest many Americans seem to have in the outside world. Thereās a strong U.S.-centric worldview that often struggles to accept that things elsewhere might be better.
Of course, my perspective is shaped by media coverage, but even when I visited in the ā90s, I found that once you left the big cities, there was a striking sense of insular ignorance.
Well, some of us country folk have some book l’arnin’.
Yeah, that’s annoying. We seem to think we’re the only country on Earth, and it’s frustrating. I get why — we’re not only big, but Canada doesn’t do much and Mexicans speak a weirdo language, so we’re not only big but a bit isolated — but that’s no excuse!!!!
I hate the fact that the country is so ruled by fear of change that it would rather claw its way back to the Dark Ages and kill itself horribly with ignorance and irrationality. I would like to know, precisely, when “America was great.” A lot of great things have come from this country, right alongside a lot of horrible things. You can’t exalt one and ignore the other and refuse to learn the lessons of those mistakes. You know the country is FUBAR when Germany teaches its children more about the Holocaust and that Afrikaaner South Africans have to speak up to dispel nonsense that they are being persecuted by majority rule. Then handing this country’s health oversight to whack-jobs who ignore science in favor of Jenny McCarthy and the “I’m a mom; I know” crowd, not to mention people who actually said maybe you could fight COVID by ingesting Lysol.
It’s all motivated by fear of the unknown.
I also have a theory that this is an outgrowth of the Vietnam War; that the humiliation and pointless death and political divisions created by that war have fueled everything since, to try to recapture a myth of American superiority and to always be a “winner.” We lost Vietnam because of compromise, so we cannot compromise, on anything, and actually govern by consensus. We “won” all the battles, but were done in by the politicians. Intellectuals and elitists caused us to lose. The post-war recession was solely caused by outsiders jacking up oil prices. Etc, etc. You have a whole generation that acted like they were cock of the walk and they got their asses handed to them by little Asian people, who wouldn’t stop until the outidiers were gone, knowing that the longer they fought the outsiders would lose the will to continue. They fought because we backed the corrupt bastards instead of supporting free elections after the French were forced out, because socialists (moreso than actual Communists) were likely to win. We have backed fascists again and again and we are living the rise of Nazi Germany. A bunch of people who lost a war because they were tired of endless death and no end in sight, whose economy collapsed because of wartime excess (and punishment for the war), who blamed “others” for their own failings in life, and trumped some fictional glorious past to which they must return. They preyed on fear of the unknown future and got themselves into power through bullying and telling scared people what they wanted to hear. Then, they stamped out all opposition and implemented genocide. We have ticked all the boxes, including a “Horst Wessel,” a despicable human being who is murdered and then transformed into a martyr for the cause. And just like Nazi Germany, industry and the church are willing to go along with things, as they destroy this country and try to take the world down with them because learning from past mistakes and building a better future, one piece at a time, is too damn hard.
I’m a bit disappointed nobody in the media ever asks these chuckleheads precisely when ‘Murica was so great and that’s when we need to get back to. When I was growing up, it seemed like the 1950s were the time. I’ve heard a lot of people now talk about the 1980s as a Golden Age … but when I was growing up, you know, in the 1980s, it seemed like these kinds of people hated it!
I read a book some 30 years ago (wish I remembered the name) that pointed out the same is true of the 1950s. Instead of the placid, stable era Reagan looked back on, conservatives saw America on the brink of collapse: women getting out of their place, blacks protesting in the streets, widespread homosexuality, communists everywhere, sex in movies, etc., etc., etc.
I hate Wilhoit’s Law, the conservative belief that “the law protect us, not you; the law controls you, not us.”
I hate that anyone can look at that whining, sniveling snowflake in the Oval Office and think he’s a big, tough guy.
I hate knowing how many people are willing to throw away their principles and go Nazi.
I hate the number of people who cling desperately to the idea of social hierarchy and can’t even conceive the prospect of equality ā obviously the only reason for opposing white or male dominance is that you want POC or women to take their place at the top of the hierarchy!
What I probably hate most is the rancid mess of misogyny in America, but I’ve hated that for a while.
Good … good … let the hate flow through you!
(At the moment i hate that due to my job I have to type this on the phone) I dislike a lot of things regarding US polĆtics are those senators that gave up and made a deal. I remember that I stopped following USA polĆtics closely when you had those two “democrat” senators that were the tie breaker votes but they always wanted “compromise” and stalled the US senate for a while(I really dont remember their names: an old dude with a boat and a lady that supposedly went “independant” ) and then I think they resigned, or something? I dont remember, but to me it looks like rhe USA is basically 75% prochange but your politicians are 95% “pro-everything-stays-the-same-but-we-will-huff-and-puff-that-we-want-change”
That part of your politicians makes me irrationally angry, so I stopped following USA politics.
As a Mexican, I hate that you have so much influence in our politics. If usa says that they are closing the border, even if they dont, that has repercussions for us for days or weels even if it is clearly a bluff. Theres only so much we can do in polĆtics before the gringo overlords get angry at us. Also I really dislike the influence your dumb fads have on us. We didnt had any antivaxxers before, but now we have a big, dumb, idiotic movement of antivaxxers. And we even have pro Trumpers here ffs! And they WANT Trump to invade us, FFS, again!
But I love you guys, you all are cool
Synema and Manchin are the names.
Which brings up something I’ve come to hate, the way so many Dems feel they have to denounce Zohran Mamdani rather than “Well, I may disagree with him but it’s an NYC election, they picked him in the primary and I support the will of the people.” Even politicians in Virginia, who have nothing to say about it.
Manchin and Synema clearly did a lot of damage to Democrats but nobody ever suggested “West Virginia needs to do better … the Democratic Party’s brand is being tarnished.” That’s how skewed the debate is in this country.
Plus, of course, there’s a default strain of Big City Is Bad so it’s okay to slam NYC in a way it wouldn’t be acceptable for a pol to slam simple, salt-of-the-earth rural folks.
Oh God Fraser, I read those names and inmediately got a little bit angry, those bastards. I could’ve lived without remembering those names.
It doesn’t help that there are politicians in here in the same position: supposed “centrists” that block things that sound useful just because “pleas think of the corporations” like reducing the work week(from 48 hours to 40) or, gasp!, passing a law that business should provide a chair for people that spend most of their shifts standing up(like waiters and cashiers). Those kinds of guys make me angry
Me too.
“Centrists” are annoying because they seem to think being in the center is by definition good, regardless of where the center happens to be. If one side wants Jim Crow segregation back and the other wants racial equality, being in the center does not make you the voice of reason.
In many cases centrism is just “I’ll choose the most moderate milquetoast position possible so nobody’ll vote against me.” Abortion rights enjoy majority support but some centrist Dem group recently argued candidates need to stop raising the subject and focus on stuff they imagine people support.
Unfortunately the media worship centrists and are always happy to promote their bullshit.
The “good” (?) news is that once Synema started moving toward the dark side, Arizona voters (ARIZONA!!!) rejected her pretty damned quickly. We’re still far too conservative for my tastes, but we’ve gotten purpler in the past few years!
I would hate being a non-‘Murican right now (almost as much as I hate being ‘Murican!), because of what you said — we have to live here, but it’s annoying that what we do has such an outsized influence on the rest of the world. You guys should just get to live your life and not worry about what idiotic crap is going on north of the border!!!!
Well, pretty much everything I have to say on the topic as an American has been covered, esp. by Jeff, Fraser and Greg (yes, that moment when he mocked the disabled reporter and wasn’t booed off stage right then and there made my heart sink into my stomach – it became apparent to me that some kind of Rubicon of public meanness had been crossed).
And as a non-US resident for many years now, I can definitely relate to what Der said about the influence the US exerts, and how everyone everywhere has this added anxiety because there is a corrupt, dimwitted, very likely clinically demented, literal criminal in the White House, and a Congress and even Supreme Court bent on catering to his every stupid and illegal whim.
Trump is a dangerous looney but the party that gave him power are the people that I fear instead of hate. They are the ones that made possible what happens now. If he becomes a dictator they’ll still support him.
What I hate are the costs of shipping to Holland. I would like to support bands and artists through Kickstarter but stuff costs double or more.
Oh, yeah. Just thought of another thing that I really hate about US political culture now: the hate-mongering against immigrants – which goes way beyond the purported ‘concern’ over ‘illegal’ immigration. The fact that the normally extremist right-wing ranting and whining about immigrants and immigration is now seeping into the mainstream is so antithetical to the America I grew up in, what with all of the talk about the melting pot. Yeah, I know much of that was self-serving propaganda, but as the child of immigrants, I still believed it, and I still believe and will until my dying day that immigrants – regardless of country of origin, regardless of how they arrive – are a net positive for the US across the board (economically, socially, culturally, you name it).
We’re deporting or refusing entry to Afghans and Iraqis who worked with us in the war. But we’re going to let the poor persecuted Afrikaners in as refugees, and possibly the oppressed German far right.
We did the same with Afghans in Holland unfortunately.
I hate that a small group of rich people hell-bent on hurting non-rich people who arenāt like them are allowed and even encouraged to make life worse for anyone they choose.
I hate that capitalism has an iron grip on peopleās lives, to the point that most Americans canāt see any other way of life. People can go lose everything because they have to get treatment for unpreventable illnesses and disorders.
I hate the jingoistic flag-waving, anyone who says āweāre a Christian nation,ā the fact that people born on a different landmass are vilified because they came to this landmass looking for a better life, and that a country of unprecedented wealth and power still has so much poverty.
I also hate how ignorant the vast majority of this country is about its own history, let alone the rest of the world. Every single person with no Native American ancestry is the child of immigrants, at some point in the past. The Europeans came here illegally. It wasn’t their land. They stole it from the natives, committing systematic genocide along the way. The Pilgrims who came to America for religious freedom were Puritans who tried to impose their will on all in the UK and were blocked by the law and the crown and left to found a colony where they could impose their will on others. They left because they couldn’t practice religious persecution. The Massachusetts Bay Colony did not have guarantees of religious freedom and openly barred Catholics and persecuted Quakers. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania had protections built into their charters, but not many of the rest.
Speaking as a veteran, I am past tired of people give empty “Thank you for your service, while the budget for the Veterans Administration is routinely under-funded or cut and services are denied to veterans who carry the physical and mental scars of this country’s wars…justified or not. I hate that a draft-dodging pampered rich boy has to be saluted by the very people he called “losers.” I hate his use of military parades as a pseudo-Viagra I hate that his Secretary of Defense is a 5th rate National Guard major who doesn’t understand that he took an oath to “Protect and Defend the Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Not the president, not the flag, not the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, not Ruper Murdochs share value, not the defense industry; The Constitution and the rule of law, which prohibits the use of military personnel in law enforcement, without emergency circumstances. I hate that neither one of them knows the first thing about “service.”
I used to live in a military/military retirement community. I was used to people swearing up and down that they’d never support Clinton because he dodged the draft and Kerry because he criticized the troops (which is a distortion of his position). Then they voted for W, the draft dodger. And for the Necrotic Toddler now in the Oval Office, regardless of his contempt for the armed forces. The hypocrisy makes me want to vomit.
There are a lot of things to hate. But what I’d say I hate most of all is that his approval rating is still right around 40%. It’s not one person, or a group of politicians or billionaires or anything like that. There is a significant, disturbing chunk of our population that is cheering this on.