“Bad” is first and foremost a matter of perspective and comparison. The United States is a a highly developed democracy (for now at least) and as such, it makes sense to compare it to the short list of other highly developed democracies on this planet (Canada, most of Europe, Israel, Oceania, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan). In the age of the Internet, this is easier than ever before, including - which can be especially devastating to many Americans - hearing first-hand accounts from what life is like in those other highly developed democracies, most of which do not share the same problems or at least not at the same level of severity as the US.
When you do that, issues become apparent. Inequality, healthcare (by far the most egregious), civil rights, violence (both violent crime and police violence), freedom of the press, judiciary, the general state of democratic institutions, the election system and the results it’s producing, etc.
From a European perspective, the US changed from a country that was admired and emulated to a cautionary tale. To me personally, this happened after what was arguably the high point of its existence, the 1990s, the “end of history”, when the Cold War was won, standards of living were improving rapidly across all of the developed world and America seemed invincible and still very much worth copying. Bush changed all of that, with his ignorance, his unjust war against Iraq, his erosion of civil liberties. Columbine just shortly before was perhaps another sign that something was amiss, that there were deeper issues below the shiny surface.
But once again, that’s from the perspective of someone living and growing up in another highly developed nation, which combined only make up a small fraction of the world’s population. The US should be compared to those and judged by the same standards, but most members of our species are living very different lives, under very different and worse conditions and are thus looking at this country from a very different point of view: They are experiencing far more poverty and inequality, violence and corruption, far worse media landscape, far less robust democratic institutions, are at a far greater risk of dying early due to events and powers outside of their own control. Yet they now have even easier access to media, both flattering and not, that shows them that there is this huge country of opportunity, where even a simple clearly exploited farm worker or household help can and does make more money than a doctor where they are coming from. Standards of living are higher for Americans, even during a crisis, than in much of the rest of the world. The gap may not be as massive and universal as it was a few decades ago, but it’s still there and won’t disappear for a long time. Given that much of the developing world will be far more affected by climate change in the coming decades (and yes, I’m writing this as wildfires are still devastating LA - being less affected doesn’t mean this man-made catastrophe won’t hurt us in the developing world as well), it’ll only increase.
This reminds me a little of how Soviet cinemas used to show “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940) in their state-run cinemas in 1948 in order to demonstrate just how bad America was - except that Soviet citizens saw that even the poorest Americans had cars, which were completely unobtainable to them at the time. The film was quickly pulled from cinemas.
It is important to mention that for all of its problems, both relative and absolute, the United States are still a leading nation in many ways, being the global center for science of innovation, popular culture and independent art, which alone allows them to pull in the most talented people from all over the world. It’s not only attractive to immigrants from poor countries, but also the best and brightest from everywhere, who can, with a bit of luck, make careers there that would be impossible anywhere else on Earth.
They are also the only superpower on this planet, have more soft (diplomatic, cultural) and hard (military) power than any other nation and by a massive gap that nobody will be able to come close to this century, if ever. Russia is a global pariah that is struggling to defeat a much smaller, poorer and weaker nation directly at its border and China has a far longer list of problems than the US, currently engaged in several genocides, is squandering its soft power with an arrogant, aggressive foreign policy that makes Trump look like a skilled diplomat and is hell-bent on repeating Russia’s recent mistakes in Taiwan. America’s military dominance is unpopular for a number of reasons globally, especially since Bush Jr. abused it and with Trump’s recent remarks about Canada, Panama and Greenland, it creates worries everywhere, but one thing many critics are either knowingly or unknowingly ignoring is that it has also resulted in previously unprecedented levels of global stability and peace. There are so many conflicts around the globe that were limited or prevented entirely from escalating into full-on wars only by the simple act of sending a carrier group close to the right shore line - and sometimes even by just a sternly worded letter. The ability to wage three full-on wars anywhere on this planet against any other nation at the same time while still having more conventional firepower in reserve than anyone else is unique to the US - and it’s the only thing that ensures the freedom of nations like Taiwan. And no, America could easily afford both having both the best military and best health care system in the world - their current health care system just is bloated and inefficient, with corrupt insurers being responsible for most of the cost.
This should answer the first part of the question.
I won’t go into as much detail to answer the second part, because this comment is already long enough, but the gist of it is that it’s very difficult to produce change in a system that is designed to be deliberately slow-changing, which can be discouraging. This was done to protect it from demagogues like Trump and it has to some degree worked, except that the “bad guys” like Republicans and foreign actors that support them can of course engage in the same slow grinding away at institutions that well-meaning activists are engaging in, which has resulted in the “two Americas” we have now, firmly democratically-governed states and cities vs. Republican ones, which are drifting apart further and further in terms of economic success, standard of living, human rights, etc. Faster and radical change has been attempted to various degrees of success. The Suffragettes, Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s are an example of significant change for the better happening comparatively swiftly, whereas the Occupy Wall Streets protests that occurred more recently are an example of a complete failure in every way.
I think the most difficult thing to accept for most Americans is that for all of their individuality, for all of their emphasis on being responsible for their own success and failures, the overwhelming majority of them are each mere single droplets in a current that will take them with them wherever it’ll go, no matter what the individual is doing and thinking. There is nobody actually in control of this thing, not even their leaders. This isn’t very different from the equally vast majority of other human beings now and throughout history, but it can be a very uncomfortable thought. There are just too many variables to this equation. This doesn’t mean that equally determined and capable individuals can’t produce a massive amount of change, but this is a once in a generation kind of thing. If you’re not fine with being a small cog in a very large machine - and many people are not - then you’ll be quickly discouraged, since even the most engaged activists are usually nothing more than that, which leads to high levels of attrition among such activists. Add to that the fact that it’s costly (you have to take time off work, which is difficult if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, like many Americans), risky and uncomfortable to engage in political activism and it’s not really that surprising that there are perhaps not enough US citizens trying to defend and improve their country from the many issues that are primarily threatening it from within - with foreign actors like Russia, Iran and China having to do little more than fan the flames.
Who knows what will happen. Maybe Trump will screw up so badly that it’ll birth a powerful new movement akin to Martin Luther King’s that fundamentally changes the country - but given that American voters absolved him from killing more than one million of their own, I have my doubts.
Reagan was widely considered the beging of the downturn for the US. Bush just continued this policies plus waged war. It has been downward trajectory ever since
Trump is in the position he is in because he was able to put his cronies in the Supreme Court. Normally changes come slow, but he will be able to speed thing up significantly thanks to the sweeping powers they granted him and the fact they are super loyal to him (see Project 2025). The descent into fascism will come at us fast
There is also not a single homogenous US culture. States vary widely, and the US is also kinda odd in that states also have a certain amount of political autonomy. More left states are pushing to enshrine rights, while more right states are removing them. We are going to see more people that have enough money start moving to more left states. Right leaning states are going to continue to move more and more rightwards thanks to dissenting voices leaving. I feel heart broken for the folks that can’t get out of those places
The thing about Reagan is that he’s not unpopular in Europe at all, since he’s considered a major factor in bringing down the Iron Curtain and ending Soviet rule over half of the continent. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a German TV documentary on the end of the Cold War (and there are many) that didn’t feature either the Hoff or Reagan’s famous “Mr. Gorbachev, bring down this wall!”, which is almost as popular in Germany as Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Easy for us Europeans to look at Reagan that way, because we weren’t negatively impacted by his social and economic policies, at least not directly. I don’t disagree with your assessment that he caused a great deal of damage that was only increased by Bush Jr., but Clinton with his extensive policy of deregulation is hardly blameless either and is perhaps even more responsible for the current state of the US, in large part due to laying the groundwork for the current media oligopoly. I was however not conscious of this at the time and neither were many other people in Europe even years later - Clinton remained popular enough here post presidency that his 2004 autobiography became a major best seller across the pond, although it’s perhaps less surprising given the contrast to his successor.
The descent into fascism will come at us fast […] and the US is also kinda odd in that states also have a certain amount of political autonomy
I put these two quotes from your comment together, because I think that the federal structure of the US might end up preventing this from happening. If I were French, I would agree with you that federalism is odd (France is highly centralized, both politically and economically), but as a German, I’m aware of just how deliberately this style of government was chosen by the Western Allies for post-war West-Germany, because it makes it considerably more difficult for the federal government to take complete control over the country. It’s also worth stressing that German states are still far less powerful and less independent than American states (there’s no equivalent to the national guard, for example, and legislative powers are also far more limited beyond education) despite being literally conceived to prevent a Fascist government from taking over. The states might be the final line of defense of the American democracy (very much unlike the fourth estate, which is falling in line faster than you can say “Democracy dies in the darkness”).
You are right that the Republican-controlled Supreme Court is one of Trump’s most important assets, but one aspect worth considering about it is that it’s still in service of the Republican party, not Trump directly. For as long as the interests of this party and Trump align, they are on “his” side (and he has been rather shockingly effective at turning the so-called GOP into his personal cult), but if there was e.g. a chasm within it party (e.g. due to an unpopular purge started by Trump, perhaps as part of a blame game after he seriously mucks something up), it could result in some of the Conservative justices to abandon him and vote against him. Yes, this is far-fetched, but you have to consider that they are thinking far more long-term than he’ll ever live - and that Trump has no friends after all and no true allies. Every single person and organization aligning themselves with him is doing it solely out of opportunism, because there certainly is no vision, no ideology and no policy other than his personal brand. The moment there’s a falling out, which are more or less guaranteed to happen with anyone but his closest family members, it’s getting ugly - and Trump is terrible at keeping “talent”, increasingly surrounding himself with useless suck ups, which have no ability to survive for very long in the brutal political battle royale that is Washington DC.
It’s also worth stressing that German states are still far less powerful and less independent than American states (there’s no equivalent to the national guard, for example, and legislative powers are also far more limited beyond education) despite being literally conceived to prevent a Fascist government from taking over.
The National Guard is a major threat to US stability right now, because it has no legal hurdles to overcome in being deployed internally, and the Federal government can call up any state’s units for federal use, even overriding the state governors. Trump has already floated using NG units to assist ICE in deportations in Blue states.
This is also not hypothetical. In 2020 Trump used Natl. guard troops against the wishes of the DC city government, from another state, for policing actions, which is supposed to violate the Posse Commitatus Act, but did an end-run around this by saying they weren’t really federalized. Legal scholars have been objecting ever since, but that’s the precedent now. The author tries to pretend otherwise by rationalizing DC as an unusual edge cases, but the DC government specifically opposed the NG deployment, and was ignored, and now the president is legally immune for any “presidential acts” for term 2.
tl;dr the National Guard has created a legal gray area where the President can order troops into unwilling states, including for policing actions that were supposed to be explicitly prohibited, and maybe not violate the Constitution. Since it’s not 100% clear-cut, no Blue state is going to risk deploying their NG forces or LEOs against them, since it could (literally) be ruled as treason, especially with our SCOTUS.
I don’t know German law around deploying the military internally, but from a cursory glance online it appears to require parliamentary approval and be highly restricted in it’s activities, and never seems to allow for simple policing actions. US Natl. Guard bypasses congress entirely in its current incarnation, and appears unlikely to be restricted by the courts.
I want to start by saying I was just trying to add some context, and did not fundamentally disagree with your original statement, and don’t necessarily disagree with this one either, it is just missing some context.
Clinton with his extensive policy of deregulation is hardly blameless either and is perhaps even more responsible for the current state of the US, in large part due to laying the groundwork for the current media oligopoly
Oh for sure Clinton carries a lot of that responsibility too. Every president since Reagan does. The shift has been going ever rightward since his presidency. I was not alive for Reagan and missed a lot of Bush Sr. (Bush Jr. was the first election I could vote in), but in the US Reagan is a bit of an infamous person, so just wanted to add that context.
I think that the federal structure of the US might end up preventing this from happening
See, I think the opposite will happen. Left leaning states are going to start bumping up against Federal regulations, and the Supreme court is the arbiter of those disputes. It is going to cause mass conflict and division among the states, further solidifying the left/right divide and Trump’s cult of personality.
it is that it’s still in service of the Republican party, not Trump directly. For as long as the interests of this party and Trump align, they are on “his” side
speaking of his cult, Trump has his incredibly violent and loyal followers to fall back on. Most of the right wing militias in the US follow Trump, no questions asked. They have already shown they will literally commit treason in his name, and Trump has shown that he is not afraid to use them. That alone will probably keep the right from falling too far out of line.
Ultimately I know the right is thinking beyond Trump, but the issue is they also want fascism long term.
The us navy patrolling the entire ocean and preventing war or bandits from affecting trade is the highest function of the US military. It’s such a massive difference historically.
It’s complicated.
“Bad” is first and foremost a matter of perspective and comparison. The United States is a a highly developed democracy (for now at least) and as such, it makes sense to compare it to the short list of other highly developed democracies on this planet (Canada, most of Europe, Israel, Oceania, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan). In the age of the Internet, this is easier than ever before, including - which can be especially devastating to many Americans - hearing first-hand accounts from what life is like in those other highly developed democracies, most of which do not share the same problems or at least not at the same level of severity as the US.
When you do that, issues become apparent. Inequality, healthcare (by far the most egregious), civil rights, violence (both violent crime and police violence), freedom of the press, judiciary, the general state of democratic institutions, the election system and the results it’s producing, etc.
From a European perspective, the US changed from a country that was admired and emulated to a cautionary tale. To me personally, this happened after what was arguably the high point of its existence, the 1990s, the “end of history”, when the Cold War was won, standards of living were improving rapidly across all of the developed world and America seemed invincible and still very much worth copying. Bush changed all of that, with his ignorance, his unjust war against Iraq, his erosion of civil liberties. Columbine just shortly before was perhaps another sign that something was amiss, that there were deeper issues below the shiny surface.
But once again, that’s from the perspective of someone living and growing up in another highly developed nation, which combined only make up a small fraction of the world’s population. The US should be compared to those and judged by the same standards, but most members of our species are living very different lives, under very different and worse conditions and are thus looking at this country from a very different point of view: They are experiencing far more poverty and inequality, violence and corruption, far worse media landscape, far less robust democratic institutions, are at a far greater risk of dying early due to events and powers outside of their own control. Yet they now have even easier access to media, both flattering and not, that shows them that there is this huge country of opportunity, where even a simple clearly exploited farm worker or household help can and does make more money than a doctor where they are coming from. Standards of living are higher for Americans, even during a crisis, than in much of the rest of the world. The gap may not be as massive and universal as it was a few decades ago, but it’s still there and won’t disappear for a long time. Given that much of the developing world will be far more affected by climate change in the coming decades (and yes, I’m writing this as wildfires are still devastating LA - being less affected doesn’t mean this man-made catastrophe won’t hurt us in the developing world as well), it’ll only increase.
This reminds me a little of how Soviet cinemas used to show “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940) in their state-run cinemas in 1948 in order to demonstrate just how bad America was - except that Soviet citizens saw that even the poorest Americans had cars, which were completely unobtainable to them at the time. The film was quickly pulled from cinemas.
It is important to mention that for all of its problems, both relative and absolute, the United States are still a leading nation in many ways, being the global center for science of innovation, popular culture and independent art, which alone allows them to pull in the most talented people from all over the world. It’s not only attractive to immigrants from poor countries, but also the best and brightest from everywhere, who can, with a bit of luck, make careers there that would be impossible anywhere else on Earth.
They are also the only superpower on this planet, have more soft (diplomatic, cultural) and hard (military) power than any other nation and by a massive gap that nobody will be able to come close to this century, if ever. Russia is a global pariah that is struggling to defeat a much smaller, poorer and weaker nation directly at its border and China has a far longer list of problems than the US, currently engaged in several genocides, is squandering its soft power with an arrogant, aggressive foreign policy that makes Trump look like a skilled diplomat and is hell-bent on repeating Russia’s recent mistakes in Taiwan. America’s military dominance is unpopular for a number of reasons globally, especially since Bush Jr. abused it and with Trump’s recent remarks about Canada, Panama and Greenland, it creates worries everywhere, but one thing many critics are either knowingly or unknowingly ignoring is that it has also resulted in previously unprecedented levels of global stability and peace. There are so many conflicts around the globe that were limited or prevented entirely from escalating into full-on wars only by the simple act of sending a carrier group close to the right shore line - and sometimes even by just a sternly worded letter. The ability to wage three full-on wars anywhere on this planet against any other nation at the same time while still having more conventional firepower in reserve than anyone else is unique to the US - and it’s the only thing that ensures the freedom of nations like Taiwan. And no, America could easily afford both having both the best military and best health care system in the world - their current health care system just is bloated and inefficient, with corrupt insurers being responsible for most of the cost.
This should answer the first part of the question.
I won’t go into as much detail to answer the second part, because this comment is already long enough, but the gist of it is that it’s very difficult to produce change in a system that is designed to be deliberately slow-changing, which can be discouraging. This was done to protect it from demagogues like Trump and it has to some degree worked, except that the “bad guys” like Republicans and foreign actors that support them can of course engage in the same slow grinding away at institutions that well-meaning activists are engaging in, which has resulted in the “two Americas” we have now, firmly democratically-governed states and cities vs. Republican ones, which are drifting apart further and further in terms of economic success, standard of living, human rights, etc. Faster and radical change has been attempted to various degrees of success. The Suffragettes, Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s are an example of significant change for the better happening comparatively swiftly, whereas the Occupy Wall Streets protests that occurred more recently are an example of a complete failure in every way.
I think the most difficult thing to accept for most Americans is that for all of their individuality, for all of their emphasis on being responsible for their own success and failures, the overwhelming majority of them are each mere single droplets in a current that will take them with them wherever it’ll go, no matter what the individual is doing and thinking. There is nobody actually in control of this thing, not even their leaders. This isn’t very different from the equally vast majority of other human beings now and throughout history, but it can be a very uncomfortable thought. There are just too many variables to this equation. This doesn’t mean that equally determined and capable individuals can’t produce a massive amount of change, but this is a once in a generation kind of thing. If you’re not fine with being a small cog in a very large machine - and many people are not - then you’ll be quickly discouraged, since even the most engaged activists are usually nothing more than that, which leads to high levels of attrition among such activists. Add to that the fact that it’s costly (you have to take time off work, which is difficult if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, like many Americans), risky and uncomfortable to engage in political activism and it’s not really that surprising that there are perhaps not enough US citizens trying to defend and improve their country from the many issues that are primarily threatening it from within - with foreign actors like Russia, Iran and China having to do little more than fan the flames.
Who knows what will happen. Maybe Trump will screw up so badly that it’ll birth a powerful new movement akin to Martin Luther King’s that fundamentally changes the country - but given that American voters absolved him from killing more than one million of their own, I have my doubts.
A few things to add:
Reagan was widely considered the beging of the downturn for the US. Bush just continued this policies plus waged war. It has been downward trajectory ever since
Trump is in the position he is in because he was able to put his cronies in the Supreme Court. Normally changes come slow, but he will be able to speed thing up significantly thanks to the sweeping powers they granted him and the fact they are super loyal to him (see Project 2025). The descent into fascism will come at us fast
There is also not a single homogenous US culture. States vary widely, and the US is also kinda odd in that states also have a certain amount of political autonomy. More left states are pushing to enshrine rights, while more right states are removing them. We are going to see more people that have enough money start moving to more left states. Right leaning states are going to continue to move more and more rightwards thanks to dissenting voices leaving. I feel heart broken for the folks that can’t get out of those places
The thing about Reagan is that he’s not unpopular in Europe at all, since he’s considered a major factor in bringing down the Iron Curtain and ending Soviet rule over half of the continent. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a German TV documentary on the end of the Cold War (and there are many) that didn’t feature either the Hoff or Reagan’s famous “Mr. Gorbachev, bring down this wall!”, which is almost as popular in Germany as Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Easy for us Europeans to look at Reagan that way, because we weren’t negatively impacted by his social and economic policies, at least not directly. I don’t disagree with your assessment that he caused a great deal of damage that was only increased by Bush Jr., but Clinton with his extensive policy of deregulation is hardly blameless either and is perhaps even more responsible for the current state of the US, in large part due to laying the groundwork for the current media oligopoly. I was however not conscious of this at the time and neither were many other people in Europe even years later - Clinton remained popular enough here post presidency that his 2004 autobiography became a major best seller across the pond, although it’s perhaps less surprising given the contrast to his successor.
I put these two quotes from your comment together, because I think that the federal structure of the US might end up preventing this from happening. If I were French, I would agree with you that federalism is odd (France is highly centralized, both politically and economically), but as a German, I’m aware of just how deliberately this style of government was chosen by the Western Allies for post-war West-Germany, because it makes it considerably more difficult for the federal government to take complete control over the country. It’s also worth stressing that German states are still far less powerful and less independent than American states (there’s no equivalent to the national guard, for example, and legislative powers are also far more limited beyond education) despite being literally conceived to prevent a Fascist government from taking over. The states might be the final line of defense of the American democracy (very much unlike the fourth estate, which is falling in line faster than you can say “Democracy dies in the darkness”).
You are right that the Republican-controlled Supreme Court is one of Trump’s most important assets, but one aspect worth considering about it is that it’s still in service of the Republican party, not Trump directly. For as long as the interests of this party and Trump align, they are on “his” side (and he has been rather shockingly effective at turning the so-called GOP into his personal cult), but if there was e.g. a chasm within it party (e.g. due to an unpopular purge started by Trump, perhaps as part of a blame game after he seriously mucks something up), it could result in some of the Conservative justices to abandon him and vote against him. Yes, this is far-fetched, but you have to consider that they are thinking far more long-term than he’ll ever live - and that Trump has no friends after all and no true allies. Every single person and organization aligning themselves with him is doing it solely out of opportunism, because there certainly is no vision, no ideology and no policy other than his personal brand. The moment there’s a falling out, which are more or less guaranteed to happen with anyone but his closest family members, it’s getting ugly - and Trump is terrible at keeping “talent”, increasingly surrounding himself with useless suck ups, which have no ability to survive for very long in the brutal political battle royale that is Washington DC.
The National Guard is a major threat to US stability right now, because it has no legal hurdles to overcome in being deployed internally, and the Federal government can call up any state’s units for federal use, even overriding the state governors. Trump has already floated using NG units to assist ICE in deportations in Blue states.
This is also not hypothetical. In 2020 Trump used Natl. guard troops against the wishes of the DC city government, from another state, for policing actions, which is supposed to violate the Posse Commitatus Act, but did an end-run around this by saying they weren’t really federalized. Legal scholars have been objecting ever since, but that’s the precedent now. The author tries to pretend otherwise by rationalizing DC as an unusual edge cases, but the DC government specifically opposed the NG deployment, and was ignored, and now the president is legally immune for any “presidential acts” for term 2.
tl;dr the National Guard has created a legal gray area where the President can order troops into unwilling states, including for policing actions that were supposed to be explicitly prohibited, and maybe not violate the Constitution. Since it’s not 100% clear-cut, no Blue state is going to risk deploying their NG forces or LEOs against them, since it could (literally) be ruled as treason, especially with our SCOTUS.
I don’t know German law around deploying the military internally, but from a cursory glance online it appears to require parliamentary approval and be highly restricted in it’s activities, and never seems to allow for simple policing actions. US Natl. Guard bypasses congress entirely in its current incarnation, and appears unlikely to be restricted by the courts.
I want to start by saying I was just trying to add some context, and did not fundamentally disagree with your original statement, and don’t necessarily disagree with this one either, it is just missing some context.
Oh for sure Clinton carries a lot of that responsibility too. Every president since Reagan does. The shift has been going ever rightward since his presidency. I was not alive for Reagan and missed a lot of Bush Sr. (Bush Jr. was the first election I could vote in), but in the US Reagan is a bit of an infamous person, so just wanted to add that context.
See, I think the opposite will happen. Left leaning states are going to start bumping up against Federal regulations, and the Supreme court is the arbiter of those disputes. It is going to cause mass conflict and division among the states, further solidifying the left/right divide and Trump’s cult of personality.
speaking of his cult, Trump has his incredibly violent and loyal followers to fall back on. Most of the right wing militias in the US follow Trump, no questions asked. They have already shown they will literally commit treason in his name, and Trump has shown that he is not afraid to use them. That alone will probably keep the right from falling too far out of line.
Ultimately I know the right is thinking beyond Trump, but the issue is they also want fascism long term.
The us navy patrolling the entire ocean and preventing war or bandits from affecting trade is the highest function of the US military. It’s such a massive difference historically.
This is an excellent detailed (and in my opinion accurate) answer. Thank you!