• Hapankaali@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I think there are two main reasons. The first is that things simply haven’t gotten bad enough. It’s true, there is a health care crisis killing tens of thousands a year, rampant human rights violations in ICE concentration camps, brazen corruption in the administration, etc. But for most of the uneducated and uninformed middle class, these things don’t directly affect their daily lives.

    The second reason is that the mass indoctrination campaign concerning American exceptionalism has been immensely successful. So while many Americans agree some things could be improved, they are unsure of what those things are because they also still believe the US is one of the best places in the world to live, even as the US has steadily tumbled down the quality-of-life rankings and now arguably ranks below the likes of Estonia and Slovenia. The belief in exceptionalism has fostered a rather meek and servile attitude towards the government.

    • FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      2 days ago

      And that’s why American exceptionalism and any other kind of national exceptionalism needs to die

      It will take a economic depression, mass unemployment, civil unrest, oil prices going to the moon, civil war, hyperinflation and mass famine to kill American exceptionalism

      • Hapankaali@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The focus on petrol prices and inflation are, to me, also curious aspects of American culture.

        For one, one of the major problems in the US economy is that petrol prices are too low. In general, to optimize productivity one should aim to subsidize those activities that generate positive externalities, and tax those that generate negative externalities. The use of fossil fuels - a heavily polluting activity - should then be adequately taxed. No top-tier economy has petrol prices as low as in the US, they are closer to 10 USD a gallon (in freedom units). The undertaxation of fossil fuels has also led to greater sensitivity to price fluctuations on the global markets.

        Inflation is a curious fixation since the US, unlike many other countries, never experienced hyperinflation. So why the obsession? I suspect one factor might be that the US has few collective wage negotiations, whereas here inflation is more or less automatically priced into wages. What then happens is that workers who stay in their job have their wages steadily eroded (i.e., their employer simply pays them a lower real wage over time), but then if they switch jobs, they attribute the wage increase to their career advancement rather than inflation, which increases the price of labour just as it does the price of goods (if due to money losing value).

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      2 days ago

      theres also enough wage-wise to not protest, plus still food for even the poorest, and social programs, aka welfare. pay even working a min wage is better than most places in the world.

      • Hapankaali@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Okay, “most” of the world, sure, but that is not a very high bar. Yes, Americans are much better off than people in the Central African Republic, Myanmar or Venezuela.

        You prove my point. In fact, US people working a minimum wage job have a much lower net income (including transfers) than those living on the lowest possible unemployment benefits in top-tier economies, who by the way also have access to adequate health care, top-tier education (without bullshit class-based admission procedures or segregation), much better public transport, etc.

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        2 days ago

        its a double edged sword. they went to hard and killed 2 citizens(white people) people in jan and feb, the MSM had since had to stop reporting on ice activity to stop the inciting of more protests, and it worked, thats why the conservative bumpkins think its not happening enough.