Hi, American here. I just wanted to take this time to say sorry about…you know…everything.
Our country is not ok right now. We’re going through some shit. And I look at other countries and hope they don’t think that all of us support this nonsense.
It’s bad enough that I don’t even have to specify WHAT has gone wrong. I have to appologize for our current general existence.
I can’t even say this isn’t who we are either. Right now our biggest issues are racism, dumb fucks, and lack of empathy towards others.
…yeah, that just sounds like historically accurate America. We’ve always been this way. It’s just especially bad right now.
So to the rest of the world, sorry about our existence.
If I can give one advice to Americans, and everyone honestly, it’s to make sure you show empathy to everyone, including the racists or mysoginists or transphobes. Don’t agree with them. Don’t encourage them. Don’t hesitate to stop them if they are immediately harming someone. But show some empathy. There usually is a reason they are the way they are.
While there isn’t one single reason why things got so bad, I strongly believe the trend of completely rejecting anything but perfect “political correctness” and ostracizing the people is what contributed significantly.
When people get ostracized for not being progressive enough on the left and the far right will welcome them with open arms, many people will come where they are welcome, making things much worse.
Yes, there are exceptions, no one should be empathizing with Trump or ICE agents or KKK members. But keep the exceptions rare.
German opposition in 1930s Germany: “Remember to show empathy. These nazis are the way they are for a reason, don’t ostracise them for political correctness reasons”.
Yes. The Nazis were mostly elected not by extreme racists, but by people concerned with the economy. Concerns that the other parties failed to empathize with and address. Sounds familiar?
You don’t have to agree with them to empathize. But if you ignore their concerns enirely, they will turn elsewhere.
I think there’s a good portion of Christians who voted for Trump simply because Kamala Harris told a guy that he was at the wrong rally for saying “Christ is King”. Someone from the USA told me they’d rather vote for someone pretending to be a Christian than someone who was disparaging one. Sometimes it is simple, surface level things like that.
Lotta angry people not recognizing how much correct shit is in this.
I think I became a slight bit more right wing because my “friends” ostracised me due to my religious beliefs years ago. Rip.