Because it collectively is our fault.

in my own case, it’s that I’ve (not intentionally but still) benefited from a system that subjugated others (natives, people of all colors, and women) to secure the national infrastructure I’ve directly profited from. Everything from education, clean water and housing, to medical care often shockingly focused on what ails and heals white males. And the sickening knowledge that the same ones who want to deport taxpaying workers who rarely benefit from the enormous amounts of money our country throws around are the same as me, living on land stolen from the people who lived here, who we basically exterminated. Finally, we use the trappings of a pseudo-democracy to declare all men are equal, but really, they mean wealthy heteronormative white men, because otherwise you’re the other and disenfranchisement should be expected.

That’s-just-the-way-it-is? only if you accept it.

Part of the social contract in America (at least… this is what I believed growing up here) is that we all kinda share in this thing we all have going. Like, let’s say we get into a war. The government can (and does) ask citizens to join the military and fight and the reason that works is because we all kinda implicitly signed off on it. Yeah, sure, you had nothing to do with the country getting into a war. But because you participated in government, in the system, because we run this thing (nominally) by the standard of democracy and consent of the governed, everyone owns at least a small part of the responsibility for the country’s actions. In the case of a war, that might look like joining the military and “doing your part”. More commonly it looks like paying your taxes and still “respecting” the government, even if it’s not the one you voted for.

Now, like I said, that’s more than anything what I felt when I was a kid. Speaking personally, I’m in a very different headspace now as it relates to governance. I also feel like generally speaking all that’s shifting, though I’ve very little to back that up save… gestures at the past couple of decades of American politics.

More to your question however, I think that the kind of social contract I laid out above kinda explains some of what you’ve asked. Even if you want to say it’s purely performative, that’s fine. But the fact that Americans are “asked” about how they should be governed implicitly puts the idea in our heads that we’re responsible for what our country is doing. It’s not just “some dottering old idiot at the top of the org chart decided this thing”, it’s we. America is doing this thing. Even if the truth really is that some dottering old fool made a decision out of personal ambition or greed. We get it drilled into our heads from a very young age that this is our government. And no matter how much you try to distance yourself from that… it still irks you, somewhere in the back of your head.

Maybe, at some point before I was born, that was expressed as a point of pride. I could see some folks being proud of what America was or what it stood for, once upon a time. Now though? I find it hard to believe that that mindset could find any other expression but shame. And weirdly, I believe that’s true regardless of what your politics are. Different reasons are at play there depending on what your politics are, of course. But lately it feels like everyone’s got some grievance against the government. Some reason to feel ashamed about what “our” government, what “we” are doing. Whatever that thing is for you, you don’t want it being done in your name. But the central trick of American “democracy” is that you don’t get to just walk away. Whatever is being done is being done “in your name” whether you want it or not. And it’s been that way since before you were born.

A tangentially related correlate here is that I feel like a lot of Americans don’t feel represented by their government anymore. I certainly don’t feel that way, and I haven’t since Obama was president. That was roughly back when I was young enough to uncritically believe some of the views I’ve expressed here. Things have changed a little bit. Anyways, the reason I bring this up is because part of what I think is going on is that the social contract is breaking down along the lines of nobody feeling like the government they have is actually representing their interests. Maybe, if this goes on for long enough, the social contract will change into something different entirely. Maybe this “shame” we all seem to feel will turn American society into something different than what it currently is, if it’s given the time to do so. But, I can’t really read the tea leaves on that one. All I know is things just can’t keep going the way their going. Something’s gonna break eventually.

If you are from China then yes, the CCP is partially your fault.

Americans are embarrassed for how America turned out, because they know they are supposed to have influence over their government.

It’s not shame so much as deep embarrassment for the current state of our country. We look like fucking morons on the world stage. Thankfully we will move on from this stage in our history, but the stain may remain for decades to come.

You don’t have to be at fault to be ashamed.

I feel deeply embarrassed about being from the US. It’s like hanging out with a group of friends out of necessity, later realizing they were all assholes, and trying to come to terms with the fact you spent so many years with them. I live outside the US now and I’m even more embarrassed to be from there. Every time there’s some culture shock my takeaway is either “wow how did I normalize this broken aspect of the US” or “I wish I was from somewhere that didn’t do those things to that person’s country”.

I also feel embarrassed and guilty over getting out of the US. I worked in tech and now I’m living off tech savings to start a life outside the US. I left my friends behind many of them are struggling financially, I left my community behind many of which are actively homeless, I chose to leave. Sure I’m leaving in part because my trans ass is on the chopping block but I see a lot of trans people fight harder instead of flee. I fought for so many years though and I couldn’t keep doing it so I left. The US did this to my community, made me confront choices I never wanted to make, I’m disgusted by having paid taxes to the war machine, and I justify working in tech as a way out of there but really I feel guilty over choosing to buy into that side of the US too so I could secure personal safety.

I grew up in Indonesia, my sister is from Java, my brother is from Singapore. I’m natively from California, and I’m a huge white boy. I am ashamed that the country of the free, the country of the brave who had bounteous arms to welcome the downtrodden and abused of the world is no longer that place. Instead it’s the land of the secret police, tbe land of a pedophile traitor president who can’t stand any kind of criticism because he’s a fucking coward who dodged military service.

China has been China-ing for a while, we get it. America’s actions are relatively fresh, and a majority of us DID choose him. While I’ll immediately reassure people that I didn’t vote for him, the fact that I have to separate myself from what’s going on comes from a sense of shame over that.

That said, if I met a Russian I wouldn’t necessarily hold the invasion of Ukraine against them… But I might have to ask if they really support that shit.

We were raised with “pride,” not necessarily racially or ethnocentric, but a broader sense that transcended such boundaries. I grew up in the 80s-90s in the midwest, and we were taught America was a “melting pot” of cultures, ideas, and races, and that we should look forward to a time when whites are not the majority because the lines will fall away, the average color will be brown as we all mix over the next generations, giving us less reason to fight. And we should look forward to it, because that’s been our story so far - broken, impoverished immigrants came here looking for opportunity, and found it through hard work and smart thinking, and then became a part of our shared tapestry. We were taught to be proud of this, that we were stewards of this tradition in the best, most advanced country in the world.

And now, well. The basest instincts of people have been brought to the surface and America now stands as an openly white nationalist, isolationist, fascist-tinged autocracy where the ideals I grew up with seem long antiquated.

So yeah hard not to feel ashamed of what’s happened to our shared identity in just a few decades.

I feel that way but because I’m human.

We are not good people.

I believe the shame stems from the moral injury we all suffer when we peacefully stand by in a democracy and let bad people control the government and inflict serious harm on innocents

So in some respect it is in fact all of our faults because we do in fact sit by and watch people die so we can respect the democratic process.

Anyone who has been embarrassed by a family member knows.

I’m just embarrassed as fuck

I don’t have pride in my government or its actions.

It was actively causing a lot of harm for most of its existence and is now turbo charging its ability to enshittify the world.

The LEAST I can do is make it clear we’re not all in support of this shit.

Love the country and people though. Lots of cool forests to roam and lots of people who don’t suck.